What is a Game?
An Introduction to Games: Part One
There is an impossible collection of diverse experiences that we colloquially call games, and they are more ancient than the pyramids. Taking a brief look back, in Mesopotamia, we find the earliest known record of games. Two board games were found inside tombs in Ur, once an ancient coastal city near the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf. These board games, each composed of squares, dating from before 2600 BCE, were not the only remains of games found in ancient Mesopotamia. Sets of pawns, three pyramid-like dice, and an outline of the rules for Game of Ur, since found preserved on a Babylonian clay tablet, enable us to piece together a model of gaming history.
The Game of Ur is not alone, however. Archaeologists date Senet from Ancient Egypt back as far as 2620 BCE, with similar boards and hieroglyphic signs found even earlier. Pottery boards and rock cuts for a game assumed to be an old form of Mancala date back to between the 2nd and 3rd century CE. Even more intriguing is that these are merely records we've found of games played using boards.
Dice, a staple of many types of games, have been found throughout ancient history as well. In Shahr-e Sukhteh, a Bronze Age urban settlement, archaeologists found dice dated between 2800-2500 BCE. Bone dice from Skara Brae, a stone-built Neolithic settlement located on the Bay of Skaill, have been dated to 3100-2400 BCE. Terracotta dice dating to 2500-1900 BCE have appeared in graves at Mohenjo-Daro, an Indus Valley civilization settlement.
But considering the number and variety of games available today, it's easy for confusion to arise when we begin talking about them analytically. Recall that we aim to analyze games as critically as possible, talk about their design and development, understand what makes them so compelling, and tie them to their impact on society and vice versa. To achieve these goals, we need structure and consistency in our language, defining terms and throwing out casual subjectivity. Our friends might consider a toy or puzzle a game, but merely because they think it is, does not make it so.
We need to find traits that games have in common with each other. We must prepare ourselves by defining what various terms mean, such as with "game" itself. We cannot claim that our definitions are entirely authoritative, but we need a critical language to discuss our topics. Otherwise, how can we tell what makes a game good? And whether there is such a thing as a bad game?
It would be unwise to begin this exercise without looking at the definitions that others have put forth - their years of study into gaming being of great value. But first, let's consider the difficulty of this task - something which Ludwig Wittgenstein, an Austrian-British philosopher, had spent some time doing. He had worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, mind, and language, giving him a unique perspective - that of one on the relative outside looking in.
He proposes a notion known as "family resemblances," which asserts that things thought to have one essential common feature connecting them have a series of overlapping similarities instead. Despite these overlapping similarities, no one characteristic is common to all of the things. He uses games as the quintessential example of this, wondering if there is anything common to all.
It's not such an outlandish assertion if we think about it. For example, let's only look at some examples of video games - there is such a great variety. Consider these:
A competitive team fight between two groups of disparate fantasy characters with a continually shifting meta and new content;
A deadly trek through randomly generated post-apocalyptic worlds, where one does not know the effects of a potion until it is used;
A narrative action-adventure in a fantasy setting, taking over 100 hours to complete due to all its side quests and locations to explore;
A city building simulation where the player entirely makes up the goals and often uses more custom content than original assets;
A grand strategy where one plays out an alternate history of an era on Earth, intricately managing their lives and those of the people they rule;
Thinking about these games, we can see a complicated network of similarities overlapping, crisscrossing, and sometimes disappearing. So we might understand how Wittgenstein's suggestion about the impossibility in defining games represents a problem many disciplines face. But ultimately, family resemblances illustrate a mechanism of language. We aren't attempting to determine essential characteristics but nominal definitions.
Now let's look at some of the already established definitions of a game:
A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.- Salen, Katie; Zimmerman, Eric (2003). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. MIT Press.
A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal.- Costikyan, Greg (1994). "I Have No Words & I Must Design."
A game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context.- Clark C. Abt (1987). Serious Games. University Press of America.
At its most elementary level then we can define game as an exercise of voluntary control systems in which there is an opposition between forces, confined by a procedure and rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome.- Avedon, Elliot; Sutton-Smith, Brian (1971). The Study of Games. J. Wiley.
A game is a form of play with goals and structure.- Maroney, Kevin (2001). "My Entire Waking Life." The Games Journal.
To play a game is to engage in activity directed toward bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by specific rules, where the means permitted by the rules are more limited in scope than they would be in the absence of the rules, and where the sole reason for accepting such limitation is to make possible such activity.- Suits, Bernard (1967). "What Is a Game?". Philosophy of Science.
When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation.- McGonigal, Jane (2011). Reality is Broken. Penguin Books.
Not so surprisingly, there are some consistencies throughout these definitions. All determine that a game is an activity involving at least one person, with a goal or outcome, and specific rules regarding the act of play. Many include decision-making or challenge and conflict during this process. This definition seems quite sufficient for our purposes, but let's dig a little deeper before calling it a day.
First of all, consider "play." Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Beacon Press, 1986) describes "play" as such:
A voluntary activity or occupation executed within certain fixed limits of time and place, according to rules freely accepted but absolutely binding, having its aim in itself and accompanied by a feeling of tension, joy, and the consciousness that it is 'different' from 'ordinary life.'
Note that there is a striking resemblance to the definitions of games we observed earlier. Furthermore, Huizinga interestingly indicates that even the act of play has some structure to it - it's not as arbitrary as sometimes depicted.
Indeed, play is a complicated behavior, yet all too often regarded as the activity children engage in when they use their toys. Hence, there are still those who see gaming as something others need to "grow out of." But we cannot dismiss its potential - of having a provocative profoundness that allows us to grow and develop.
Through play, we have the potential to contemplate morality, form ethics, and determine standards by which to live, open our minds to new concepts, or gain awareness of beliefs that no longer hold value. An elementary example might be realizing how bad it feels when the opposition is winning, and the game enables them to win more due to their existing success. Such a situation relates to success engendering further success in real life and how it may not be fair despite our educational system's teachings.
Because we play characters that are not ourselves and deal with NPCs instead of real people, we can examine these ideas from a safe distance, making it easier to be critical and analytical without it becoming personal or unsafe. We can explore a full range of hypothetical situations and imagine the outcomes without acting them out. While that may not always have the most realistic results, the act of working through them is potentially valuable nonetheless.
Next, let's examine purpose - the reasons for playing games are many; however, entertainment is the most common purpose of play. In some form or another, games involve mental or physical stimulation, often performing an educational, simulational, or psychological role.
Often games are seen as different from work as the purpose of the latter is remuneration. However, many people get paid to play games and create entertaining content using games by streaming or making videos. A distinction along the lines of financial reward is, therefore, tricky.
Somewhat related to the matter of remuneration, another distinction made between games is with art. Chris Crawford's understanding, taken from Chris Crawford on Game Design (2003), includes the statement that "creative expression is art if made for its own beauty, and entertainment if made for money." Through his definition, we follow a path down the route of entertainment for money, interactivity with goals, challenges with competitors and conflicts, to find the meaning of a game.
Let's reflect for a moment on this initial statement. Indeed, we often see art as an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements without regard for monetary reward. But art is not always free from financial motivations. Most of us do not have the time and financial stability to devote to grand art projects unless it's our job to do so in some capacity.
For centuries, patronage and professionalism have allowed the continued creation of works of art. These are generally less fundamental enablers of art and more akin to heavy incentives towards specific kinds of art, usually with obvious political or ideological goals. The artist might think that patronage supports their capacity to make beautiful art, but what they're mostly doing is materializing their wealthy patron's ideas.
In the absence of a patron, an artist often enters the realm of selling their labor to make a living. In this scenario, the art becomes more akin to a craft, diverting their creative energies into a form of income. Instead of materializing a patron's ideas, they promptly learn that one thing sells and another doesn't, so ideology and marketing begin to shape their art as well.
The same is true even when the person is not merely making a physical form exchanged directly for money. For example, content creators making videos on specific topics will find that some videos are more popular than others. It is easy to perceive that as evidence that the popular videos were of a higher quality or, more reasonably, needing the extra income subtly incentivizes them to make more of such videos.
We would love that it did not have to be so, but these are the constraints of the society in which we live.
The inclusion of monetary incentives or backing merely implies that we cannot draw a line between games and art using this as a boundary. I would argue that art should not include a lack of financial reward in its definition, but that is not within our scope. Instead, let's briefly examine art so that we may make this comparison in good faith.
Regardless of how a work came into being, art often provides a way to experience the self in relation to the universe or express the imagination in non-linguistic ways. Art is, at its core, a method of communication. It may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood, allow expression without social censure, raise awareness for a large variety of causes, or have psychological and healing purposes. There are many purposes of art, but ultimately, art says something. Art makes a statement.
So, yes. Games can indeed be art, but not every game will be art. But what of the experience? The entertainment? The fun factor?
In serious discourse, some terms are not useful for us. For example, claiming a game is "fun" is as valuable as reviewing a meal by calling it "yummy." The chef might feel complimented, but they will walk away not knowing what they did right (or wrong, in the obverse case). The person using the term hasn't failed to get their emotional reaction across, whether positive or negative. But the statement doesn't include anything we can learn anything from, analyze, or measure.
Ultimately, no matter what we do, our outline of what a game is will result in some forms of entertainment no longer fitting the definition. But that's okay - it is not a derogatory statement to say, "this is not really a game." The subject in question has purpose and worth without such a designation. Interactive narratives, toys, simulations, and other forms of imaginative creativity and play are just as meaningful for our intellectual development. They are valid activities to engage and spend time with - we need to abstain from the idea that they are lesser experiences because they lack the credibility being a "game" grants them.
A game has specific rules regarding play
and a goal or outcome determined by the game system.
It involves decision making and
management of resources undertaken by the player.
Other actors participate - whether an overall system entity, NPCs, or other players -
bringing a degree of conflict or challenge.
We have taken the definitions that others have put forth and essentially combined the main features while excluding others for reasons we covered. The result is a basic framework against which we can compare gameplay, mechanics, and existing games.
Note: We will dedicate a separate page to a more in-depth examination of each facet outlined in our definition and link to it from here when it's complete.
But how can we tell a good game from a bad one? That's a topic on its own, but at least we now have some terms outlined decisively. Ultimately, we have begun on a quest of novel significance, and having a map with legends we can understand in any adventure is essential.