readoldthings

So the juxtaposition of Sun Tzu's words with your commentary tying it to video games reminds me of an old lecture by video game designer Brian Moriarty. He's talking about the Paul is Dead phenomenon, and what game designers can learn from it: things that are arbitrary, even random, when dressed up to look like they're not, can act as something of a distraction or feint on the mind of the game player, turning it back upon itself:

We didn’t know why a hand kept popping up over over Paul’s head. But it had to mean something, didn’t it? And look how far we took that simple, meaningless pattern. Let your players employ their own imaginative intelligence to fill in the gaps in your worlds you can’t afford to close. Chances are, they’ll paint the chaos in exactly the colors they want to see. What’s more, they’ll enjoy themselves doing it. But the credit will be yours.

This isn't directly related to this verse... it's more applicable to one you covered several days ago (If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the Enemy from engaging us [...] All we need do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way.). And it's exactly what I was talking about in a comment on that day, too... what I took as you repeatedly using a tactic (talking about diversion) may say more about myself than it does about you, right?

That ties back to what Sun Tzu says about knowing yourself, and knowing your opponent: what Sun Tzu and Moriarty are describing is a way of misdirecting that process: using a getting your opponent to assign his own properties to you, thereby impeding him ability to understand either. And as Sun Tzu said, if you know neither your opponent nor yourself...

Anyway, it's a fun lecture and might be of interest as an hour-long commentary on two verses :)