The Game

Between Se7en and Fight Club, David Fincher made a film nobody talks about.

It's called The Game. Michael Douglas plays a wealthy control freak who receives a mysterious “game” as a birthday present from his brother, played by Sean Penn.

It takes over his life. He can't tell what's real. The stakes escalate until they feel genuinely life-or-death.

At some point he stops being an observer and becomes a participant. The pressure makes him act as if it's real, and once you're acting as if it's real the distinction stops mattering.

That's true of flight simulators. Escape rooms. Military exercises. Improv. Watching your team in a World Cup game.

You can't tell people to pretend something is real. That never works. Something in the design has to make them forget to ask.

It's what I'm chasing every time we build something at Wavetable, and the same three questions come up every time. Where's the line between immersive and overwhelming. How much of the framework should be visible and how much sits underneath. And how do you create stakes when nothing is actually at risk.

Someone will say this is gamification with better lighting, and that most of it is exhausting. They'd be right about most of it. The difference is whether the stakes are invented or borrowed - a leaderboard is invented, and a room of people watching you decide is not.

Maybe that's why The Game still rattles around in my head. The film does to you what the game does to him.