The Definition of Games and Play

Even between all four pieces we read, I don’t really feel like there is a whole lot to be gained from defining the term ‘play’. While it is obviously a significant cultural factor, I feel that the definition has to be exceptionally broad to be of any use while still relating to how people actually use the word. Further more, I feel that you can just define play as ‘Using curiosity, expression, and imagination in an interaction’, which, to me, pretty much covers everything I would consider play or playful.

In spite of this, I do find a lot of value in discerning what Games are, because games are a significantly more concrete devices that facilitate much more specific interactions and relationships. However, I never really felt satisfied with any of the readings in terms of what Games actually mean.

I’ll start off with Huizinga, as he was really one of the progenitors for this kind of study… but simultaneously, is really only valuable as the historical ‘startpoint’ for that study. This is mostly because a lot of Huizinga’s conclusions about games and play come from factually incorrect assumptions about how brains work. Mainly that he feels games, play, and humor have no ‘rational’ or deterministic function and are exclusive to humans. This is just false, we’ve found that, yes, human brains are deterministic and, no, animals do indeed laugh. He also tries to tie play and games fundamentally to fun, which also has problems, ones which I think we will explore further in the course.

The other readings all more or less just tried to define what games are (or what play is, in the case of Sicart) in more concrete terms, but I still had problems with them. The Art of War only really considered games in the competitive sense, which obviously leaves out much of what games are currently capable of, on top of having strange disdain for computer games. Although, it is nice to see that a collection of historically significant games exists. Meanwhile, Juul’s definition of games, while nice and concrete, excludes many things that I feel most people would still define AS games. Interestingly, between all readings I actually feel there is far too much emphasis on rules, especially explicitly stated rules, that I don’t actually see as necessary for a game to take shape.

As a result of this reading, I actually came up with my own list of things necessary to be a game, which I actually think holds up under a decent amount of scrutiny, while still being pliable enough to actually include what most people commonly think of as games. And if people are comfortable with this definition, I hope it can be helpful for the course.

Games Have:
A player; A Game Object; A Game Space*; Space Value; Time Value; Specific Values**; Non-Specific Values***; Implicit Goals; Implicit Rules; and interaction between the Player and Object.
Additionally, Games illustrate tangible change. Which is really the only conceptual game element that I feel is universally shared.

Feel free to challenge this assessment, and try to come up with anything that most people would recognize as a game that doesn’t fit this model.

* Game Spaces come in three general types Real, Representative, and Imagined, but games can blend them together or switch between them. (I’ll probably define these further in the glossary)

**Specific Values are things like scores, how tall someone is, or what a specific piece is or does.

***Non-Specific Values are player’s imagined or semantic values. This is a bit harder to explain, but basically it’s anything that has to do with Metagame (another term I’ll probably define). Some examples would be what you expect the next card to be in a deck, how you plan to accomplish something, how you feel about another player, or how you interpret another player’s message.

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