Yeah that was surprisingly difficult, and perhaps even a little upsetting to fill in. Something about gently being led to the realisation that there was no easy internally consistent position that...
Yeah that was surprisingly difficult, and perhaps even a little upsetting to fill in.
Something about gently being led to the realisation that there was no easy internally consistent position that would align with my intuition, followed by rethinking a few earlier answers and still not really coming up with a definition I was happy with.
Most of it was straightforward to me, even if some of my answers would be hot takes in the wider community. But I am a game dev who has had to consider this question constantly, so it makes sense....
Most of it was straightforward to me, even if some of my answers would be hot takes in the wider community. But I am a game dev who has had to consider this question constantly, so it makes sense.
I think the one aspect that threw me for a loop (and a hint of my hot take) was "someone separate from the participant sets the rules", and even though I ultimately agreed, I'm still not truly sure. I can see a case of a self paced "game" where you are the rule maker and sole participant, but at that point you can consider the act of many activities like writing, walking, and commubicating a "game". And that didn't feel right.
Feels right to me. You ever write poetry? Avoid stepping on cracks for no particular reason? Put an elegantly persuasive argument together? Those all feel game-ish to me. Some other questions: Is...
but at that point you can consider the act of many activities like writing, walking, and [communicating] a "game". And that didn't feel right.
Feels right to me. You ever write poetry? Avoid stepping on cracks for no particular reason? Put an elegantly persuasive argument together? Those all feel game-ish to me.
What is a game? It's a thing that's surprisingly hard to nail down. I've seen a lot of different takes and definitions but it seems like they're all either so specific that they exclude things I'd...
What is a game?
It's a thing that's surprisingly hard to nail down. I've seen a lot of different takes and definitions but it seems like they're all either so specific that they exclude things I'd consider a game. Or so open that basically any activity is a game.
I do youtube videos on video game trivia and minutiae, and I'm planning to tackle this question in the future. I'm hoping to get some data to work with on where people generally draw the line and what specifically they feel is necessary for something to be a game.
When I first saw the title with the form link, I thought this would be a game in Google Forms and now I'm thinking of how that could be made. Also filled up the form! Edit: I made the Google form...
When I first saw the title with the form link, I thought this would be a game in Google Forms and now I'm thinking of how that could be made. Also filled up the form!
Hmm, that really made me realise how different my internal “definition” of a game is for physical games and digital ones. For computer games, my definition is much more lax, allowing for puzzle...
Hmm, that really made me realise how different my internal “definition” of a game is for physical games and digital ones.
For computer games, my definition is much more lax, allowing for puzzle games, clicker games and even something like “The Button”. But with physical games, I need multiple players, winning or losing, some “agency” (even if that “agency” is just rolling a dice such as snakes and ladders).
This leads to the seemingly contradictory premise that a sudoku in the paper is not a game, just a puzzle, whereas put it on a computer and it becomes a game.
I think the key difference is the classification of puzzles. Where a physical puzzle would not be classified as a game, a digital puzzle is a “puzzle game” and would be a puzzle game
For me at least the distinction is that in the process of digitizing a puzzle rules are added to check the results and that makes it a game. For example a website with a picture of a sudoku puzzle...
For me at least the distinction is that in the process of digitizing a puzzle rules are added to check the results and that makes it a game. For example a website with a picture of a sudoku puzzle isn't a game. A website with an interactive puzzle that checks the input is a game.
If I recall correctly, according to behaviorists, a game is an activity that is enjoyable (it triggers dopamine release), engaging (it holds your attention for some time), and requires some degree...
If I recall correctly, according to behaviorists, a game is an activity that is enjoyable (it triggers dopamine release), engaging (it holds your attention for some time), and requires some degree of skill (you learn while playing). In that sense, almost anything can be considered a game if you approach it with the right mindset. That’s essentially where the concept of gamification comes from.
That’s what I missed in this form, especially in the last section with the checkboxes. If an activity has enjoyable gameplay, then it’s a game to me.
I won't push too hard on this because it ultimately is subjective. but I'd emphasize "engaging" a lot more than "enjoyable" in your lens. There's an entire category of gaming called "serious...
I won't push too hard on this because it ultimately is subjective. but I'd emphasize "engaging" a lot more than "enjoyable" in your lens. There's an entire category of gaming called "serious games" (and I really hate this term aesthetically, but it is what it is) whose goals are certainly to engage a player but oftentimes not come out with an "enjoyable" experience.
And then on a lighter hearted tone, you have games like QWOP or "Getting over it", where the engagement lies in its intentionally frustrating controls and level design. But I suppose frustration can be its own type of joy, similar to a horror movie you go into expecting to be terrified.
I didn't hear the term "serious game" before. After quick search it seems that it is "gamified" education process. Am I right in this conclusion? Regarding enjoyment, even physical pain could be...
I didn't hear the term "serious game" before. After quick search it seems that it is "gamified" education process. Am I right in this conclusion?
Regarding enjoyment, even physical pain could be pleasant to some people (and be turned into a game). We are weird species.
I think the language in the survey is sometimes too specific and sometimes too broad to support my view. In my view, a game is participatory entertainment based on activity around an artificial...
I think the language in the survey is sometimes too specific and sometimes too broad to support my view.
In my view, a game is participatory entertainment based on activity around an artificial premise. Participatory in the sense that you create the entertainment for yourself by participating in the activity, not merely as a bystander. Artificial in that the premise is something you have created or made up for the purpose of that entertainment, not simply a matter of fact that exists regardless.
The premise isn't necessarily a set of rules. It can be supported by rules, but I think many activities which qualify as games don't really have or aren't primarily based on rules. For examples, kids playing cops and robbers.
To elaborate on the idea of an artificial premise, "I have to jump over a hole to get past it" is a suitable premise for a game if there is no hole. Also if there is a hole, but you don't have to jump to get past it". Also if there is a hole, you'd have to jump to get past it, but don't actually have to get past it. On the other hand, if there actually is a hole, you actually have to get past it and you actually have to jump over it to do that, it's not an artificial premise and jumping over the hole is not a game. I use "have to" very loosely here for any incentive other than immediate, personal entertainment.
I guess the most controversial aspects of this definition is that almost all kinds of child's play are games and that professional sports aren't necessarily.
I like your response a lot. For me looking over the survey, i too felt it was missing the essential view that there’s an agreement of some kind (can be tacit) to some kind of constraints for the...
I like your response a lot. For me looking over the survey, i too felt it was missing the essential view that there’s an agreement of some kind (can be tacit) to some kind of constraints for the purpose of having fun. I consider pretty much everything my kids do together as a game, because they are always making rules/adjustments to see what happens or what can emerge. That is where the fun and surprises are.
If there's one thing that efforts like this, and other similar questions "is a hotdog a sandwich?" has revealed, it's not really anything about the answers to the questions themselves, it's that...
If there's one thing that efforts like this, and other similar questions "is a hotdog a sandwich?" has revealed, it's not really anything about the answers to the questions themselves, it's that human beings, most of them anyway, are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty, or fuzziness.
The most accurate answer to all of those edge cases is probably "kinda". That's not acceptable to a large swath people though. We love to meticulously categorize things, and when something doesn't neatly fall into a category, a crazy list of post facto rules are invented to handle those edge cases.
This is especially prevalent online, maybe because there are so many programmers and other computer people online that have a subconscious desire to make life make sense in the way a computer program does. Maybe it comes from a lack of nuance being conferred over text. Maybe it's just because people like to argue.
When doing the original quiz though, most of my answers were more like "well... Kinda?" though.
Is a puzzle a game? I don't know, maybe a little bit. Is a foot race a game? Sort of. Is tossing a coin a game? Kinda.
A lot of angry and very serious arguments come from this incessant need to categorize things as well. What is a terrorist? What is a woman? Is someone good or evil?
It seems that human beings prefer the world to be a lot more binary than it really is.
Very much agree on accepting ambiguity and fuzzy boundaries! I also would add that categories are usually only useful in a specific context. There's rarely a universal definition but there might...
Very much agree on accepting ambiguity and fuzzy boundaries! I also would add that categories are usually only useful in a specific context. There's rarely a universal definition but there might be better definitions for a specific purpose, eg. laws, branding, search, etc. So much of semantic arguing seems to resolve around trying to find the one definition to rule them all.
I recall someone seeing me in the midst of an attempt at a newspaper crossword puzzle once, and them saying, "Wow, you play those?" It was one of the most confusing moments of my life; I hadn't...
I recall someone seeing me in the midst of an attempt at a newspaper crossword puzzle once, and them saying, "Wow, you play those?" It was one of the most confusing moments of my life; I hadn't heard anyone refer to "playing" crosswords before, and I haven't heard it since. They wandered off to incredulously tell someone else that I was "playing" the newspaper crossword, with the implied notion that me bothering with that marked me as some sort of weirdo. By my guess, the attitude probably was related to the verbiage.
A common complaint about the video game The Witness (where you wander about an island solving line puzzles on panels) is, "There's no reward for completing puzzles! All you get are more puzzles." I've seen this in countless reviews and it's never made sense to me. Isn't the satisfaction of solving the puzzle the reward? Haven't they done crosswords before, or jigsaw puzzles, or word search puzzles, or just any kind of puzzle? I'm amazed at how frequently someone would have to chime in to explain that the "upgrades" you earn in the game are the increasing levels of understanding of the rules that you figure out on your own, i.e. more knowledge to tackle higher difficulty puzzles.
I used to hope those complaints were just voiced by a subset of modern gamers conditioned to crave a light-flashing, bell-jingling dopamine hit for every bit of progress, but it's depressingly common.
I'm pretty sure many people have a certain definition that is contradicted somewhere along the line by mere received custom of using the word "play" with specific activities. We instinctively will associate anything we say someone plays with a game. That probably reflects how the definition of games has changed over time, with the language usage potentially not always changing with it.
I selected "yes" to pretty much everything. The one exception was the one about picking a random person on the street, which I would have said "yes" to had it been "was I playing a game?" A couple...
I selected "yes" to pretty much everything. The one exception was the one about picking a random person on the street, which I would have said "yes" to had it been "was I playing a game?" A couple I felt torn on just due to wording, e.g. you can "read" Where's Waldo without actually "playing" Where's Waldo by going page to page and looking at the pictures without looking for Waldo.
The definition I'd be most inclined to would be the cop-out definition. A game is an engaging activity that the participants consider a game, often involving arbitrary rules, competition, or repetitive, non-productive activity. A race between children would typically be a game, but professional sports not as likely. Sports stop being a game when the participants stop considering it thus. Picking someone on the street and declaring them a winner could be a game for you; the random people on the street you're picking among would say they're just walking and not playing a game so it's not a game for them.
That's interesting, because it rules out one of the most famous and fundemental thought experiments in game theory, the prisoners dilemma. None of the participants in the "game" are willing. It's...
That's interesting, because it rules out one of the most famous and fundemental thought experiments in game theory, the prisoners dilemma. None of the participants in the "game" are willing. It's formally described as a game though.
I don't disagree with you necessarily, I probably wouldn't initially considers prisoners vying for a reduced sentence as a game, but maybe by the formal, academic definition it is.
I think specialized terminology, particularly academic or field specific language like "game theory" has to be considered separate from the other definitions of a word. It's like how every...
I think specialized terminology, particularly academic or field specific language like "game theory" has to be considered separate from the other definitions of a word.
It's like how every discussion about race involving even a hint of criticism isn't the same as Critical Race Theory.
Well a thought experiment of a hypothetical game I think is a special category in and of itself. It'd be similar to the Saw "games" or even the "pick a winner on the street" hypothetical from the...
Well a thought experiment of a hypothetical game I think is a special category in and of itself. It'd be similar to the Saw "games" or even the "pick a winner on the street" hypothetical from the survey, I'd say it's maybe a game to the judge/sadist but not to the criminals/victims. I'm comfortable with a game, as a social construct, being more a subjective than objective thing.
I filled it in, I went completely by gut feeling, so I don't know if my responses were coherent as I treated it more as a intuitive linguistic exercise than a rules-based one if that makes sense.
I filled it in, I went completely by gut feeling, so I don't know if my responses were coherent as I treated it more as a intuitive linguistic exercise than a rules-based one if that makes sense.
I consider it a missed opportunity that the survey didn't ask if answering the survey itself was a game :P Filling it out actually surprised me by how many things are "game" adjacent that I...
I consider it a missed opportunity that the survey didn't ask if answering the survey itself was a game :P
Filling it out actually surprised me by how many things are "game" adjacent that I actually consider to be "competitions." And I'm not sure I can articulate why. It seems to involve competing players or teams interacting with each other.
Tennis - individual - "game"
Soccer - team - "game"
Swimming relay - team - "competition"
Pole vault - individual - "competition"
As with many things relating to language, especially English, I'm sure there are exceptions that I haven't thought of yet. I imagine my definition of "game" and "competition" have more to do with how I heard them used growing up than any intentional rules or qualifications. Though I may be able to come up with some that often apply, I doubt they're consistent.
It's like "pornography" in that way. I can't define what a "game" is, but I know it when I'm playing one.
I don't like the idea of formalizing that kind of thing. That often leads to a long chain of reasoning that manages to be internally consistent while completely missing the point. Those are fuzzy...
I don't like the idea of formalizing that kind of thing. That often leads to a long chain of reasoning that manages to be internally consistent while completely missing the point. Those are fuzzy social concepts. For lack of a better word, I prefer being deliberately "obtuse". Similar to the concept of art and the concept of sport, this is about what feels like a game.
For something to feel like a game, it must require enough of my input, and that input must be at the very least marginally consequential to an outcome. If a piece of media only requires consequential input every hour, I'll probably say there is not enough gameplay for me to think of it as a game.
Even on a walking simulator with no fail condition, I at least decide where I am walking to, the things I am seeing. That's a game.
I don't feel like many traditional visual novels are games because meaningful input is so rare and spread apart that it feels more like reading an illustrated novel than playing a game.
I know people get angry with this opinion. I'm sorry about that. That is just how I feel.
I like novels, and to me, calling something a novel is not an insult.
I did answer the questions even though I can't really say for sure if something is a game in abstract. I would have to play those things, whatever they are. But most things there are games to me. There was no visual novel question. I feel like it should have. It's a common example of something which people disagree about being a game or not.
Just found two links that you might be interested in: An article that highlights problems with definitions of the term "game" A comic strip about board game that is not a game
Just found two links that you might be interested in:
An article that highlights problems with definitions of the term "game"
I really like that comic. Functionally the player has as much agency with dice as they do cards. But it feels different that the winner is decided the second the cards are shuffled.
I really like that comic. Functionally the player has as much agency with dice as they do cards. But it feels different that the winner is decided the second the cards are shuffled.
This is something that has intrigued me a lot. This may be a little bit of a stretch, but this sort reminds me a lot about how difficult it is for people to peg down "types" in programming. E.g.,...
This is something that has intrigued me a lot.
This may be a little bit of a stretch, but this sort reminds me a lot about how difficult it is for people to peg down "types" in programming. E.g., how do we define the shape, properties and structure of an abstract "thing"?
I would say, in loose terms, I view a "game" as: something that one or more participants, willfully place themselves into an "activity" where they expect some level (or at least the probability) of satisfaction.
This could be satisfaction of the leisure of an activity, the excellence of striving for your best, the joy from "solving" something. It could also be some actual "typical" reward like the cash from gambling. I think it closely relates to some form of deriving pleasure from the activity, or at least the expectation of it.
For instance, I have a degree in mathematics and computer science, and I derive "pleasure" from seeing excellent proofs, or challenging problems. However I did not list "taking a math test" as being a game, because I don't think I would associate the rigor, stress, and connotations of an academic test to be "positive". At least not within The United States.
I don't think that's for everyone, but I would expect most people view math tests in a "I hope I do well, or I will flunk out of this class", rather than a "I hope I do well or I won't have fun!".
This all reminds me a lot of Aristotle's "Eudaimonia".
I was really hoping that answering the survey would help me nail down my definition of a "game," but I cannot for the life of me figure out how a math quiz is homeomorphically distinct from a...
I was really hoping that answering the survey would help me nail down my definition of a "game," but I cannot for the life of me figure out how a math quiz is homeomorphically distinct from a crossword puzzle, and I said a crossword puzzle is a game. I've never been so uncomfortable answering a survey question in my life.
Games like early versions of Minecraft where you can neither win nor lose
If I were to define it as broadly as possible, a game would have to be something where the participant is aware they are participating, they have to interact with the game somehow, and their...
If I were to define it as broadly as possible, a game would have to be something where the participant is aware they are participating, they have to interact with the game somehow, and their interactions have to have some kind of effect. Everything else lends more structure to the game but isn't strictly necessary.
For example, say you're taking a stroll without any particular destination. It's not actually a game until you consciously consider it to be a game and have made yourself a participant. In order to "play", you have to walk, and walking has the effect of moving your physical position. There aren't any rules other than "walk", there's no win or lose condition, you may not even be going on a stroll willingly or having fun. But, you are "playing" the game of "taking a stroll", and you're aware of what you must do to play.
Another more extreme example would be one of the victims in a SAW movie. They're not playing a game until Jigsaw tells them he wants to play a game, and even then if they choose to not consider it a game but merely a struggle to survive, then they are technically not playing a game.
Now let's consider another scenario where someone is interacting with a game but doesn't consider themself to be "playing". Say somebody is doing QA testing for a video game. They are technically "playing" the game, but if they consider that to be "working" and not "playing", are they really playing the game? If other people consider that person to be playing that game, are they playing the game anyway? Whose perspective actually matters here, the observer's, or the participant's?
Yeah that was surprisingly difficult, and perhaps even a little upsetting to fill in.
Something about gently being led to the realisation that there was no easy internally consistent position that would align with my intuition, followed by rethinking a few earlier answers and still not really coming up with a definition I was happy with.
Most of it was straightforward to me, even if some of my answers would be hot takes in the wider community. But I am a game dev who has had to consider this question constantly, so it makes sense.
I think the one aspect that threw me for a loop (and a hint of my hot take) was "someone separate from the participant sets the rules", and even though I ultimately agreed, I'm still not truly sure. I can see a case of a self paced "game" where you are the rule maker and sole participant, but at that point you can consider the act of many activities like writing, walking, and commubicating a "game". And that didn't feel right.
Feels right to me. You ever write poetry? Avoid stepping on cracks for no particular reason? Put an elegantly persuasive argument together? Those all feel game-ish to me.
Some other questions:
Calvinball should count as a game, and fails that criteria completely.
What about Nomic, where the whole game is making the rules?
What is a game?
It's a thing that's surprisingly hard to nail down. I've seen a lot of different takes and definitions but it seems like they're all either so specific that they exclude things I'd consider a game. Or so open that basically any activity is a game.
I do youtube videos on video game trivia and minutiae, and I'm planning to tackle this question in the future. I'm hoping to get some data to work with on where people generally draw the line and what specifically they feel is necessary for something to be a game.
It would help me out a lot if anyone interested could take a minute to run through this survey: https://forms.gle/B3LJcSrwLjdxyYE26
(also feel free to share or repost it anywhere you think would be relevant)
When I first saw the title with the form link, I thought this would be a game in Google Forms and now I'm thinking of how that could be made. Also filled up the form!
Edit: I made the Google form game!. The word 'game' is very, very loosely applied to this in my opinion.
Do you mind sharing your channel or the results of the survey when you close it? I’d be curious about the results.
https://www.youtube.com/@DrAmazing
This is my channel. I'll definitely post the video for this one once it's done.
Were you inspired by these two surveys?
You should read Rules Of Play if you haven't already.
Hmm, that really made me realise how different my internal “definition” of a game is for physical games and digital ones.
For computer games, my definition is much more lax, allowing for puzzle games, clicker games and even something like “The Button”. But with physical games, I need multiple players, winning or losing, some “agency” (even if that “agency” is just rolling a dice such as snakes and ladders).
This leads to the seemingly contradictory premise that a sudoku in the paper is not a game, just a puzzle, whereas put it on a computer and it becomes a game.
I think the key difference is the classification of puzzles. Where a physical puzzle would not be classified as a game, a digital puzzle is a “puzzle game” and would be a puzzle game
For me at least the distinction is that in the process of digitizing a puzzle rules are added to check the results and that makes it a game. For example a website with a picture of a sudoku puzzle isn't a game. A website with an interactive puzzle that checks the input is a game.
If I recall correctly, according to behaviorists, a game is an activity that is enjoyable (it triggers dopamine release), engaging (it holds your attention for some time), and requires some degree of skill (you learn while playing). In that sense, almost anything can be considered a game if you approach it with the right mindset. That’s essentially where the concept of gamification comes from.
That’s what I missed in this form, especially in the last section with the checkboxes. If an activity has enjoyable gameplay, then it’s a game to me.
I won't push too hard on this because it ultimately is subjective. but I'd emphasize "engaging" a lot more than "enjoyable" in your lens. There's an entire category of gaming called "serious games" (and I really hate this term aesthetically, but it is what it is) whose goals are certainly to engage a player but oftentimes not come out with an "enjoyable" experience.
And then on a lighter hearted tone, you have games like QWOP or "Getting over it", where the engagement lies in its intentionally frustrating controls and level design. But I suppose frustration can be its own type of joy, similar to a horror movie you go into expecting to be terrified.
I didn't hear the term "serious game" before. After quick search it seems that it is "gamified" education process. Am I right in this conclusion?
Regarding enjoyment, even physical pain could be pleasant to some people (and be turned into a game). We are weird species.
I think the language in the survey is sometimes too specific and sometimes too broad to support my view.
In my view, a game is participatory entertainment based on activity around an artificial premise. Participatory in the sense that you create the entertainment for yourself by participating in the activity, not merely as a bystander. Artificial in that the premise is something you have created or made up for the purpose of that entertainment, not simply a matter of fact that exists regardless.
The premise isn't necessarily a set of rules. It can be supported by rules, but I think many activities which qualify as games don't really have or aren't primarily based on rules. For examples, kids playing cops and robbers.
To elaborate on the idea of an artificial premise, "I have to jump over a hole to get past it" is a suitable premise for a game if there is no hole. Also if there is a hole, but you don't have to jump to get past it". Also if there is a hole, you'd have to jump to get past it, but don't actually have to get past it. On the other hand, if there actually is a hole, you actually have to get past it and you actually have to jump over it to do that, it's not an artificial premise and jumping over the hole is not a game. I use "have to" very loosely here for any incentive other than immediate, personal entertainment.
I guess the most controversial aspects of this definition is that almost all kinds of child's play are games and that professional sports aren't necessarily.
I like your response a lot. For me looking over the survey, i too felt it was missing the essential view that there’s an agreement of some kind (can be tacit) to some kind of constraints for the purpose of having fun. I consider pretty much everything my kids do together as a game, because they are always making rules/adjustments to see what happens or what can emerge. That is where the fun and surprises are.
If there's one thing that efforts like this, and other similar questions "is a hotdog a sandwich?" has revealed, it's not really anything about the answers to the questions themselves, it's that human beings, most of them anyway, are deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty, or fuzziness.
The most accurate answer to all of those edge cases is probably "kinda". That's not acceptable to a large swath people though. We love to meticulously categorize things, and when something doesn't neatly fall into a category, a crazy list of post facto rules are invented to handle those edge cases.
This is especially prevalent online, maybe because there are so many programmers and other computer people online that have a subconscious desire to make life make sense in the way a computer program does. Maybe it comes from a lack of nuance being conferred over text. Maybe it's just because people like to argue.
When doing the original quiz though, most of my answers were more like "well... Kinda?" though.
Is a puzzle a game? I don't know, maybe a little bit. Is a foot race a game? Sort of. Is tossing a coin a game? Kinda.
A lot of angry and very serious arguments come from this incessant need to categorize things as well. What is a terrorist? What is a woman? Is someone good or evil?
It seems that human beings prefer the world to be a lot more binary than it really is.
I answered no to all questions because they're all part of life, and life's not a game
Impeccable and bulletproof reasoning
Milton Bradley would beg to differ.
Very much agree on accepting ambiguity and fuzzy boundaries! I also would add that categories are usually only useful in a specific context. There's rarely a universal definition but there might be better definitions for a specific purpose, eg. laws, branding, search, etc. So much of semantic arguing seems to resolve around trying to find the one definition to rule them all.
I recall someone seeing me in the midst of an attempt at a newspaper crossword puzzle once, and them saying, "Wow, you play those?" It was one of the most confusing moments of my life; I hadn't heard anyone refer to "playing" crosswords before, and I haven't heard it since. They wandered off to incredulously tell someone else that I was "playing" the newspaper crossword, with the implied notion that me bothering with that marked me as some sort of weirdo. By my guess, the attitude probably was related to the verbiage.
A common complaint about the video game The Witness (where you wander about an island solving line puzzles on panels) is, "There's no reward for completing puzzles! All you get are more puzzles." I've seen this in countless reviews and it's never made sense to me. Isn't the satisfaction of solving the puzzle the reward? Haven't they done crosswords before, or jigsaw puzzles, or word search puzzles, or just any kind of puzzle? I'm amazed at how frequently someone would have to chime in to explain that the "upgrades" you earn in the game are the increasing levels of understanding of the rules that you figure out on your own, i.e. more knowledge to tackle higher difficulty puzzles.
I used to hope those complaints were just voiced by a subset of modern gamers conditioned to crave a light-flashing, bell-jingling dopamine hit for every bit of progress, but it's depressingly common.
I'm pretty sure many people have a certain definition that is contradicted somewhere along the line by mere received custom of using the word "play" with specific activities. We instinctively will associate anything we say someone plays with a game. That probably reflects how the definition of games has changed over time, with the language usage potentially not always changing with it.
I selected "yes" to pretty much everything. The one exception was the one about picking a random person on the street, which I would have said "yes" to had it been "was I playing a game?" A couple I felt torn on just due to wording, e.g. you can "read" Where's Waldo without actually "playing" Where's Waldo by going page to page and looking at the pictures without looking for Waldo.
The definition I'd be most inclined to would be the cop-out definition. A game is an engaging activity that the participants consider a game, often involving arbitrary rules, competition, or repetitive, non-productive activity. A race between children would typically be a game, but professional sports not as likely. Sports stop being a game when the participants stop considering it thus. Picking someone on the street and declaring them a winner could be a game for you; the random people on the street you're picking among would say they're just walking and not playing a game so it's not a game for them.
That's interesting, because it rules out one of the most famous and fundemental thought experiments in game theory, the prisoners dilemma. None of the participants in the "game" are willing. It's formally described as a game though.
I don't disagree with you necessarily, I probably wouldn't initially considers prisoners vying for a reduced sentence as a game, but maybe by the formal, academic definition it is.
I think specialized terminology, particularly academic or field specific language like "game theory" has to be considered separate from the other definitions of a word.
It's like how every discussion about race involving even a hint of criticism isn't the same as Critical Race Theory.
Well a thought experiment of a hypothetical game I think is a special category in and of itself. It'd be similar to the Saw "games" or even the "pick a winner on the street" hypothetical from the survey, I'd say it's maybe a game to the judge/sadist but not to the criminals/victims. I'm comfortable with a game, as a social construct, being more a subjective than objective thing.
I filled it in, I went completely by gut feeling, so I don't know if my responses were coherent as I treated it more as a intuitive linguistic exercise than a rules-based one if that makes sense.
I consider it a missed opportunity that the survey didn't ask if answering the survey itself was a game :P
Filling it out actually surprised me by how many things are "game" adjacent that I actually consider to be "competitions." And I'm not sure I can articulate why. It seems to involve competing players or teams interacting with each other.
Tennis - individual - "game"
Soccer - team - "game"
Swimming relay - team - "competition"
Pole vault - individual - "competition"
As with many things relating to language, especially English, I'm sure there are exceptions that I haven't thought of yet. I imagine my definition of "game" and "competition" have more to do with how I heard them used growing up than any intentional rules or qualifications. Though I may be able to come up with some that often apply, I doubt they're consistent.
It's like "pornography" in that way. I can't define what a "game" is, but I know it when I'm playing one.
Is a password form a game?
Is this password form a game? (neal.fun link).
I don't like the idea of formalizing that kind of thing. That often leads to a long chain of reasoning that manages to be internally consistent while completely missing the point. Those are fuzzy social concepts. For lack of a better word, I prefer being deliberately "obtuse". Similar to the concept of art and the concept of sport, this is about what feels like a game.
For something to feel like a game, it must require enough of my input, and that input must be at the very least marginally consequential to an outcome. If a piece of media only requires consequential input every hour, I'll probably say there is not enough gameplay for me to think of it as a game.
Even on a walking simulator with no fail condition, I at least decide where I am walking to, the things I am seeing. That's a game.
I don't feel like many traditional visual novels are games because meaningful input is so rare and spread apart that it feels more like reading an illustrated novel than playing a game.
I know people get angry with this opinion. I'm sorry about that. That is just how I feel.
I like novels, and to me, calling something a novel is not an insult.
I did answer the questions even though I can't really say for sure if something is a game in abstract. I would have to play those things, whatever they are. But most things there are games to me. There was no visual novel question. I feel like it should have. It's a common example of something which people disagree about being a game or not.
Just found two links that you might be interested in:
I really like that comic. Functionally the player has as much agency with dice as they do cards. But it feels different that the winner is decided the second the cards are shuffled.
This is something that has intrigued me a lot.
This may be a little bit of a stretch, but this sort reminds me a lot about how difficult it is for people to peg down "types" in programming. E.g., how do we define the shape, properties and structure of an abstract "thing"?
I would say, in loose terms, I view a "game" as: something that one or more participants, willfully place themselves into an "activity" where they expect some level (or at least the probability) of satisfaction.
This could be satisfaction of the leisure of an activity, the excellence of striving for your best, the joy from "solving" something. It could also be some actual "typical" reward like the cash from gambling. I think it closely relates to some form of deriving pleasure from the activity, or at least the expectation of it.
For instance, I have a degree in mathematics and computer science, and I derive "pleasure" from seeing excellent proofs, or challenging problems. However I did not list "taking a math test" as being a game, because I don't think I would associate the rigor, stress, and connotations of an academic test to be "positive". At least not within The United States.
I don't think that's for everyone, but I would expect most people view math tests in a "I hope I do well, or I will flunk out of this class", rather than a "I hope I do well or I won't have fun!".
This all reminds me a lot of Aristotle's "Eudaimonia".
I was really hoping that answering the survey would help me nail down my definition of a "game," but I cannot for the life of me figure out how a math quiz is homeomorphically distinct from a crossword puzzle, and I said a crossword puzzle is a game. I've never been so uncomfortable answering a survey question in my life.
I have actually heard an interesting case for Minecraft not being a game. That said, I am descriptivist enough to answer yes to that question
If I were to define it as broadly as possible, a game would have to be something where the participant is aware they are participating, they have to interact with the game somehow, and their interactions have to have some kind of effect. Everything else lends more structure to the game but isn't strictly necessary.
For example, say you're taking a stroll without any particular destination. It's not actually a game until you consciously consider it to be a game and have made yourself a participant. In order to "play", you have to walk, and walking has the effect of moving your physical position. There aren't any rules other than "walk", there's no win or lose condition, you may not even be going on a stroll willingly or having fun. But, you are "playing" the game of "taking a stroll", and you're aware of what you must do to play.
Another more extreme example would be one of the victims in a SAW movie. They're not playing a game until Jigsaw tells them he wants to play a game, and even then if they choose to not consider it a game but merely a struggle to survive, then they are technically not playing a game.
Now let's consider another scenario where someone is interacting with a game but doesn't consider themself to be "playing". Say somebody is doing QA testing for a video game. They are technically "playing" the game, but if they consider that to be "working" and not "playing", are they really playing the game? If other people consider that person to be playing that game, are they playing the game anyway? Whose perspective actually matters here, the observer's, or the participant's?