C. Thi Nguyen, "Games: Agency as Art" (Oxford UP, 2020)
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Hi everyone, this is Marshall Poe. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and I'm also a historian. I used to be a history professor, and I love maps, so I'm especially happy to tell you that this episode is sponsored by What's Your Map, which was the winner of the Best Education Podcast at the 2025 British Podcast Awards. What's Your Map is hosted by historian and prize-winning author Professor Jerry Broughton. In each episode, he invites a guest to share a map close to their heart and unfurl the ideas, inspirations, and stories behind it. I can tell you I've listened and it's fascinating. The podcast is in its sixth series and is enjoyed by audiences around the globe. You can explore all the maps in the podcast online.
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Hello, and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with the New Books Network. I'm Carrie Figdor, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. I'm co-host of the channel along with Robert Talese, Alexis McLeod, and Sarah Tyson. Together, we bring you conversations with philosophers about their new books in a wide range of areas of contemporary philosophical inquiry. Today's interview is with C.T. Nguyen, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. His new book, Games, Agency as Art, is just out from Oxford University Press. Monopoly, solitaire, football, and Minecraft are all games. But for Nguyen, they are also an art form, specifically the art form of agency, our capacity to set goals and pursue them.
According to Nguyen, a game designer sculpts agency by specifying the goals and abilities of the potential player, what the player should care about, and what their abilities are in the game environment. The resulting disposable ends and interesting struggles yield valuable aesthetic experiences that enhance our capacities for autonomous agency. Yet Nguyen also warns of the harmful effects of the gamification of real life when the simple goals and motivations in games leak into our real-world agency. and can lead to social and moral disaster. Let's turn to the interview. Hello, C.T. Nguyen. Welcome to New Books and Philosophy.
Hello, thanks for having me.
So we're talking about games, agency as art. Before we get to the actual text of the book, maybe you can tell us a bit about yourself, how you... came to philosophy, how you came to think about games in a philosophical way, you know, how you came to write the book.
Yeah, the book is this, I am, so it turns out that I'm completely surprised that this is the book I wrote out about in philosophy, but it also turns out that all of my friends who knew me are completely unsurprised or like, of course, this is like the most logical, you know, path for your life and career. So, I mean, I was in philosophy. I was trained as a very Spock standard meta ethics and epistemology person. I was really interested in aesthetics, but actually like I was told, and I think this is fairly accurate, not to specialize in aesthetics because there are no jobs in aesthetics. This is actually true. So, I did a lot of work in value theory and aesthetics was always in the back of my mind, but there's just not, there's no jobs in it.
There weren't people that specialized in it in my graduate school. So it was always kind of back burner. And as I was leaving grad school, I was starting to teach a few classes and I taught a class in aesthetics and I did a case study on games.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the episode’s introduction and who are the hosts and sponsors?
0:00–7:05
2
How does C.T. Nguyen describe his path to philosophy and the book’s origin?
7:05–14:45
3
What is Nguyen’s definition of a game and how does he use Suits’ framework?
14:45–23:16
4
How does Nguyen distinguish between achievement play and striving play?
23:16–30:51
5
Why does Nguyen argue that ‘striving play’ is possible and valuable?
30:51–38:53
6
What examples (like rock climbing) illustrate how games sculpt agency?
38:53–50:15
7
What are the potential dangers of gamifying real‑world activities?
50:15–1:00:20
8
What future research and practical applications does Nguyen envision for his theory?
1:00:20–1:06:25
Speakers
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