[1] In Optimizing Play: Why Theorycrafting Breaks Games and How to Fix It, Christopher A. Paul theorizes that when a game is fully optimized, such that players have found the best way to play successfully, the game is broken. Early in the introduction, he uses tic-tac-toe as an example of a solved game because it is fully optimized—those who know how to play tic-tac-toe will never lose, and the worst-case scenario is that they tie. Of course, tic-tac-toe is a simple game, with only nine moves to choose from at the beginning of the game. The games that Paul proceeds to focus on are more complicated, including World of Warcraft (2004; chapter 1), Overwatch (2016; chapter 2), baseball (chapter 3), basketball, football, and soccer (chapter 4), EA Sports FC (2023) and NBA 2K (1999; chapter 5), and Clash Royale (2016; chapter 6).
[2] Optimizing Play builds from his previous work, including The Toxic Meritocracy of Video Games: Why Gaming Culture Is the Worst (Paul 2018), where he argues that many video games are meritocratic. In video games with ranked gameplay, such as the multiplayer online battle arena League of Legends (2009), the meta is paramount. Paul argued in 2018 that there is pressure in League of Legends to follow the meta—"metagaming highly encourages conformity to the accepted norms in a game community" (31). Optimizing Play also builds from an article with a similar name published by Paul in Game Studies in 2011, where he focuses specifically on how the World of Warcraft community's use of theorycrafting fundamentally changes how World of Warcraft is played.
[3] In the introduction, Paul defines his key terms, including theorycraft, meta, optimization, min/maxing, sports analytics, and common pool resource problems. He defines theorycrafting as "the analytical study of games in an effort to find the optimal way to play" (16). He defines the meta, which stands for most effective tactic available, as the result of theorycrafting—it is the dominant play style in a game at a particular time. His goal in analyzing these concepts is to better understand how "play is altered as players shift from open, relatively unstructured interactions into an instrumentalized, scripted joint search for the optimal" (3). Paul believes that theorycrafting and optimization are real problems for video games and sports, and game developers need to address them to keep games from becoming boring.
[4] A significant concept that Paul uses throughout the book is the tragedy of the commons, originally theorized by ecologist Garrett Hardin—rightfully acknowledged in the book as "possessing a white nationalist ideology" according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (quoted in Paul 2024, 11). The tragedy of the commons occurs when individuals act in their own interests, in direct opposition to the collective good. This creates a common pool resource problem, where finite resources are overused to the point of complete destruction. Paul applies this concept to theorycrafting, arguing that when every individual player is trying to find the optimized way to play a game, "games can get less fun to play and far less compelling to watch" (3).
[5] All of the games that Paul focuses on—baseball, basketball, soccer, football, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, EA Sports FC, NBA 2K, and Clash Royale—are multiplayer games. They involve playing on a team, either in person or virtually. Paul does distinguish that in single-player games, theorycrafting is not a problem because one player's actions do not impact other players. But he argues that "the moment other players begin to optimize their play [in multiplayer competition], pressure is put on the rest to match them and do the same" (141). Theorycrafting is prominent in multiplayer games that receive regular updates—Paul's argument is that when players optimize, their play style can negatively impact other players who perhaps do not want to follow the meta.
[6] All of the games mentioned also receive semiregular to regular updates or patches from the game developers or sport committees, whether they are released yearly in the case of EA Sports FC and NBA 2K, more regularly in the case of World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Clash Royale, or at will in baseball and basketball. Paul argues that changes keep these games fresh and that the more a game is updated, the less likely there is one clear meta for players to follow—"randomness resists optimization" (129). As players work to solve these games, companies work to recomplicate them by adding new elements, changing rules, or otherwise removing the ability to follow a particular meta. These updates and rule changes are in tension with theorycrafting.
[7] Much like Paul's previous work (2018) and the work of other game theorists (Juul 2013), Optimizing Play begins from an assumption that all players want to win—they "would rather win than lose, and optimizing their play is the most efficient route to being successful in a game" (23). He considers how those who attempt to play off-meta, such as in League of Legends, are often pushed into conformity by their peers. In ranked gameplay, esports, or other professional leagues, there is a tension between those who follow the meta and those who do not. While those who theorycraft are often attempting to find the meta to win, Paul does little to recognize or even acknowledge other play styles or the work of those who have studied queer play (Ruberg 2019). For example, what does theorycrafting to lose look like?
[8] Paul's use of the tragedy of the commons is underpinned by a contentious assumption: that games have finite resources that will eventually run dry. In the case of the games discussed in the book, constant updates and rule changes help Paul follow this line of thinking. But if World of Warcraft was never updated again, would there come a time when the game is so completely optimized that it is not worth playing anymore? I remain unconvinced—while the game itself may be finite, the player base is not.
[9] In the conclusion, speaking directly to game developers and designers, Paul briefly brings up two key points of friction: speedrunning and games that have never received updates. Paul writes animatedly about how speedrunning, while focused on optimization and repetition, somehow manages to stay fresh because of "new innovations…found after years of playing a game" (137). Speedrunning is often performed in single-player games that typically do not receive updates, and so it is a precarious example to bring up at the end of a book that begins with the assertion that optimization makes games stale and boring.
[10] He also considers both Tetris (1988) and Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001) in the conclusion, two old games that have not received any updates but continue to have a large player base. He focuses on the novel Tetris rolling technique that recently helped players score even higher. He writes that "in the case of a high-score based game, the search for the optimal way to play opens up promise and makes the game bigger as players chase doing more rather than making a game smaller as they find a definitive right answer and disregard other options" (138). But despite not receiving any updates since it was published in 1985, players continue to optimize in new, interesting, and fun ways.
[11] Similarly, with Super Smash Bros. Melee, he writes that because it is a static game, players could "figure out what was possible on their own, and characters still became more and less valued over time" (139). In Melee, time and time again a character that has long been considered less valuable in the meta will suddenly rise in rank because a player has adopted a new style of play that is able to defeat the current metagame, even without any developer updates to the game. In other words, even when the game itself is static and the resource of game mechanics is defined and finite, the players themselves are a nonfinite resource that can continuously reshape the meta of a particular game. These examples illustrate a gap in Paul's argument—they remain popular despite or even because of theorycrafting, and so the tragedy of the commons does not always apply.
[12] Despite these critiques, Optimizing Play is a substantial contribution to game studies and fan studies more broadly that considers how player optimization can negatively impact the longevity of games. Paul considers the role of players, fans, and the companies that manage games and how decisions made by each group can affect the overall health and fun of games. For game designers and developers who are thinking about how player optimization may impact their games, Optimizing Play makes the argument that recognizing and pushing against optimization might help with player retention. Paul's theory of optimization in video games can be applied to both fandoms and media companies more broadly, making it a useful text for fan and audience scholars who are interested in the relationship between fans and the companies that produce and distribute fan products. Through "rewarding emergent, exploratory play" (142), we can continue to expand the very notion of games and the communities of players, fans, and audiences that surround them.