Just Start: The Power of Knowledge-Based Games

Hey team,

Question: what’s the difference between Street Fighter 2 and The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild? Okay, bad question, there are hundreds, but I’d argue that maybe the most fundamental difference is that Street Fighter 2 is a knowledge-based game and Zelda is not: in your first game of Street Fighter 2, your character starts with exactly the same strengths and abilities as a character being played by the Street Fighter world champion. The difference is your knowledge of those moves, and your ability to execute them.

In Zelda, on the other hand, you are limited by your equipment and abilities: you can run straight to Ganon as soon as you get off the Great Plateau , but without the dozens of hearts, extra stamina wheels and new abilities you earn as you progress, you’re probably going to have a bad time. Plenty of other games take this to even madder extremes: earlier this year, I played a game where you, a maneating shark, have to unlock abilities like teleportation and electric stun beams in order to progress. These sort of games — I’m going to call them progression-based games because I can’t think of anything smarter — can be brilliant, but there’s something about knowledge-based games in particular that makes them really fun to play.

Okay, but why is this important to this newsletter? Simple: because life is full of games that are either knowledge-based or progression-based or a mixture of both, and I feel like understanding which are which might help you decide what to spend your time on.

My beloved Brazilian jiu-jitsu, for instance, is heavily knowledge-based: yes, you can get stronger or faster or more flexible, but if you could have the combined knowledge of the world’s best Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighters somehow programmed into your brain like Neo from the Matrix…you’d be pretty difficult to beat. Strength sports, on the other hand, are almost entirely progression-based — you get better at them with technique, but there’s no way to unlock new tiers of ability without a tonne of grinding.

An important point here is that, unlike in most videogames, your progression can go backwards in some spheres of achievement, especially physical ones: I used to be able to deadlift almost triple my bodyweight, and now I can’t. As I get older and weaker, I’m increasingly happy that I’ve spent so much time building knowledge that won’t go away: there are guys at my Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym who are bigger, stronger, faster and more flexible than me, but I know more tricks than most of them. My squat numbers will probably get worse until I die. My knowledge, hopefully, won’t.

Where this effect gets even more interesting, though, is in creative endeavours. YouTube creators, for instance, often talk about ‘levelling up’ their production, but that can mean a few things: it might mean investing in cameras, lights, access to stock footage or AI-generated music, but it also might mean simply knowing more: understanding how to present an idea, write a compelling intro, or put together a script. Mr Beast has said before that if he had to start again from scratch with a camera phone, zero subscribers, and no money, he’d be back to a million in a few months — I don’t know if that’s true, but with how much he understands about making attention-grabbing videos, it definitely wouldn’t surprise me. He’s been playing a knowledge-based-game for years, and now he’s built up enough knowledge to succeed even without his other attributes.

So what does this all mean? For me, it means that I tend to invest in knowledge, rather than other stuff: I read a lot of books, and I’d rather spend my money on a course than a nicer camera. Life, of course, is a combination of knowledge and levelling up, but it’s nice to know that, if you had to go back to square one, you’d at least have the skills to get back to where you are just a little bit faster than last time.

Have a great weekend!
Joel x

Stuff I’ve done

Stuff I like

🎥 Video - Knowledge Based Games, and Why You Should Play Them by Superdude

This was the video that got me thinking about all of the above, and it’s really good! You should definitely watch it.

📖 Audiobook - Every Man for Himself and God against All: A Memoir by Werner Herzog

I don’t usually listen to audiobooks — I don’t think it’s typically a good way for me to process the info — but it is absolutely essential that you hear this delivered by Herzog himself. It’s also an absolutely insane listen: Herzog grew up in agrarian post-war Germany on the brink of starvation, teaching himself to milk strangers’ cows and ski-jump off mountains, and carved himself into one of the most influential director-thinkers of all time through great big chunks of iron self-discipline.

🪶 Quote of the week

“The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines they had (at however great a remove) brought into being: the urge not to feel useless.”
From Consider Phlebas

Like this newsletter?

Please forward it to someone else! Also, if you’ve got a book or an article you think I should read, or something you think I should watch or try, please send it my way.

And if you haven’t already, please check out my YouTube channel, where I deep-dive into stuff like productivity, lifelong learning, piano and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.