I just finished watching “The Booth at the End” on Hulu tonight. I will be spoiling plenty in this post, but I suspect many of you won’t ever watch it, even though I enjoyed it. Nevertheless, you’ve been warned. I mention this show because in the last episode the old man in the booth who makes “deals” with people says something that’s awful reminiscent of how some people conceive of games, but he’s not talking about games at all: “A trap they set for themselves to get them through the day.”
Some context and a spoiler are necessary now. The old man, it is alluded but not said outright, is some kind of otherworldly being, but whether he’s an angel or a demon or even a part of any real-world religion is also unstated. Another otherworldly being starts talking to him, and he reveals that he’s doing this deal-making business, even though it’s apparently not allowed, because he wants to know what “motivates them” (i.e. people). He says in the last episode that he has found out what motivates them, and the quote above is his answer. It bears repeating: “A trap they set for themselves to get them through the day.”
This reminded me of a quote I heard about games recently, which I sadly cannot attribute nor re-quote accurately, so please help me out if you feel like researching it: games are unnecessary challenges we set up for ourselves to overcome. Put that way, games seem really silly and kind of stupid, but by setting up the right challenges for ourselves, it’s actually very rewarding.
So the old man is saying that we get through life in the same way that we play games: we create these challenges, these traps, so that we have something to overcome and feel good about. Games give us a sense of agency and accomplishment, and that first idea is really important throughout “The Booth at the End,” because the old man reminds the people he makes deals with over and over again that they choose to make these deals and see them through, that he doesn’t make them do anything.
The show, in that moment, reminds us that, just as we choose to play games, we choose our problems in life.
No Free Parking Money 
Language matters and the word used is “trap”, not “challenge”.
Trap: “a device or enclosure to catch and retain animals, typically by allowing entry but not exit or by catching hold of a park of the body.” The Man says “trap” and is clear that we make those traps for ourselves; they are not traps set by others.
Challenge: “a call to take part in a contest or competition.” A contest/competition means one or more are involved. Challenge is not the context of The Man’s statement about human motivation.
There’s the added bit about how those traps we make for ourselves are for the purpose of getting ourselves through the day. That is quite the observation about human nature worthy of discussion. The Man just left it at that, a wide open idea, if not indictment, about our species.
What fortuitous timing. I recently came across the game definition in question again and can properly quote and attribute it now: “Playing a game is the voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” It’s from philosopher Bernard Suits, as quoted in “Rules of Play,” a book about game design.
I think the definitions provided above are rather narrow, particularly for “challenge.” But whether we’re talking about traps, challenges, or obstacles, I don’t mean to suggest they’re equivalent nor synonyms, but that they have an intersection that resonated for me. I would hazard at trying to describe that intersection as something like “impediments.”
And if it doesn’t resonate for you, if you don’t think the comparison is worthy, that’s cool too.
I came upon The Booth at the End just last week and found it an intriguing premise, though at times it faltered. You might enjoy this interview with the showrunner, if you haven’t read it already (quite a few typos in it…). https://www.josephsusanka.com/booth I do feel there is a clear difference between the two words and that it matters, but I’m like that, a bit of (an annoying) stickler about language, right down to digging into etymologies for further understanding of a word, how it has evolved, what the original intention was. Always enjoy literary analyses and was pleased to stumble on your post for another angle on the storyline.