This past week saw the end of the wildly popular app/mobile game known as “Flappy Bird.” Ultimately, the app’s creator Dong Nguyen simply could not deal with the fact that his little game that he had intended for short relaxing breaks had become an addiction for many and such removed it from app stores. Nor could he cope with the sleep loss he suffered after the game saw huge success. While some may consider this quite a shame, it does not make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things considering the hugely vast number of games out there for us to play in today’s world where there is supposedly an app for everything.

But why do we play games? “Because they’re fun.” Fair enough, I suppose. But on a deeper, more instinctual and primal level, why do we play games? It is a question that not many have delved into. In order to investigate this question, we first have to define what a game is. In almost all cases, a game is an event where a player competes with one or more other players, a CPU (central processing unit, essentially the “brain” of your computer, your smart phone, your video game console, etc.), or some other opponent or obstacle in order to attain an end goal. In “Flappy Bird,” a player competes against the game’s level design and game mechanics in order to obtain as high a score as possible. In football, a player competes against the opposing team in order to score as many touchdowns, field goals, and/or two point conversions as possible. In chess, a player competes against another player in order to try to put the other player’s “king” piece in “checkmate.”

But look at the definition of a game again. Based on that definition, is not life also a game? In life, does not one also compete with one or more other “players” (competitors in the job market, other students in class, etc.) and obstacles in order to attain an end goal (financial security, a dream job, the highest grade in the class, etc.)? If we assume that the answer to this question is indeed yes, then it soon becomes very clear that life is a very terrible game that few would actually pay money for. In life, we do not know how the decisions we make now will affect is in the future and how well they will lead us on or off the path to attaining our end goal. Even worse, life is full of so many random variables that it is very difficult to predict where life is going to take us and how we should act to circumvent the obstacles we encounter in life.

However, in “Flappy Bird,” one knows immediately if their actions will reward them with success or failure. One does not have to wait several decades to see whether or not they “won” the game (we will define winning here as reaching a particular high score that is up to the player’s discretion). And since “Flappy Bird” runs on a set game engine with set game mechanics and coding, there are a lot fewer unpredictable variables one has to worry about when playing “Flappy Bird.”

In the end, this is why we play games. Life is one big game that spans (hopefully) decades, and one never knows how close they are to “winning” the game. As such, games provide us a way to simulate the competitive nature of life while having instant or rapid results to our actions and limitations on how random variables can affect us. This simulation of life that is both easier and more immediately pleasing helps us to cope with the stresses of real life and remind ourselves that life too “is just a game.” So the next time you play any game, remind yourself that if you can beat it, then life should be no problem for you.