Games are things that, if you’re reading this wiki, I am assume you are familiar with to some degree. Monopoly, Rock Paper Scissors, Poker, Soccer, all of these are examples of things that we would broadly consider to be games. However, it is incredibly hard to find a singular, cohesive definition for what games actually are which includes all things commonly referred to as games, and excludes all things that are not.
For the purposes of this wiki the definition of what a “game” is is somewhat loosened compared to the colloquial understanding of what games are, including sports and abstract competitions from the field of Game Theory.
Many everyday concepts are actually very poorly understood once you stop and try to actually define them. Concepts like music or film genres are based more on “vibes” than any strict rules, and even concepts that relate to the physical space such as what a “chair” is are shockingly hard to pin down. “Games” are such a concept, as I will now illustrate.
Let’s say we set out to define a singular, all-encompassing definition of what a “game” is that avoids including most things that are not “games”, and that for this purpose we’ll only refer to games which are broadly agreed to be games. We’ll ignore “debatable” games such as children playing in the garden, or the abstract competitions of the field of Game Theory. Let’s try and think of what characteristics we can use to define games by.
Maybe by the number of players? Well that would be difficult, as while most classic games require 2 or more individuals participating, there are certainly examples of singleplayer games such as Solitaire. We may require that games involve some number of participants, but that feels nondescript. Let’s put it on the backburner.
Perhaps we’d require or refer to some degree of strategy? Well, that’s also not good as we have games like Rock Paper Scissors which are just sheer luck and no strategy. You could argue that Rock Paper Scissors involves some bluffing, but that’s absolutely not a requirement and has a negligable difference on who actually wins. Obviously, many other games require skill, such as chess.
Can a game be pre-determined? Possibly! Games like Tic-Tac-Toe or Checkers have been “solved”; the optimal possible play that will guarantee victory from the very outset of the match has been determined, and we now know who wins assuming perfect play. Tic-Tac-Toe’s result is a tie, and for most adults starting a game of tic-tac-toe seems pointless now. However we still agree it’s a game, so we can’t require games to be hard to determine.
This entire time we’ve assumed games are an activity, but are they? If you have a closed box of Chess in your room which has never been played, it’s still a game, isn’t it? The presence of players does not modify its state as a game. If someone makes a new game, and no one ever plays it, we’d still agree it is a game.
Could we require games to have rules, at least? That seems to be the most consistent element after all; games with poorly understood or defined rules are either considered “not serious” or “not actually games”. While I personally have issues with that, let’s assume that this is a requirement for something to be a Serious Game.
So, now, we’ve reached the end only being able to define games by “having some rules” and “involving a non-zero amount of players.” By this definition, the doctor’s office or the supermarket checkout count as games. You can continue this hypothetical on your own, if you’d like, and find that pretty much any requirement you may find has at least one counter-example in popular play.
Here are listed several different attempts to define what “games” are. While these definitions often contradict, they are useful in giving a broad idea of what is commonly defined as “a game”. Additionally, we will includes some notable issues with each definition.
[…] a “game” is whatever is considered a game in common parlance.
A very obvious issue with this definition is that it does not convey meaning to anyone not already acquiainted with the concept of games ahead of time, and its definition sways with time and context. The authors of the book argue that many commonly used concepts and words (such as games) don’t actually have a singular definition, but rather are a “family” of concepts which share some broad similarities but no singular defining metric. They suggest that it would be a better endeavor to list these properties which games tend to share, as opposed to trying to select which ones are the “true” definition of a game. While I personally view this as the most correct definition, it a bit of a cop out.
Many of the other definitions I list here are also listed in Rules of Play’s chapter on their definition and its justification.
A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.
While this is a generally useful definition, it has one debilitating flaw - “a quantifiable outcome.” A great number of games have a fuzzy, confusing, or impossible to determine outcome. Tabletop RPGs do not have a singular “win” condition, and quantifying who “won” which campaigns can be an exercise in futility. Some digital simulation games, like Sim City, also have very fuzzy outcome. Hell, some of them don’t have a proper end; MMOs cannot be truly finished.
We’ll see this assumption repeated frequently going forward.
A formal game has a twofold structure based on ends and means:
Ends. It is a contest to achieve an objective. […] Only one of the contenders, be they individuals or teams, can achieve it, since achieving it ends the game. To achieve that object is to win. Hence a formal game, by definition, has a winner; and winning is the “end” of the game in both senses of the word, as termination and as object.
Means. It has an agreed set of equipment and of procedural “rules” by which the equipment is manipulated to produce a winning situation.
As in the previous definition, a notable issue is the assumption that games require some form of win condition or a clear victor. While Parlett does distinguish “formal games” from “informal games”, defining the latter as “merely undirected play, or ‘playing around’”, several “serious” games can be thought of without a formal win condition.
Reduced to its formal essence, a game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context. A more conventional definition would say that a game is a context with rules among adversaries trying to win objectives.
This definition requires games to have at least two participants, which is easily proven to be a false assumption with modern single-player games. If you’d like to be pedantic and claim that the computer counts as an independent decision-maker, then we have the simpler example of Solitaire, a singleplayer card game. If you’d like to claim that fate counts as an independent decision-maker, then be my guest, just not anywhere in my vicinity.
Additionally, the definition is incredibly broad, as any situation with two people competing can fall under it. To exemplify why this is an issue: a dinnertable argument is now a “game”.
This is technically a definition for “play”, but it’s still relevant.
[Play is] a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary” life as being “not serious,” but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings, which tend to surround themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by disguise or other means.
This definition is useful in how it introduces the concept of the magic circle, but it comes with a slew of flaws in how it tries to contend that every form of play (or, game) must be a “good game”. Games which are not “absorbing” are still games, just not very good ones. Additionally, by requiring games to not have extrinsic meaning, it contends that professional sports and esports do not count as “games” anymore. This definition is, additionally, notably biased by the book’s ideological agenda.
[A game is:]
Free: in which playing is not obligatory; if it were, it would at once lose its attractive and joyous quality as diversion;
Separate: circumscribed within limits of space and time, defined and fixed in advance;
Uncertain: the course of which cannot be determined, nor the result attained beforehand, and some latitude for innovations being left to the player’s initiative;
Unproductive: creating neither goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange of property among the players, ending in a situation identical to that prevailing at the beginnning of the game;
Governed by rules: under conventions that suspend ordinary laws, and for the moment establish new legislation, which alone counts;
Make-believe: accompanied by a special awareness of a second reality or of a free unreality, as against real life.
While this definition is much more intuitive and generally presents the idea of what a game is, it still has notable issues.
This definition requires not being obligatory, which means that being pressured to play chess would suddenly not make it a game. While it could be argued so, I think we could all still agree that even if it’s not a fun activity, you are being pressured to play chess.
It also assumes the inability to create external value, as in the previous definition. I’ll avoid repeating the issues with this for brevity’s sake.
The uncertainty is also at fault: Would you consider the result of game of chess between a grandmaster and a novice “unpredictable?”
To play a game is to engage in activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favor of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity.
[…]
I also offer the following simpler and, so to speak, more portable version of the above: playing a game is the voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles.
This definition is far too broad: under these constraints, going to the gym to lift weights is considered “playing a game.”