Paper short abstract:

Early Christian monastic writings on acedia and modern research on the value of play in games studies both address similar problems of boredom and listlessness. This connection is made cloudy with the rise of gamification, but by looking back at the monastic tradition, we may find a new perspective.

Paper long abstract:

Religion is not just a topic that some games engage with, but the cultures of play the have arisen with gaming communities in recent decades have echoes of devotional practice within them. Early Christian monasticism and modern playful attitudes share a similar target in acedia, often translated as "listlessness." Looking at the writings of Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian, we get a clear picture of why acedia was such a cause for alarm in early Christian devotional practice, only to have it return in the 20th Century in the writings of Walter Benjamin and Aldous Huxley. The connection between religious studies and games studies goes deep within the canon as Johan Huizinga, Roger Caillois, and James P. Carse all studied religion as well as games, but new developments in our relationships with games and play are cause for us to reaffirm these unlikely origins. In our world of ever-increasing stimulation, it's hard to imagine that terms like acedia or "ennui" would get a foothold, let alone the rise of depression and other diseases of apathy. Games, in the writings of people like Carse or Jane McGonigal, offer positive visions of play's potential to remedy these conditions but this position is complicated by gamification. Turning everything into a game shifts from a utopian notion of liberation from boredom and drudgery to one of constant quantification, competition, and production. Is this a problem brought on solely by advances in technology, or do video games and virtual worlds offer an even cleaner cure for acedia? Perhaps by returning to the approaches for addressing acedia historically, we can meet the new challenges brought upon us by technology, gamification, and the game market and recapture the free spirit of play.