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Defining Game
By Corvus | January 7, 2009
Matthew Gallant recently posted on Defining Video Games over at the Quixotic Engineer. For the record, here’s the definition he proposed:
Software which displays images on a video screen, interacts with a player or players and is intended to provide challenge and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.
I replied that the inclusion of provide challenge was both redundant and prejudicial to a particular type of video game and could easily be removed. Providing challenge is simply a form of producing an aesthetic response, after all. I also argued against the use of images on a video screen as that would exclude games such as Dark Room Sex Game and In the Pit, an auditory Xbox 360 Community game suggested by Travis in the comments. Here’s the counter definition I proposed in the comments of Matthew’s post:
Software that interacts with a player or players and is intended to produce an aesthetic response in the audience.
Matthew countered that the “video screen” portion of the definition was important as it helped make a distinction between video games and electronic toys like the Pleo.
Hrm.
Meanwhile, floating across this conversation (via Twitter) is the idea that game itself is a legacy word that doesn’t apply as some video games aren’t actually games–like Electro Plankton. [1] Matthew seems to indicate that the root definition of game dictates the inclusion of challenge, but that video games have grown beyond this restriction.
I found that I couldn’t. Disagree. More. And that’s when it hit me–before we can even begin to define video game, we need to define game. As I was intending to define game as part of the Participatory Storytelling project anyway, I thought I’d move it up in the queue, bypassing the full discussion of my community definition, just for a moment.
As a refresher, here are my definitions for story and play, with a placeholder definition for community. It is upon these three definitions that all subsequent definitions in the PS project will be built.
Story is the shared exploration of a relationship over time.
Play is the self-guided exploration of possibility within a bounded space.
Community is a group of people that hold interests or experiences in common.
Building upon this base, game becomes very easy to define. I propose the following:
Game is a set of rules and/or conditions, established by a community, which serve as a bounded space for play.
Notice a complete lack of reference to winning, challenge, competition, education, fun, and entertainment. This is a building block definition and in order to serve our needs in the long term, it must be free of such extraneous assumptions. Should we want/need to, this definition can serve as the seed for more restrictive definitions for board games, sport games, religious games, video games, etc.
I want to take a moment to address the idea that game rules and conditions are established by a community. We like to take a pretty authoritative stance in regards to intellectual property in the west and this, I believe, has unnecessarily complicated (and restricted) our approach to video games–both as audience, critic, and designer.
Board games such as Monopoly are perfect examples of how a game, designed by a single person, long since dead, is subject to the buy-in of a community. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game of Monopoly where house rules hadn’t been established. Typically, in the case of Monopoly, the house rules are designed to make the game shorter. Regardless, house rules for board games exist to make the gameplay more compatible with the expectations of the people playing.
This is representative of two communities. The first, most obvious community is the group of people gathered in the physical location to play the game. The second is the large community that includes the players and the game’s designer. The permission to make alterations to the rules is inherent in the medium of the board game. Unlike requesting permission to perform Waiting for Godot, the players are not subjected to the rigorous scrutiny of Parker Brothers and it’s highly unlikely that Darrow, when alive, would have stopped by to ensure you were following his rules to the letter.
But what about video games? Wouldn’t my contention that the rules are agreed upon by a community utterly fail to apply to video games? After all, video games are software and unless the game is open source, and the player a coder, the rules are immutable, right? Nope, that’s wrong. Sort of.
Video game designers often include the ability to alter the rule sets of their games, albeit marginally. Difficulty sliders are perhaps the clearest example of this, but I’d argue that graphics settings in PC games would also qualify as altering the conditions of the video game experience. Platform choice is another major factor in agreeing upon the conditions of the video game. Will you play with keyboard and mouse or kick back on the couch with a friend?
Then there’s the matter of personal taste and experience. If you consider that continuing play is a form of agreement, we tend to express our disapproval of a video game’s rule set by discontinuing play. Some of us then blog about it and influence the purchasing decisions of our community. Or, as has also happened, after continued discussion, we return to the game with a fresh perspective and find that the issues we were having were entirely our own and the new approach leads to a completely new play experience. This is a form of community agreement, and, again, there are two layers of community involved in the process.
Sandbox games, or even any video game that meaningfully incorporates a physics engine to handle more than ragdoll death animations, clearly allow the audience some measure of flexibility in their approach to the game. In other words, these games try and afford the audience with as much control over the conditions of play as they can.
This may all sound terribly abstract and stretched thin, but consider that developers release patches that correct gameplay issues based on audience feedback. Consider that developers release sequels that often incorporate features and improvements suggested by the audience. Consider the existence of mods that alter core gameplay based upon community needs. Consider privately run game servers with rules that can be voted on by the players. Consider that Valve is watching every single thing you do while playing their games and using that data to influence their future design.
More and more, our technology is allowing us to turn the process of game design into a direct communication between author and audience. The author feedback loop is still on the slow side, but game engines like Sauerbraten, in which environments can be edited in real time, hold the potential to change that.
And with that, I’m about to hit my self-imposed length limit. I’m sure I have a lot more clarifying to do, so please leave your comments and give me an opportunity to better explain myself. Have a great Wednesday!
[1] Matthew’s actual quote is, “I think “game” is a legacy term leftover from the arcade days. Modern video games are too diverse and interesting to necessarily require challenge.”[return]
Tagged:definition, game, participatory-storytelling. | 24 Comments »
January 7th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I’d have to agree with your definition of game. It’s how my six-year old GoddessDaughter uses the word, and many of her games are non-competitive open-ended story games;) She doesn’t do tea parties yet — the current favorite has to do with dolls/babies needing treatment at a hospital, for instance. But if the adults who get drafted into this don’t want to play, she’s wont to say “Want to play a different game?” or “You don’t like this game?”
That leads me to your argument about video games and community consensus. I vaguely remember the first time I realized we could agree to change the rules to a game, and do something different, and the revelation that came from that. With the GD, she maintains pretty tight narrative control over her games, and to play differently we either need to influence her, submit to her control, or not play. (So, in consensus terminology: form consensus, stand aside, or block.)
Video games come with an inherent assumption that we are going to play by the rules enforced in the game. I remember that one of the Civilization games “cheated” by making units faster or in an order the player couldn’t manage. I avoided that difficulty, because it didn’t seem right, even if human players typically have other advantages over AIs (particularly then).
On another note, would you say that a game mechanic is one of the rules/conditions referenced in the game definition?
January 7th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I completely agree, this definition proposed by Matthew is lacking, in the extreme. Zork had no images. I work as a GM on Sindome (www.sindome.org), it’s definitely a game, text only. Games like Wii Music aren’t necessarily about challenge at all.
I’m not sure how I feel about your definition either, it seems to be missing something…I keep flipping between ‘YEAH! That’s IT!!’ and ‘It feels clinical…’
January 7th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
If we are to accept that a game mechanic is the expression of a game rule (as I have come to think of it), then yes.
One of my goals with these definitions is to maintain the clinical purity for as long as the definitions can be supported by it. I have noticed that a lot of attempts to define terms within the video game space are laden with terms designed to force a particular outcome. If I’m honest, mine are too, but it’s an outcome I hope anyone could practically use and be happy with.
Where the richness and nuance come into play is when we discuss the terms defined as they apply to our field. The definitions are merely touch-points for the conversation, not the conversation itself.
Marcus, I know you to be a storyteller with a very compatible approach to mine. So if my clinical definition sparks even a bit of ‘YEAH! That’s IT!!’ in you, I know I must be on the right track. (-_0)
January 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Ha! This means that the various little interactive “challenge-less” projects I’ve worked on are, in fact, games!
January 7th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
That would be my contention, Deirdra!
January 7th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
This has got to be the best definition of “game” I’ve ever seen as it applies across the spectrum of role-playing games, computer games, board games, and what Callois called paidia.
I’d argue, however, that the requirement of a “community” may be misleading. Certainly a game can be played alone. You could define that case as a “community of one,” but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of its inclusion?
January 7th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Thank you for the complement, RedBull.
As for the inclusion of community, I’m going to seek to clarify your point and then address that clarification. Please let me know if you meant something other than I’m inferring.
The type of solo game you’re referring to are self-generated, self-enacted activities created out of a need to inject play into an otherwise mundane experience. Let’s say that Kick the Can is such an activity, as it certainly was before the cultural weight of repetition and shared experience inserted an idea of a standardized rule sets for the activity into our collective unconscious and thereby turning it into a game.
A youth is walking aimlessly and sees a can in the gutter. “Let’s see how many times I can kick this can without it going into the street, up on the sidewalk, or into a sewer drain,” she thinks and proceeds to kick the can, counting each kick as she goes.
My contention is that this is not a game. This is a form of play coupled with a conscious exploration of the bounded space.
However, the very moment this youth makes it to a playground and brags of her accomplishment to her peers, it does become a game. This is because any number of her peers may question her counting, the rules she decided on, or her right to crow over being the best at something they haven’t yet tried.
Is that the track you were on? Because if you’re referring to solitaire games, there’s a community agreement between the designer(s) and the player.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I’ll confess that I was never very attached to my definition of “game”, yours is much better. That being said, what vocabulary would you propose to describe a video game without goals or challenges (like Electroplankton)? It feels like a subset that deserves recognition.
@Marcus: I based my definition of video games on Scott McCloud’s definition of comics from “Understanding Comics.” In the book he defines letters as static images, which can be arranged into words. By that definition (which is debatable), text adventures are included. It certainly wasn’t my intention to exclude them.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I don’t know, Matthew. It strikes me that it’s precisely Electroplankton and the like that fit this definition of game perfectly and that, if anything, it’s traditional “video games” that require a special narrowing of definition.
I’m also thinking that a lot of the specifics of involving challenge, goals, even the use of video display, etc, don’t belong in a definition at all, but ought to only be discussed within the context of the history of design.
It seems to me that the tricky thing about definitions is that they should not be unnecessarily limiting. Regardless, it certainly bears some more cogitation and I appreciate you getting this particular ball rolling. Your post came along at just the right time!
January 7th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
The problem I have with that definition is that if taken outside of the realm of traditionally defined games too far you get some things falling under it you didn’t meant to. Like the law for example. It is created by a community and it creats a bounded space that you can play in, cause your definition of play has no qualifier of intent. Exploring what you can do in the realm of legality would be under your definiton of play.
January 7th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Ah, but it does have a qualifier of intent. The last two words of the definition are “for play.” The law is not created expressly for the purpose of play, but as a social contract ostensibly intended to keep us safe.
Additionally, I’d also argue that it is completely possible to explore the bounded space of the law and have it be play. I did quite a bit of that in high school myself.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Although I could probably alter it to read:
That is more clear, isn’t it?
January 7th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
[...] that’s up to you what is a game types. I only know this: by the end of the night, Zach was back in his studio, this time [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 2:02 am
Arghh… the incessant boundary work, when will people give up on this? Never, it seems. We would rather argue about language than do anything productive!
You simplify the original by saying you don’t need to tag challenge as this is an aesthetic response. Well, why stop there? You don’t need “aesthetic” as this is implied by “response”. And honestly, if it interacts with the player of course it produces a response. So that boils down to just “interactive software”. :p
So is a word processor a game? >:)
There’s a reason why Wittgenstein uses “game” as his example of a family resemblance category. No single definition will ever suffice for ‘game’ without some source of objection, and almost all objections will depend upon people’s prior beliefs about what a “game is” (such as this ludicrous idea that challenge is central to games, and thus something devoid of challenge cannot be a game).
I suggest: pick your definition, stick with it, respect other people’s definitions, and leave it at that.
Unless, of course, you happen to enjoy the game of arguing about definitions… in which case, have fun! I’m off to do something productive instead.
Toodles!
January 8th, 2009 at 5:22 am
And I suppose I do need to clarify within every one of these posts that I’m only attempting to create these definitions for the purposes of my Participatory Storytelling theory. If they have broader appeal, so much the better.
And arguments help me clarify and strengthen my definitions, so please keep it up!
January 10th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Hi Corvus,
Before I read this post, I had a definition in mind which, it turns out, was only a few words off from yours.
“An agreed-upon framework within which to play.”
But it feels like an uncertainty-principle sort of a thing. The more confident I am of what a “game” is, the harder it is to nail down exactly what “play” means.
Do you have a working definition built in to your current model?
January 10th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
oops.
I guess I skimmed your post or I’m losing my mind or both. You do define “play”.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
For play? Yes, I repeated it in the post. It’s as follows:
Given TGC follow up statements in IRC to his comment here, I’m considered altering it slightly to something like this:
January 14th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I’m enjoying watching you work through this process, both in the original post and in the comments. But I feel your definition of “play” is lacking in some way.
Specifically,”the self-guided exploration of possibility within a bounded space” would seem to cover lots of things that I wouldn’t normally consider play, like:
- planning a bank robbery
- decorating a room
- escaping from a WWII POW camp
- carving a turkey
- searching the apartment for my car keys
What all of these have in common is that, while they may be self-guided, they’re all aimed at achieving a purpose extrinsic to the activity itself. I won’t go so far as to say play is purposeless, but it does seem to be an activity taken at least in part for its own value, aside from any additional benefits (e.g. establishing new friendships, improving physical fitness, etc.).
I think your last comment about “primary goal” is starting to address this issue. But then what about when I play solitaire primarily to kill time, even if I hate playing solitaire? Or if I play poker in order to win money? If financial gain is my primary goal, am I no longer “playing” poker but “doing” poker or “performing” poker?
If the player has “goals” that exist outside the bounded space of play but are achieved through it, how can you best reconcile that in your definition?
January 14th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
SR, I think your comment addresses an important point. The verb play has multiple uses/meanings and playing a game is actually a different form of play than I am defining.
Almost as if game modifies play, transforming it into the act of manipulating the rules and conditions of the bounded space. But I think you’d probably agree that someone who “plays” a game they don’t enjoy with the goal of passing the time is not approaching the activity with a sense of playfulness.
January 14th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I do agree, but aren’t we brushing up against a tautology here? Does engaging in play automatically make you playful? Can you have playful-less play?
But returning to definitions,
“Play is any pastime with a primary goal of self-guided exploration of possibility within a bounded space.”
…who sets the goal? The community? The same self that’s doing the self-guiding? If two actors engage in the same activity but with different goals – playing solitaire for the experience of solitaire vs. playing it to kill time – is one activity considered play and the other not?
Or to flip that, can the actor’s goals turn any activity into play, in the same way that your “kick the can” example is a form of self-generated play? If, for example, some disturbed individual enjoyed neutering puppies as a “pastime of self-guided exploration,” would that make it play? Presumably for the veterinarian who performs the same actions for different reasons, it’s not play at all.
Or am I hopelessly splitting hairs?
January 14th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
As you suggest, it is the individual who sets out to explore sets the goal of play. This is play in its pure state–free of the definition of game.
I think it’s important to recognize that I am not attempting to create a universally applicable definition for play and all its uses. So if you choose to focus on play as the act of participating in a game, and then set emotional conditions that negate the meaning of play I am actually defining, then of course it all is going to seem a bit wrong.
But what I find interesting is that the condition you’re describing actually provides the framework for a great discussion about my Participatory Storytelling framework. You see, I view games (all games, not just video games) as a narrative medium and furthermore, as a direct communication between designer and audience. The PS framework I’m building is meant to explore this idea in depth.
If we look at my definition of game, “a set of rules and/or conditions, established by a community, which serve as a bounded space for play,” as well as the new one for play, “any pastime with a primary goal of self-guided exploration of possibility within a bounded space.”
We see that the “bored and playing solitaire” situation involves a somewhat ineffective communication among the community involved (designer and lone player) and that the player is not actively engaged in the communication. So play is happening, on some level, because the game designer intends it–not because the player does. It still fits, sort of, but is not reflective of an ideal situation. This is unfortunate and it’s too bad the designer of solitaire can’t be there to modify the experience on the fly for the player.
As for the neutering puppies example… I’m sure we could get into a discussion about the hypothetical neutering party’s true emotional intent and the needs that are being served by this activity. I’d likely argue that he’s assuaging some unidentified fear or hurt and suggest that invalidated the activity as play. You could then argue that, no, he was really truly just playful. I’d say that’s highly improbable. You could say that it was hypothetically possible. I could…
But let’s skip that and agree that you just might be splitting hairs. (-_0)
January 14th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
“So if you choose to focus on play as the act of participating in a game, and then set emotional conditions that negate the meaning of play I am actually defining, then of course it all is going to seem a bit wrong.”
Hmm. I am trying to create problematic test cases against which to measure your definitions, true. One of my examples referenced a game – something we all recognize as play – while the other (the puppies) didn’t. For that latter example, what I’m hearing is that whether or not it qualifies as “play” comes down to the presence or absence of specific emotion. Back to the definition:
“Play is any pastime with a primary goal of self-guided exploration of possibility within a bounded space.”
Where is emotion represented in that definition? Is an emotional component required for a pastime to be play, even if it meets all other stated conditions? Might this be “fun” elbowing its way into the conversation?
In the case of the puppy example, I was thinking of typical serial killer, at least as represented in pop culture. Hannibal Lecter, or Dexter Morgan from “Dexter.” These character might well engage in “play” that would be unthinkable for the rest of us.
For what it’s worth, I’m not trying to step outside of your framework or extend your definitions beyond what I believe they’re intended to represent. I just feel that there’s a certain something implied but unexpressed, and I’m trying to suss it out. With playfulness, if possible.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:20 am
I was pretty wiped out by the time I wrote that last comment, so the tone likely didn’t come across as lightly as I intended. I also clearly wasn’t as precise with my language as I prefer to me (hence dragging emotion into the conversation). That’ll teach me to comment after a 15 hour work day!
I do appreciate your test cases and feel I’ve adequately addressed them. A second definition of play could specifically describe participation in a game. Another could describe participation in organized sports for money. Another could describe gambling. Another could describe interacting with members of the opposite sex under false pretenses in hopes of having sexual intercourse.
None of those activities are directly addressed by my definition of play. And, I feel, they don’t really need to be.
Think of game as something that modifies play. It’s a play structure. Simply by participating in the communication, you are playing–regardless of intent. But it’s possibly a formalized, and shallow, version of play that does not need to be addressed by my definition, only by the conversation surrounding it (which is what you’re helping me do, so thank you).
So, Dexter. Sure, serial killers could be said to engage in play. But I somehow feel that the psychological illness that drives them trumps the “primary goal” concept of my definition.