Another meaning of 'game' to add to the list is 'a collective noun for swans'. (Other collective nouns for swans are available). A game of swans probably dates back to some 15th century book of courtesy. It may be in the future that 'game' is applied as a collective noun for thrones too.
Thanks Leslie for this wonderful overview of game definitions. For me, a definition is a tool for DOING something. More than trying to arrive at a single definition of games, I have found it useful to think about WHY is someone trying to define them.
Are you narrowing the field of everything that might possibly be considered a game in order to highlight a particular feature? Or expanding the tent to let in things that we might not normally think of as games? Or maybe you're just deciding what products to put in the "games" section of your store.
And in any case, it's often those things that slip between and through definitions that are the most interesting. :)
BP has plans to publish an in-depth review of 'The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia' by Bernard Suits - but even so, at the very least, I should have mentioned Suits (and his wonderful book) in my summary of current thinking.
Suits argues that not only can games be meaningfully defined, but also that game playing is the central part of the ideal of human existence. And he makes his 'case' in the form of dialogues between the Grasshopper and his disciples (one Skepticus in particular).
'To play a game is to engage in an activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity'. so states The Grasshopper
Another meaning of 'game' to add to the list is 'a collective noun for swans'. (Other collective nouns for swans are available). A game of swans probably dates back to some 15th century book of courtesy. It may be in the future that 'game' is applied as a collective noun for thrones too.
Game of Thrones? Ah, I think you could be on to something big here, Jerome!
Thanks Leslie for this wonderful overview of game definitions. For me, a definition is a tool for DOING something. More than trying to arrive at a single definition of games, I have found it useful to think about WHY is someone trying to define them.
Are you narrowing the field of everything that might possibly be considered a game in order to highlight a particular feature? Or expanding the tent to let in things that we might not normally think of as games? Or maybe you're just deciding what products to put in the "games" section of your store.
And in any case, it's often those things that slip between and through definitions that are the most interesting. :)
To discuss 'things that slip between and through definitions' would be a wonderful tagline for Boundless Play! Thank you, Eric
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What about Bernard Suits, the philosopher of games and gaming, his definition of a game, in its broadest sense:
The voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.
It at least has the merit of brevity.
I was thinking yesterday about how we instinctively understand what we mean by a game.
Taking to my son about office politics, I said, often you need to treat it as a game. He knew exactly what I meant.
THANK YOU, Stephen.
BP has plans to publish an in-depth review of 'The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia' by Bernard Suits - but even so, at the very least, I should have mentioned Suits (and his wonderful book) in my summary of current thinking.
Suits argues that not only can games be meaningfully defined, but also that game playing is the central part of the ideal of human existence. And he makes his 'case' in the form of dialogues between the Grasshopper and his disciples (one Skepticus in particular).
'To play a game is to engage in an activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favour of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity'. so states The Grasshopper