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Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost Quotes

Video Game Designer

Ian Bogost is a renowned video game designer born on December 30, 1976. His work is known for its deep exploration of game mechanics and player experience, spanning multiple platforms and genres.

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All Thinking Play Fun Ifs Way People World Mean Findings Pleasure

Famous Ian Bogost Quotes

“The modern world is very wealthy, it's full of options. It's not like "This is the land I was born on and I have to make the most of it, and these are the people who are near me, and so they will become my family."”

People World Born Modern Land My Family Wealthy Modern World

Author:Ian Bogost

“We have so many choices that it's only always our fault if we're malcontent.”

Ifs Choices Faults Malcontent

Author:Ian Bogost

“Our ideas of happiness, gratification, contentment, satisfaction, all demand that those feelings come from within us. If you flip that on its head and say "What if I took the world at face value?" and then ask "What can I do with what is given?" it's an interesting trick to turn around the whole problem of how you feel.”

Ifs World Feels Ideas Whole Feelings Problem Faces Values Turns Asks Given Interesting Demand Satisfaction Tricks Contentment What If Gratification Flip How You Feel Face Value

Author:Ian Bogost

“I think the most important way to understand play is that it's this property that's in things. Like there's play in a mechanism. For example, there's some play in the steering column before it engages as you're turning the wheel.”

Thinking Way Important Play Example Property Wheels Mechanism Columns Steering

Author:Ian Bogost

“Play is this process of operating the world, of manipulating things. It's related to experimentation, and it's related to pleasure, but not defined by it.”

World Play Process Pleasure Defined Related Experimentation

Author:Ian Bogost

“Normally we think of play as the opposite of work. Work is the thing you have to do, and then there's play, the thing you choose to do.”

Thinking Play Opposites You Choose

Author:Ian Bogost

“If you think of play as being in things, there are things that are playable, then it becomes the work of figuring out what a thing can do.”

Ifs Thinking Play Can Do

Author:Ian Bogost

“For me, what fun means is finding novelty in the suffocating familiarity of ordinary life.”

Mean Fun Findings Ordinary Novelty Familiarity Ordinary Life Suffocating

Author:Ian Bogost

“Any phrase that suggests play is this domain that's the opposite of work, or the thing that you do when you're done working, should trouble us. Because it means that play is always relegated to the exhaust of life. It's the thing that you do after you do the important stuff, it's what you do on your own time.”

Should Mean Important Done Play Stuff Trouble Opposites Phrases Domain

Author:Ian Bogost

“Play becomes a distraction, something you don't really need to do. It's not for serious people. They work hard, they don't play hard. Yes, you can say play hard, but that really means, keep working hard, right?”

People Needs Mean Hard Play Serious Hard Work Distraction Really Mean Play Hard Yes You Can

Author:Ian Bogost

“I think this dichotomy or opposition between work and play, between leisure and serious stuff, is definitely a bad way of thinking about the useful insights that play provides.”

Thinking Way Play Stuff Serious Insight Opposition Leisure Way Of Thinking Dichotomy Work And Play

Author:Ian Bogost

“You can experience play at work, not because you're messing around or wasting time or something, but because you're looking really deeply and seriously at things and asking what is possible, what can be done with them, what new ideas might emerge?”

Ideas Done Play Might Asking Wasting Time New Ideas Really Deep

Author:Ian Bogost

“The problem with fun is we really don't know what fun means at all.”

Knows Mean Problem Fun

Author:Ian Bogost

“If you stop someone who's talking about something being fun, and say "Well what do you mean?" it's almost impossible to answer.”

Ifs Wells Mean Fun Answers Talking Impossible

Author:Ian Bogost

“Generally speaking, when people use the word fun, it's like a placeholder. You know, "How was your evening?" "Oh it was fun."”

People Knows Use Fun Know How Evening

Author:Ian Bogost

“Every now and then if you try, you can discover something new.”

Ifs Trying Something New Now And Then

Author:Ian Bogost

“When we use this word fun, it sort of bangs up the ordinary and the extraordinary altogether.”

Use Fun Ordinary Extraordinary Bangs

Author:Ian Bogost

“Fun has to do with habitual activities but then also terrifically novel or unusual ones. It works as a sort of strange milkshake of those concepts.”

Fun Novel Strange Activity Concepts Unusual Habitual Milkshakes

Author:Ian Bogost

“When we think about play and games and the situations in which having fun is seen as an outcome, they often have to do with repetition. You're returning to something again, and even despite that similarity, you squeeze something new out of it.”

Thinking Play Games Fun Situation Despite Having Fun Outcomes Something New Repetition Similarity

Author:Ian Bogost

“Fun doesn't have anything to do with pleasure, necessarily. I think this will be terrifically unintuitive for people.”

People Thinking Fun Pleasure

Author:Ian Bogost

“We're used to thinking of fun as a sort of synonym for light pleasure.”

Thinking Light Used Fun Pleasure Synonym

Author:Ian Bogost

“A fun movie is something that is pleasurable without being demanding, you don't have to think too hard.”

Thinking Hard Fun Fun Movie

Author:Ian Bogost

“If you think about the contexts in which we talk about things being fun, often there's a certain kind of misery or effort that's involved with it. The difficulty of travel, getting all your bags packed and your work done and navigating the airports and all that. That sort of struggle.”

Ifs Thinking Kind Done Certain Fun Effort Struggle Involved Difficulty Misery Bags Airports Work Done

Author:Ian Bogost

“With sports and games, you have fun despite working very hard, even despite failing repeatedly. Even the fun of a night out, you have to get somewhere and do all the conversational, social work of being out. There's effort involved. But then when you're finished, you can conclude, "Actually there was something gratifying about the hardship that I just encountered." That discovery of novelty is where the molten core of fun is.”

Hard Night Games Fun Social Sports Effort Failing Involved Discovery Finished Core Despite Having Fun Hardship Social Work Novelty Working Very Hard

Author:Ian Bogost

“The more you're drowning in familiarity, the better the fun is. It requires less novelty to produce even more gratification. And it's something that didn't come from you. It was about the other thing - the thing you were experiencing, or the people you were with, or the mechanism you were operating, or whatever it might be.”

People Might Fun Produce Mechanism Drowning Gratification Novelty Familiarity

Author:Ian Bogost

“You allow yourself to discover the things that are already there when you play.”

Author:Ian Bogost

“You don't want to be told, "Hey, do whatever you want." That's what we think of when we think of play. It's the thing where you get to do whatever you come up with in your own mind, all bets are off, there's no boundaries.”

Thinking Want Mind Play Come Up Boundaries Hey Do Whatever You Want No Boundaries

Author:Ian Bogost

“Even when we tell kids to go play, what do the kids do? They come up with a set of constraints and structures. "Oh, we're gonna build a fort out of clothes, and now that we're in the fort we're going to pretend that we're prisoners," or whatever.”

Play Kids Clothes Structure Come Up Prisoner Constraints Forts

Author:Ian Bogost

“The whole idea of play is in finding, acknowledging, and then working with the natural constraints and limitations that you find in the world.”

World Ideas Play Whole Natural Findings Limitation Constraints

Author:Ian Bogost

“The playful perspective is not meant to turn your life into a game or a jungle gym. It's rather that the activity is looking outside of yourself.”

Turns Games Perspective Activity Gym Jungle

Author:Ian Bogost

“I think the most important thing to realize about play is that it's this thing that's in stuff, it's not in you.”

Thinking Important Play Stuff Realizing Important Things

Author:Ian Bogost

“Play isn't you being clever, or finding a trick, or finding a way of covering over your own misery, or persuading someone to do what you want. It's the process of working with the materials that you find and discovering what's possible with them.”

Way Want Play Process Materials Findings Misery What You Want Clever Tricks Over You Discovering Covering Persuading

Author:Ian Bogost

“We think we want enjoyment, and that enjoyment is incompatible with work, and somehow we have to import the pleasure into these miserable experiences. That takes for granted that there's not fun or play to be found in the work itself.”

Thinking Want Play Found Fun Pleasure Granted Miserable Enjoyment Imports

Author:Ian Bogost

“We have to always spread sugar on top of it in order that we can tolerate swallowing the things we're supposed to do, which is an incredibly depressing way of thinking about living your life. Not just that your work or your home life would be so miserable that you have to slather sugar on it, but then the sugar is all you're tasting. If that's the only way that I'm finding meaning, then we have this sort of mental diabetes that we're descending into.”

Ifs Thinking Way Home Would Be Order Findings Spread Miserable Sugar Tolerate Depressing Live Your Life Way Of Thinking Diabetes Tasting Descending Swallowing Home Life

Author:Ian Bogost

“Actually a lot of the supposedly serious and meaningful and worthwhile content on the podcast or on the television is no more or less meaningful than the clothes in the laundry basket or the dishes in the sink. It's more a matter of the attention you're willing to bring to them, where you're willing to allow meaning and pleasure and the light to escape.”

Matter Light Pleasure Attention Television Willing Serious Clothes Meaningful Worthwhile Dishes Baskets Laundry

Author:Ian Bogost

“It's not even that finding laundry pleasurable or delightful should be our goal rather than finding television delightful. It's that both laundry and television can be delightful.”

Should Goal Television Findings Delightful Laundry

Author:Ian Bogost

“Once you get yourself on that path where you're willing to find something delightful in laundry and in dishwashers, it means that you train yourself to be able to find it almost anywhere in almost anything.”

Mean Able Path Willing Train Delightful Laundry Dishwashers

Author:Ian Bogost

“Wouldn't we all rather have the possibility of finding pleasure and delight in literally anything we might encounter? Instead of assuming that actually there are only these three things where pleasure and delight are possible. Like oh, it's television and socialization and work, and then everything else is the smoke I have to somehow choke my way through in order to get to the good parts.”

Way Might Order Three Pleasure Possibility Television Findings Assuming Delight Smoke My Way Encounters Three Things Choke Socialization

Author:Ian Bogost

“There are things about us that make us who we are, personality traits, or capacities that we have, or knowledge we possess or that we don't possess, habits we have that are good or bad.”

Personality Habit Capacity Who We Are Traits Personality Traits

Author:Ian Bogost

“Normally if you're dating, you're looking for compatibility, and then the moment that there's incompatibility, you're like, "Well, swipe left on that, let's just keep looking." In some ways I think the same lessons apply to people that apply to objects. It's just much easier to see that lesson in things because they're these fixed intangible lumps of stuff. People are not. They can change.”

People Ifs Thinking Way Wells Moments Left Stuff Objects Easier Lessons Dating Fixed Lumps Intangible Compatibility Incompatibility

Author:Ian Bogost

“My lawnmower can't change in the way that my son can or that I can.”

Way I Can Son My Son Can't Change

Author:Ian Bogost

“The idea of thinking of our relationships with people as also being structured by limitations and constraints can be useful.”

People Thinking Ideas Limitation Our Relationship Constraints

Author:Ian Bogost

“This willingness to be frank and plain about the way that the world is, is a good first step. But that doesn't mean that you get what you want.”

World Way Want Firsts Mean Steps What You Want Willingness Frank First Steps

Author:Ian Bogost

“My wife, there's certain kinds of housework that she just doesn't see as necessary to do in the way that I do. Things like the state of our closet or where things are in the kitchen. I have this almost unhealthily obsessive desire to have things in their place and she just totally doesn't. And this is a potential point of conflict, of course.”

Way Kind States Desire Certain Courses Wife Conflict My Wife Kitchen Closets Obsessive Housework

Author:Ian Bogost

“There are also many things my wife can't stand about me, and there are certain capacities that she has that are different than mine. The trick is to find compatibilities.”

Different Certain Wife Mines Capacity My Wife Tricks Compatibility

Author:Ian Bogost

“There are personality traits, or baggage from their backgrounds, goals that they have and the first thing I need to do is understand and then acknowledge and then accept those properties. That's kind of the baseline requirement to have a productive relationship.”

Needs Firsts Kind Goal Accepting Personality Property Backgrounds Acknowledge Productive Traits Requirements Baggage Personality Traits

Author:Ian Bogost

“Forcing your spouse to stop doing that bad habit that drives you crazy, or making your kid be better at math or at art or at swimming, or making your parents or your in-laws not be annoying in the way that they're annoying, these are sometimes doomed goals.”

Way Art Sometimes Kids Law Parent Goal Crazy Habit Math Swimming Annoying Doomed Spouse In-laws Bad Habits

Author:Ian Bogost

“We have been trained to think we have enormous power over the world. Whatever you dream, you can do. Anything can be bent to your will. But actually isn't it much more interesting to imagine that you're quite small?”

Thinking World Has Beens Dream Can Do Interesting Imagine Enormous Imagine That Bent

Author:Ian Bogost

“There's just an enormous vast universe of possible intrigue out there and why not pay attention to it? Because then you're not burdened with trying to find that meaning in yourself all the time.”

Trying Universe Pay Attention Enormous Pay Attention Why Not Intrigue

Author:Ian Bogost

“The universe is not particularly concerned with you.”

Universe Concerned

Author:Ian Bogost

About the Author

Born: December 30, 1976
Known for: Video Game Designer
Quotes: 63

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