Donald MacKenzie rejoins the show to talk about his book An Engine, Not a Camera, which is about how financial models aren't designed to reflect the world economy, like a camera, but drive the world economy, like an engine. This means that a large part of economics is driven by trading that resembles a Reiner Knizia or 18XX game. It also means that trading and gambling can be pretty hard to differentiate.

You can read more about Donald's book here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262633673/an-engine-not-a-camera/

Ian Bogost joins me to discuss The Small Stuff, his book about finding gratification in physical things. We discuss his road from game studies to gratification, the place for gratification in games, and how something as small as pushing a button or cradling a joystick can make us happy.

Today I'm joined by two social scientists to address the question: is science a game? Michael Penkler, Stefan Sulzenbacher, and Stephan Voss recently published an article on this topic: Playing science: representing and doing research in board games. After a brief discussion of the way that philosophers have considered science a game, the article looks at 3 board games that simulate science.

Michael and Stefan join me to discuss their article, and what looking at science as a game can teach us about how science works.

Here's a link to the article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09505431.2026.2630948