Game
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A game is a structured or semi-structured activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes also used as an educational tool. (The term "game" is also used to describe simulation of various activities e.g., for the purposes of training, analysis or prediction, etc., see "Game (simulation)".) Games are generally distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games may also be considered work and/or art. Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interactivity. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational or psychological role.
Known to have been played as far back as prehistoric times, games are a universal part of the human experience, for all cultures, genders and ages.
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[edit] Definitions
Ludwig Wittgenstein was probably the first academic philosopher to address the definition of the word game. In his Philosophical Investigations,[1] Wittgenstein demonstrated that the elements of games, such as play, rules, and competition, all fail to adequately define what games are. He subsequently argued that the concept "game" could not be contained by any single definition, but that games must be looked at as a series of definitions that share a "family resemblance" to one another.
French sociologist Roger Caillois defined games in his book Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men), published by Gallimard in 1957, as an activity that must have the following characteristics :
- fun: the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
- separate: it is circumscribed in time and place
- uncertain: the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
- non-productive
- governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
- fictitious: it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality
Computer game designer Chris Crawford attempted to define the term game[2] using a series of dichotomies:
- Creative expression is art if made for its own beauty, and entertainment if made for money. (This is the least rigid of his definitions. Crawford acknowledges that he often chooses a creative path over conventional business wisdom, which is why he rarely produces sequels to his games.)
- A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive. Movies and books are cited as examples of non-interactive entertainment.
- If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a toy. (Crawford notes that by his definition, (a) a toy can become a game element if the player makes up rules, and (b) The Sims and SimCity are toys, not games.) If it has goals, a plaything is a challenge.
- If a challenge has no “active agent against whom you compete,” it is a puzzle; if there is one, it is a conflict. (Crawford admits that this is a subjective test. Some games with noticeably algorithmic artificial intelligence can be played as puzzles; these include the patterns used to evade ghosts in Pac-Man.)
- Finally, if the player can only outperform the opponent, but not attack them to interfere with their performance, the conflict is a competition. (Competitions include racing and figure skating.) However, if attacks are allowed, then the conflict qualifies as a game.
Crawford's definition may thus be rendered as: an interactive, goal-oriented activity, active agents to play against, which any player (including active agents) could interfere one another, and which is designed to make money for the creator.
Crawford also notes (ibid.) several other definitions:
- “A form of play with goals and structure.” (Kevin Maroney)
- “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.” (Greg Costikyan)
- “An activity with some rules engaged in for an outcome.” (Eric Zimmerman)
[edit] Some philosophy on games
The most obvious aspect of a game is how different it is from ordinary reality. Playing is about pretending to be someone else or about substituting the chaos of reality with very precise rules, which must be scrupulously respected. French philosopher Paul Valéry noted that entering a game must be a voluntary act and there is no room for skepticism. And a game is enjoyable if that entry -- known in Latin as in-lusion or illusion-- is indeed a conscious choice. A game is the opportunity to experience powerful emotions brought on by the sheer randomness, the desire to win and the stakes at risk. At first glance games are without consequence in so much as winning a game is not about humiliating one's adversary. Caillois insists, "Every new game is a totally new beginning, since a game can neither produce nor found anything. The essence of a game is to cancel out its results."
Games obey a logic that is diametrically opposed to that of profit-making. According to German philosopher Friedrich Schiller games were born, much like art, from an overabundance of energy when compared to actual societal needs. So games are nothing more than an opportunity to spend excess energy. This of course doesn't seem to take into account money-making games. But globally these games produce nothing, since, as Caillois notes, at most they make certain players rich at the expense of others. If so then a true game by definition must break even. Dutch Historian Johan Huizinga points out that wins are not a salary. Today the simple act of making a salary in a game immediately transforms a player into a professional.
Playing a game is therefore an activity that is distinctly apart from useful or productive activities. This is close to Huizinga's observation that, like sacred space, games can only exist within precise space-time boundaries whether it's length of a game, in a stadium or a on a checkerboard. Thus a game may be seen as a powerful expression of creative freedom and triumph over the burdensome determinism of things or social status, all within perfectly circumscribed limits. In his novel The Gambler, Fyodor Dostoevsky's player considers the risk of gambling as some kind of ghostly being, foreign to any real laws; this being can both give and take everything one has and for whom everything is possible. A throw of the dice doesn't kill chance, it kills necessity. The game itself does not annul all laws, it simply makes them particularly legible and unequivocal. Gambling actually opened the doors to the study and calculation of probability because it offers the opportunity to analyze risk by looking at it in a very artificial, closed and homogeneous system. This systems is based on numbers and repetition, whether it's a card game or roulette. Game rules end up being an extreme standardization of reality.
[edit] Gameplay elements and classifications
Games can be characterized by "what the player does."[2] This is often referred to as gameplay, a term that arose among computer game designers in the 1980s but as of 2007 is starting to see use in reference to games of other forms. Major key elements identified in this context are tools and rules which define the overall context of game and which in turn produce skill, strategy, and chance.[clarify]
[edit] Tools
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Games are often classified by the components required to play them (e.g. a ball, cards, a board and pieces or a computer). In places where the use of leather is well established, the ball has been a popular game piece throughout recorded history, resulting in a worldwide popularity of ball games such as rugby, basketball, football, cricket, tennis and volleyball. Other tools are more idiosyncratic to a certain region. Many countries in Europe, for instance, have unique standard decks of playing cards. Other games such as chess may be traced primarily through the development and evolution of its game pieces.
Many game tools are tokens, meant to represent other things. A token may be a pawn on a board, play money, or an intangible item such as a point scored.
Games such as hide-and-seek or tag do not utilise any obvious tool. Rather its interactivity is defined by the environment. Games with the same or similar rules may have different gameplay if the environment is altered. For example, hide-and-seek in a school building differs from the same game in a park; an auto race can be radically different depending on the track or street course, even with the same cars.
[edit] Rules
Whereas games are often characterized by their tools, they are often defined by their rules. While rules are subject to variations and changes, enough change in the rules usually results in a "new" game.[citation needed] For instance, baseball can be played with "real" baseballs or with whiffleballs. However, if the players decide to play with only three bases, they are arguably playing a different game.[citation needed]
Rules generally determine turn order, the rights and responsibilities of the players, and each player’s goals. Player rights may include when they may spend resources or move tokens. Common win conditions are being first to amass a certain quota of points or tokens (as in Settlers of Catan), having the greatest number of tokens at the end of the game (as in Monopoly), or some relationship of one’s game tokens to those of one’s opponent (as in chess's checkmate).
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Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that language is a game consisting of tokens governed by rough-and-ready rules that arise by convention and are not strict.[1]
[edit] Skill, strategy, and chance
A game’s tools and rules will result in its requiring skill, strategy, chance or a combination thereof, and are classified accordingly.
Games of skill include games of physical skill, such as wrestling, tug of war, hopscotch, target shooting, and stake and games of mental skill such as checkers and chess. Games of strategy include checkers, chess, go, arimaa, and tic-tac-toe, and often require special equipment to play them. Games of chance include gambling games (blackjack, mah jong, roulette etc.), as well as snakes and ladders and rock, paper, scissors; most require equipment such as cards or dice. However, most games contain two or all three of these elements. For example, American football and baseball involve both physical skill and strategy while poker and Monopoly combine strategy and chance.
[edit] Types of games
- See also: List of types of games
[edit] Field games (sports)
Sports are arguably the most popular type of game.[citation needed] Many sports require special equipment and dedicated playing fields, leading to the involvement of a community much larger than the group of players. A city or town may set aside such resources for the benefit of the young, as in Little League.
Popular sports may have spectators who are entertained just by watching games. A community will often align itself with a local sports team that supposedly represents it (even if the team or most of its players only recently moved in); they often align themselves against their opponents or have traditional rivalries. The concept of fandom began with sports fans.
Stanley Fish cited[citation needed] the balls and strikes of baseball as a clear example of social construction, the operation of rules on the game's tools. While the strike zone target is governed by the rules of the game, it epitomizes the category of things that exist only because people have agreed to treat them as real. No pitch is a ball or a strike until it has been labeled as such by an appropriate authority, the plate umpire, whose judgment on this matter cannot be challenged within the current game.
Certain competitive sports, such as racing and gymnastics, are not games by definitions such as Crawford’s (see above, despite the inclusion of many in the Olympic Games) because competitors do not interact with their opponents.
[edit] Video game
A video game is a computer- or microprocessor-controlled game. Computers can create virtual tools to be used in a game, such as cards or dice.
A computer or video game uses one or more input devices, typically a button/joystick combination (on arcade games); a keyboard, mouse and/or trackball (computer games); or a controller or a motion sensitive tool. (console games). More esoteric devices such as paddle controllers have also been used for input. In computer games, the evolution of user interfaces from simple keyboard to mouse, joystick or joypad has profoundly changed the nature of game development.[citation needed]
It has been suggested that any game can be emulated as a computer game.[citation needed] Because computer games are simulations, every conceviable tool, environment or rule can be created.[dubious — see talk page] Whether or not the computer emulation possesses the same gameplay as the original game is an open question.[citation needed]
In more open-ended computer simulations, aka sandbox-style games, notably those designed by Will Wright, the player may be free to do whatever they like within the confines of the virtual universe. Due to the lack of goals or opposition, it is disputed whether these programs are games or toys. (Crawford specifically mentions Wright’s SimCity as an example of a toy.[2])
[edit] Board games
Board games use as a central tool a board on which the players' status, resources, and progress are tracked using physical tokens. Most also involve dice and/or cards. Most games that simulate war are board games, and the board may be a map on which the players' tokens move.
[edit] Card games
Card games use as a central tool a deck of cards. The cards may be a standard Anglo-American (52-card) deck of playing cards (such as Go Fish or Crazy Eights, or a deck specific to the individual game (such as Set). Uno and Rook are examples of games that were originally played with a standard deck and have since been commercialized with customized decks.
[edit] Role playing games
Role-playing games, often abbreviated as RPGs, are a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories and world setting. Examples of computer roleplaying games are RuneScape, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Final Fantasy, Fable: The Lost Chapters, Elder Scrolls, and Anarchy Online. Pen-and-paper roleplaying games include, for example, Dungeons & Dragons and GURPS.
[edit] Single-player games
Single-player games are unique in respect to the type of challenges a player faces. Unlike a game with multiple players competing with or against each other to reach the game's goal, a one-player game is a battle solely against an element of the environment (an artificial opponent), against one's own skills, against time or against chance. Playing with a yo-yo or playing tennis against a wall is not generally recognised as playing a game due to the lack of any formidable opposition. This is not true, though, for a single-player computer game where the computer provides opposition.
[edit] Lawn Games
Lawn games are outdoor games that can be played on a lawn. Many games that are traditionally played on a pitch are marketed as "lawn games" for home use in a front or back yard. Common lawn games include Horseshoes, Croquet, Bocce and Stake
[edit] Animals and games
Domestic animals have been observed playing simpler games such as tag, tug-of-war, and fetch. Whether this is due to instinct or conscious choice, and whether the animals are capable of the strategic thinking to interfere with their opposition, questions whether this activity is actually a game.
[edit] See also
[edit] Related topics
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes and references
- Avedon, Elliot; Sutton-Smith, Brian, The Study of Games. (Philadelphia: Wiley, 1971), reprinted Krieger, 1979. ISBN 0-89874-045-2
- ^ a b Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953/2002). Philosophical Investigations. ISBN 0-631-23127-7.
- ^ a b c Crawford, Chris (2003). Chris Crawford on Game Design. New Riders. ISBN 0-88134-117-7.
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