As this is a blog about the theory of games, I thought that as I intend to this systematically that I should start with a brief post defining what a game actually is. You might think that I could tell you to open up a dictionary or to Google “define: game” instead, however you are not too likely to find a good definition for the concept of “game” by doing either of those. Which is a terrible shame and might explain why there some game design theorists out there that seem unable to provide a good definition for this simple enough concept!
My dictionary defines a game as:
“A passtime, a recreational activity, where players may compete against each other”
Well that is not much good. A huge of things could be validly referred to as a passtime or a recreational activity. Including: watching TV, reading a good book, sex, programming … depending on what you are into this could be a long list of things with very little in common besides the fact that they are often considered to be recreational passtimes.
A definition is a statement that identifies the units subsumed under it, for the purpose of differentiating the referents of the definition from other things. Definitions are in other words statements that uniquely identify certain concepts, so we can distinguish them from other concepts.
We need a statement captures the essentials of games, which allows us to distinguish games from anything else that might happen to be somewhat similar. This is done by restricting ones definition to the essentials of the concept in question and then attempting to differentiate a concept from all others on the basis of these essentials.
What are the essentials of a game? Well a game should obviously be somewhat fun. That is after all what differentiates a game from say something we might not find fun at all: such as many forms of work ( playing a game can be work, though if it is also fun it might actually be both ) which we might find are not entertaining, yet might be classified as a “passtime”. But a game clearly cannot be something that is simply fun, else we still have not differentiated games from a lot of other things…
Games have objectives. Every time you are playing a game you have some sort of goal in mind. It might be simply be throwing a ball around in order to practise your manual dexterity and/or to keep fit, and/or even just to have some fun with your friends while socializing. Or you might be seeking to play some computer game in order to practise your maths skills, games for this sort of thing do exist. However all games have certain objectives that the player is trying to achieve. The objectives might be very simple, or very complex, however in any case the nature of the objectives will have a definite impact on the game. Complicated objectives tend to result in more complicated games, however this is not the main point of this blog entry, so I shall return to this in a later blog entry.
In order to achieve the objectives of the game, all games also have some sort of constraint on permissible player actions. These constraints exist as an attempt to make meeting the games objectives easier / possible by preventing actions which would make meeting the games objectives more difficult or by encouraging the players to act in ways that are intended to make meeting the games objectives easier. These constraints are often referred to as “rules”. They might be very formal, or very informal, however all games have rules of some sort, even if not very many rules or very simple rules.
Is it essential for games to teach the players something and / or to allow them to practise skills? No, I do not think that either are essentials for games in general, though a great many games attempt to teach the players something, and most games are a good way to practise certain skills. Both of these are very common parts of the explicit objectives of most games that I know of, while for other games it happens that a side benefit is that certain skills are also potentially developed. Also in order to progress in many games one is required to develop a certain set of skills in order to progress past certain points of the game. However not all games are really about either of these.
What about the fact that many game theorists claim that storytelling is an essential aspect of any game? No, this also not true. While many games do tell some sort of story, this is not an essential aspect of games. Many activities that any reasonable person would be pressed to classify as a game, such as the card game Snap have no apparent storytelling aspect. When is the last time you heard a story when playing Snap? And what about the really detailed story behind Monopoly? Oh wait, that is right it does not have any story aspect either….
And finally what about the common claim that games are a form of art? Art is meant to express the artists [metaphysical] value judgements, and a great games, particularly those with a storytelling element do this. However what about simpler things like Snap once again, or Scrabble? It is pretty hard to see any sign of art in either of these activities…
So in short, I define a game as:
“Any recreational activity bound by a set of constraints on permissible player actions, with the intention of achieving one or more objectives.”
So in other words a game is some sort of activity that you do for fun, bound by some sort of rules in order to achieve some goal. Seems pretty simple right?
I believe that this is about the only completely valid definition of the concept of “game” that I remember seeing. It covers what I consider to be the essentials of gaming, and nothing nonessential like the fact that many games are a form of art. Keep this definition in mind, as it shall be the one that this blog shall use henceforth, barring any possible corrections.
That is all for now….
