---
title: Time and Value
abstract: A game for someone else.
categories:
- culture
content-tags:
- gaming
- time
external: https://safelyignored.com/a-game-for-someone-else/
---

Jason Rohrer has received a bit of [attention][] lately for _A Game for Someone_, which is interesting because it was algorithmically evolved by a focus group of AI agents. He won a GDC award, though, for his interpretation of the theme of "Humanity's Last Game". In order to deliver his creation to the future, he encased it in a time capsule and obscured the location.

[attention]: http://www.polygon.com/2013/3/28/4157884/game-designer-jason-rohrer-designs-a-game-meant-to-be-played-2000

Intentional or not, there's a dark critique of our culture in this approach. Are we to find value in being "last", or lasting, in a purely physical form? Artifacts such as games are important only insomuch as they influence us. _A Game for Someone_ is, of course, not for us. Does this still count as a game when it is unplayed, affecting nobody's life?

Maybe the real game that Jason has designed is in the obfuscation of its location. He hid the real location in a haystack of a million falsehoods. We are situated in history at the end of such chaff data's usefulness, and it seems likely deploying some algorithms or [turkers][] would uncover his capsule within his lifetime. So he's crafted a "game" never played, only physically extant and with no cultural influence, and wrapped it in a puzzle not explicitly described but perfectly suited to our culture.

[turkers]: http://www.academia.edu/319290/Who_Are_the_Turkers_Worker_Demographics_In_Amazon_Mechanical_Turk
