Definitions Of Game
If we want a gaming vocabulary a good place to start would be with a definition of what a game is.. Unfortunately games are incredibly varied in how, where, why, and when then are played, and what they involve.
We can identify many different types of games - Board games, Card games, Dice games, Video games, Role-playing games, Football, Tennis, etc. There are many things we refer to as games but are they really? Games of Education, Love, Politics, War, Sex, of Thrones!
Many people have tried to come up with a definition over the years. They all tend to be kind of right in general, and wrong because they include things which aren’t games and exclude things which are games.
David Partlett
A game has “ends and means”: an objective, an outcome, and a set of rules to get there.
A nice, simple start, it describes most games but it also covers things like a driving test or getting a degree.
Clark C Abt
A game is an activity involving player decisions, seeking objectives within a “limiting context” [i.e. rules]
This definition mentions “player” which might limit the scope, but is still very broad, it could describe improv comedy/acting and it excludes Snakes & Ladders – no decisions made in Snakes & Ladders. It also shifts the problem of definition by requiring a definition for “player”.
Roger Callois
A game has six properties: it is “free” (playing is optional and not obligatory), “separate” (fixed in space and time, in advance), has an uncertain outcome, is “unproductive” (in the sense of creating neither goods nor wealth), is governed by rules, is “make believe” and is accompanied by an awareness that the game is not Real Life, but is some kind of shared separate “reality”)
This definition is pretty thorough but unproductive - does this rule out professional game-play?
Bernard Suits
A game is a “voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”
It sounds a bit different, but includes a lot of concepts of former definitions: it is voluntary, it has goals and rules. The bit about “unnecessary obstacles” implies an inefficiency caused by the rules on purpose. For example, if the object of Tic Tac Toe is to get three symbols across, down or diagonally, the easiest way to do that is to simply write three symbols in a row on your first turn while keeping the paper away from your opponent. But you don’t do that, because the rules get in the way… and it is from those rules that the play emerges.
The definition still has problems though, does mountain climbing count as a game?
Chris Crawford
Games have four properties. They are a “closed, formal system” (this is a fancy way of saying that they have rules; “formal” in this case means that it can be defined, not that it involves wearing a suit and tie); they involve interaction; they involve conflict; and they offer safety… at least compared to what they represent (for example, American Football is certainly not what one would call perfectly safe - injuries are common - but as a game it is an abstract representation of warfare, and it is certainly more safe than being a soldier in the middle of combat).
This seems like a thorough definition but it still has its flaws. A “closed, formal system” would rule out games like cops’n’robbers. “interaction” - what about solo games?
Greg Costikyan
Games are a form of art in which the participants, termed Players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal.
This definition includes a number of concepts not seen in earlier definitions: games are art, they involve decisions and resource management, and they have “tokens” (objects within the game). There is also the familiar concept of goals.
Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman
Games are a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome Rules of Play
(“quantifiable” here just means, for example, that there is a concept of “winning” and “losing”).