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Can "games" be serious? Can "games" be art? Or put it another way, if it's serious and art, is it still a "game"?
Knowledge is socially constructed and expressed individually. That said, there are many definitions of "game" and many more connotations. Roger Caillois has his famous four types: the Agon, Alea, Ilinx, and Mimicry. Modern videogames usually blend all four types into a single experience. +4 two-handed entertainment of smiting? Apparently there are quite a few people out there who want to see gaming recognized as more than just child's play.
First, it already is - even by those who decry it as a social drain or the pasttime of slackers (paradoxically it need not be either and yet can be both). I've discussed this briefly in my only other blog post ("Immersion and Designer Intent" - which apparently was neither interesting nor crappy enough for anyone to comment either + or - style, but i digress); but to restate it even more briefly - games (as traditionally understood, i.e. ways of having fun that have rules) play a vitally important role in the creation and sustenance of society. Scholars from Schiller to Whitehead to Huizinga to Baudrillard and so on have recognized this and written on it. Even those who claim that videogames are a great evil do so because they recognize the basic power of games.
Second, the further something gets from play, i.e. the less fun is the focus, the more it becomes something else: politics, religion or philosophy. These *can* be fun, but fun is not their focus: social change, theological reflection, or comprehension of the abstract is the now the focus.
So, what's the point? Games are fun. They can be more than that: frightening and enfuriating and tense and exhilarating and uplifting (true of sports games, videogames, and card games alike). But at their core, they are fun - if there's nothing fun about it it's not a game: it might be a contest, or a competition, but it's not a game.
If something (say, studying for the GRE) isn't fun to anybody else, but you make it fun for yourself, have you transformed that thing into a game?
(i don't have THE answer, but my instinct says that the focus here still isn't fun, fun has simply been introduced as a new element)
I've done little to actually define "game" - how do you define it?
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I'm actually quite fond of it.
Currently I'd define a game as a finite problem space whose solutions are discovered through play. I'm trying to come up with something sexier sounding, but it's a work in progress. Finite (maybe closed is better) because nothing from outside the game may alter the game; there is an unbreakable magic boundary around it. If something does intrude the game stops until the intrusive condition is removed, not like work which doesn't stop just because your hard drive melted. Well, what if we just call "hard drive melting" one of the problems in the set? Well, there is effectively an infinite number of problems one can encounter at work that must be solved, this is not true for a game. I call the game a problem space because goal oriented play ultimately is about solving problems. We try different theories, orientations, sequences, etc to achieve a desired result. In trying to achieve the result, we discover what the problems are to be solved. "Solutions discovered through play" is necessary to distinguish games from their close cousins tests, which are also closed problem spaces but they are not played. The solutions to a test are achieved through remembering either specific information or specific processes. This memory is helpful but not required for a game, in fact a game is the process by which such memories can be formed. Thus a game then is a set of hidden problems defined by the rules which must be followed to achieve its goals. That actually was my first definition of game. Wouldn't you agree it's much less sexy than a finite problem space whose solutions are discovered through play? I'm still working on it.
Very concise! Sounds like a derivation of Von Neumann & Morgenstern's Mathematical Theory of games. I'd agree that to be a game something has to have a rule set, otherwise it's undirected play. But V&M specifically state that their work is not about traditional games but about rational decision making (the diff being that having a good time isn't the point of a "rational game"). I personally think fun is a necessary component for games - which brings me to...
@Chris
Nice work! I'd say that unfun games (I'm assuming that they were intended to be fun) just failed at their goal. As for training games - I've often heard them referred to as "simulations" or "exercises" - it's amazing how many things the term "game" covers. I like your definitions, but I think that they might require some extension to cover something like four square (the kids game played with a dodgeball). The rules aren't hidden, but the strategies for defeating a given opponent may be (i.e. Billy can't move as fast to his right) - so your definition works but with the tiniest stretch.
I posted this question b/c everyone on this site (with the exception of a single, bizarrely unintentionally funny Troll) is intelligent, thoughtful, and knowledgeable. So i was hoping for some well thought out definitions, and they're rolling in! I think many devs and scholars agree with Chris B. about games not requiring fun but requiring problem solving. My suspicion is, however, that the "man/woman on the street" would say that games are fun - for whateve that's worth.
Thanks for taking the time to respond!
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Often though these definitions get blurred anyway, the line between, work, art and games can and does crossover. Cannot art be undertaken for entertainment, and can it not fill a structure of rules/goals. Cannot art be undertaken for remuneration, what of games, could a game be played professionally (competitions), and thus be used as a way to make some cash, does it stop being a game under these circumstances. Cannot work be entertaining from time to time, and this makes it far more (excuse my poor linguistic skills) "gamey".
So such words should be treated as what they are, catch-alls, they're not a concrete definition but rather a generalisation, upon which we then apply a deeper clarity. For instance, Video Game implies a game and all that it entails in some sort of digital media. Then we can impose a sub-genre, so we can have our Sci Fi - Video - Game. Genre definitions themselves are what should be used to imply the severity, and the use that such a game should be applied to. If you're given an Educational game then you understand the connotation that goes with that, there's no reason that you couldn't have something like a FPS Historical Fiction.
Anyway a game that is not fun only failed at it's goal if it was intended to be fun. Fun itself is not a component of a game, it's a by-product of well aimed rules and goals. Besides you have the thorny issue of, "if a game must be fun then there is no such thing as a game". This is simply because a game is NOT appealing to all audiences. Someone who doesn't enjoy a game, or undertake it for entertainment will point at it and declare it a game still, in this way even our social connotations that ride alongside games insist that fun is not a pre-requisite....unless we want to get finicky and declare that as not being a game for that singular individual....
Also because I cannot resist the temptation....must something that's entertaining be fun, I do believe entertainment itself is defined as merely being diversionary....
Well put!
I agree that "game" is a catch all (thus the teaser section about Eskimo words for snow and the english word 'game'....); however, I can't think of a single metaphorical extension of "game" (i.e. 'to him, seduction was a game' or 'to her, courtroom litigation was a game') where the connotation isn't about the 'actor' playing said 'game' for their own enjoyment - even when it is to their detriment. Furthmore, the phrase 'this isn't a game' is employed in situations (often training exercises) where the individual being addressed is putting their own enjoyment ahead of a primary goal (learning, developing proficiency, etc.). Huizinga's Magic Circle epitomized this philosophy of fun - if anything breaks the magic circle (that is, interrupts the harmless, inconsequential fun), then the play is no longer a game, but something else.
For me, "game" is like the scientific term "particle" - it doesn't delineate every characteristic of each phenomenon that can be labled a "particle", but rather it defines the core characteristic of a whole class of phenomena. And for me that core characteristic is fun - as i stated above, i'm well aware that others place problem solving or goal achievement at the core of games, and i have no problem with that. =)
"He couldn't help but think to himself, law is naught but a vicious game, played by lawyers, with the average joe as naught but a helpless playing piece. "It's a game all right, a game I'm good at, so I'll keep playing, but I can't never say I'll ever enjoy it" "
Now under that same little piece of metaphorical narrative, law is a game, but an un-enjoyable one (from our character's perspective). The piece is still understandable, at no point does the concept that a game "must" be fun, play a part. As for the "This isn't a game" saying, as you said, it's only used in a situation where a person isn't treating the activity as something done solely for personal acquisition(in your example education or training is the acquisition of a new skill set), while another person is viewing it as such.
My biggest issue is really just one of definition. Connotation, and Definition are two very different things, that a lot of people seem to get muddled. A game does not "have" to be fun. That's most assuredly not how it's defined. The connotation on the other hand is that games are "primarily" fun.
It's the same as someone telling me they're bored, and me then telling them to "go read a book". The connotation is often that I want them to read a novel, but equally book is not defined by being a novel, they could go pick up a dictionary and still fall within the definition of "book", even though they've escaped the bounds of what I was implying they do.
As for other words to replace "game", "Interactive media" is bad as it's imprecise. A book is interactive media, I turn pages, can skip back and forth when I want, I interpret how I see fit, I can start and stop, hell if unhappy with it I can tear it up thus ending the story then and there. All interactive media implies is a medium that can be interacted with. So canvas is interactive media, as I can paint on it....Anyway I think you can see my point, far too many attempts to redefine what we do/build/enjoy simply add an extra level of confusion by relying entirely on social connotation rather than hard definition.
Game is the perfect word to describe what we make, I question why people need different words to describe fun games, un-fun games, art games or "serious games" (shudders), that is what we have adjectives for!
Again your thoughts are insightful and a welcome perspective! Your point is taken...[devil's advocate: even in your example, however, it seems implicit that some of the lawyers enjoy the game ;-p]
The point of this blog, as we have amply demonstrated, is that "game" is an amazing word - used so often is so many contexts that it has subsumed many connotations into its denotation, viz. dictionary.reference.com/browse/game.
Great discussion from all!