i must better measure money and attention. what are the forms of money? what are the forms of attention?

easy, effortless, obvious. do not reinvent, do not create from scratch. what has already been created for me? what is already there, undefended? (unsatisfied, perhaps.) do not fight on distracting ground. wait until you have the advantage... find a place where you already have the advantage.

where do i have an advantage?

1. look for weak points. not where things are busy, popular, well-defended. look for the quiet places.

2. do not destroy. take whole. i must reflect further on this. take whole.

and what place has the war against boring art among the various facets of this problem?

i will return to read the art of war with this in mind:

- i have no clear enemy, opponent, or ground. i am able to choose the ground of battle.
- victory is measured in a quantity of external value assigned to haiku games, measurable in mass attention, measurable in money.
- the presumed target is the games industry, is gamers, is the social corner containing games, but it is not the only target, nor is it the necessary target.
- the necessary target is people, of some sort. people.
- victory is measured in value placed not upon the act or process of creating haiku games, but of something external to the haiku game, something regarding the produced artifact.
- i am able to choose ground of battle.
- i am ready & willing to produce the necessary ground.
- i will find the ground.

edit:: here is an interesting twist on the wartime perspective. what if i presume that value is zero-sum? where do i want to go to steal such a thing? where can i go to wage battle, where i can be certain of victory, and be certain that my victory is virtuous?

i am ready to find value for haiku games anywhere i can.
on steam. in old people's homes. on the street. in the valley.
online. offline.
but as i continually recognize, it is a chicken and egg problem...
as long as haiku games are loosely defined, i cannot perceive their inherent value.
and, as long as that value-giving context is loosely defined, i cannot place haiku games within such context.

which comes first?

the features of a haiku which i presently regard as crucial:

• composed in one sitting, by an individual.
• about noticing experiencing something real in the world. (haiku were written about nature, senryu about human nature. these are 'real' things. haiku are not written about haiku, or about other art forms. another description of this feature might say "haiku are not meta.")
• requires no special equipment or knowledge to appreciate or transmit.
• the tools are available.

i do not think that all of these things belong to the true nature of a game. a single game of tic-tac-toe does not teach you how to play, it does not necessarily give you a satisfying experience... it exists within a context.

this is the goal of this thread: a value-giving, life-giving, context for haiku games (which, themselves, are not perfectly well-defined -- which is a problem, but one i hope to tackle here while solving the problem of context).

a major problem with 10mg is that each of the games found it necessary in some sense to stand on its own. each of them was one steam game. people did try to engage with the mass of games, but each one was responsible for almost all of the other things that a game is expected to do, e.g. have an individual identity, teach you how to play, give you a satisfying experience.

when i was part of 10mg wombat shared his intentions publicly. he said in the interview linked: "10mg is a psyop. The goal is not to make money, or to immediately convince people that short, experimental games are worthwhile. It would be great if that happened, but 10mg is primarily about shifting the overton window of the game length discussion."

i think that in some sense i have adopted his mission. if anyone has been psyop'd, it's me.

my god, is it nfts? surely not

"inhabiting someone else's unique artistic vision." i want that. it's rare for me to play a game that draws me in that way these days. how many experiences have i had that creak under the weight of their ssssystems? hm. i will read a bit of game poems again.

something that comes to mind for me, in the meantime, is the question of what is the nature of the container which holds games in it? i have been making websites... websites... these remind me of flash portals, once home to good small games. suppose i am tired of games bearing the brunt of having to support smaller things within them. what would it look like for a larger structure to support the smaller games within it? what is that structure? is it a website?

if there is a format that can buoy a hundred haiku games, let me make that form, whether it is a mainstream videogame, or a website, or a publication, or a patreon, or anything else. this is the battle. i'll start a new thread for this...

emotion, vision. why still life games, why haiku games? right, because this is war.

Like The One-Straw Revolution, The Art of War functions as a handbook containing a significant amount of practical and specific information regarding a particular discipline and its scenarios and features.

It is very easy to read them as poetic or metaphorical according to the vagueness of their wording. I make no claim about how they ought to be received, but see how this may be read either as precise advice applicable to a narrow domain, or generically interpretable advice applicable to a broad one:

QuoteIf desirous of attacking an army; of besieging a fortress; or of killing a certain person; first of all, learn the names of the general in charge; of his right-hand men; of those who introduce visitors to the Presence; of the gate keeper and the entries. Then set the spies to watch them.

(The Employment of Spies, p99)

QuoteOpen ground is that where either side has liberty of movement: be quick to occupy any high ground in the neighbourhood and consider well the line of supplies.

(Ground, p68)

~ linked from my close reading of The Art of War

in general, there are a few things i've taken away from this book... that are not specifically about the thought that sparked my desire to read it in the first place. i'll have to return to that thought and examine it through the lens of the art of war. this stuff, though, is good to hold onto.

QuoteNow the object of war is victory; not lengthy operations, even skilfully[sic] conducted.

The good general is the lord of the people's lives, the guardian of the country's welfare.

I quoted this to jack today when speaking of my (personal) response to Snow Game, in particular I think I thought of the idea of victory, as well as thinking of "people's lives" and "the country's welfare." Silly things, maybe, for a game designer to be concerned with.

Here, though, I wish to focus somewhat on "victory; not lengthy operations" -- of course, part of this is my ADHD speaking, but this appeals to me a great deal, and it is a theme returned to time & again throughout the book. To have a goal, to pursue it without wasting time. And in particular to have a '''real''' goal.

Sun Tzu speaks earlier of "The virtue of the prince" and here (already quoted) of "people's lives" and "the country's welfare." They are not given an explicit link, but I believe they both speak to having a legitimate purpose behind one's actions. Victory is not a simple matter of stating and achieving goals, victory involves achieving something meaningful. Virtuous.

Of course, we are speaking of war, here. I'll get more into that later.