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Nail Games Biography
This paper proposes a definition of games. I describe the classic game model, a list of six features that are necessary and sufficient for something to be a game. The definition shows games to be transmedial: There is no single game medium, but rather a number of game media, each with its own strengths. The computer is simply the latest game medium to emerge. While computer games1 are therefore part of the broader area of games, they have in many cases evolved beyond the classic game model.
Keywords
Game definition, game history, transmedial gaming; computer game history.
Introduction
Why is there an affinity between computers and games? Why do we play games on computers rather than using any other recent technology such as the telephone, TV, microwave ovens, cars, or airplanes? Computers appear to work as enablers of games, supporting and promoting games much in the way that the technologies of the printing press, cinema, and television have promoted storytelling. But how do we explain this affinity?
My intention here is to claim the existence of a classic game model; a standard model for creating games, a model that appears to have been constant for several thousand years. While computer games were initially based almost exclusively on the classic game model, we can point to several ways in which they have evolved from their non-electronic roots.
While many definitions of games have been attempted, my goal here is to create a game definition capable of explaining what relates computer games to other games and what happens on the borders of the field of games. But what should the definition to look like? We are probably interested in understanding both the properties of the games themselves (the artifact designed by the game developers), how you interact with them as a player, and what the relation is between playing and, say, working. So let's assume that a good game definition should describe three things: 1) The kinds of systems set up by the rules of a game (the game). 2) The relation between the game and the player of the game (the player). 3) The relation between the playing of the game and the rest of the world (the world).2
As demonstrated by Bernard Suits (1978), the simplest way to test a game definition is to test it for being either too broad or too narrow. To set up the test before the definition, I will assume that Quake III, EverQuest, checkers, chess, soccer, tennis, Hearts, Solitaire and pinball are games; that open-ended simulation games such as Sims and Sim City, gambling, and games of pure chance are borderline cases; and that traffic, war, hypertext fiction, free-form play and ring-a-ring-a-roses are not games. The definition should be able to tell what falls inside from what falls outside the set of games, but also to explain in detail why and how some things are on the border of the definition. The existence of borderline cases is not a problem for the definition as long as we are able to understand why a specific game is a borderline case.
Some previous definitions
The method I am applying here is to go through seven previous definitions of games, pick out their similarities and point to any modifications or clarifications needed for our current purpose. But before going over the previous definitions, we should note that the definitions do not necessarily try to describe the same aspect of games: Some focus purely on the game as such, some focus purely on the activity of playing a game. Additionally, it turns out that many things can be expressed in different ways. When one writer mentions goals and another mentions conflict, it is possible to translate between them: The notion of conflict entails (conflicting) goals; the notion of goals seems to entail the possibility of not reaching the goal, and thereby also a conflict. We will get back to this, but let us simply list seven game definitions which we will then categorize afterwardsThere are probably more commonalities than differences in these definitions. But if we return to the idea that we want to look at games on three different levels, we can sort the points of the individual definitions according to what they describe. For example, "rules" describes games as a formal system. That a game is "outside ordinary life" describes the relation between the game and the rest of the world. But that a game has an "object to be obtained" describes the game as formal system and the relation between the player and the game. If we take "goals" and "conflict" to be different ways of expressing the same concept, this allows us to gather all the points of the definitions under ten headings
Nail Games Biography
This paper proposes a definition of games. I describe the classic game model, a list of six features that are necessary and sufficient for something to be a game. The definition shows games to be transmedial: There is no single game medium, but rather a number of game media, each with its own strengths. The computer is simply the latest game medium to emerge. While computer games1 are therefore part of the broader area of games, they have in many cases evolved beyond the classic game model.
Keywords
Game definition, game history, transmedial gaming; computer game history.
Introduction
Why is there an affinity between computers and games? Why do we play games on computers rather than using any other recent technology such as the telephone, TV, microwave ovens, cars, or airplanes? Computers appear to work as enablers of games, supporting and promoting games much in the way that the technologies of the printing press, cinema, and television have promoted storytelling. But how do we explain this affinity?
My intention here is to claim the existence of a classic game model; a standard model for creating games, a model that appears to have been constant for several thousand years. While computer games were initially based almost exclusively on the classic game model, we can point to several ways in which they have evolved from their non-electronic roots.
While many definitions of games have been attempted, my goal here is to create a game definition capable of explaining what relates computer games to other games and what happens on the borders of the field of games. But what should the definition to look like? We are probably interested in understanding both the properties of the games themselves (the artifact designed by the game developers), how you interact with them as a player, and what the relation is between playing and, say, working. So let's assume that a good game definition should describe three things: 1) The kinds of systems set up by the rules of a game (the game). 2) The relation between the game and the player of the game (the player). 3) The relation between the playing of the game and the rest of the world (the world).2
As demonstrated by Bernard Suits (1978), the simplest way to test a game definition is to test it for being either too broad or too narrow. To set up the test before the definition, I will assume that Quake III, EverQuest, checkers, chess, soccer, tennis, Hearts, Solitaire and pinball are games; that open-ended simulation games such as Sims and Sim City, gambling, and games of pure chance are borderline cases; and that traffic, war, hypertext fiction, free-form play and ring-a-ring-a-roses are not games. The definition should be able to tell what falls inside from what falls outside the set of games, but also to explain in detail why and how some things are on the border of the definition. The existence of borderline cases is not a problem for the definition as long as we are able to understand why a specific game is a borderline case.
Some previous definitions
The method I am applying here is to go through seven previous definitions of games, pick out their similarities and point to any modifications or clarifications needed for our current purpose. But before going over the previous definitions, we should note that the definitions do not necessarily try to describe the same aspect of games: Some focus purely on the game as such, some focus purely on the activity of playing a game. Additionally, it turns out that many things can be expressed in different ways. When one writer mentions goals and another mentions conflict, it is possible to translate between them: The notion of conflict entails (conflicting) goals; the notion of goals seems to entail the possibility of not reaching the goal, and thereby also a conflict. We will get back to this, but let us simply list seven game definitions which we will then categorize afterwardsThere are probably more commonalities than differences in these definitions. But if we return to the idea that we want to look at games on three different levels, we can sort the points of the individual definitions according to what they describe. For example, "rules" describes games as a formal system. That a game is "outside ordinary life" describes the relation between the game and the rest of the world. But that a game has an "object to be obtained" describes the game as formal system and the relation between the player and the game. If we take "goals" and "conflict" to be different ways of expressing the same concept, this allows us to gather all the points of the definitions under ten headings
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