Video Game Designers on “What Is a Game?”
at 6:00 am on September 18, 2009 • Leave a comment
When people talk of video games today, they often think first of World of Warcraft or similar games. Yet games take on many forms and purposes. Game designers themselves often debate what is and isn’t a game. So we asked two leaders in the field how they define a game.
Eric Zimmerman, Cofounder & CEO of Gamelab
In Rules of Play (MIT Press, 2003), Katie Salen and I define a game as “a system of artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.” That is a fairly formal definition, but it is quite useful for helping to identify what is and is not a game, both on and off the computer. For example, the idea of “quantifiable outcome” - the fact that a game has an end, and someone wins or loses, we all win or lose together, or get some kind of numerical score when the game is over - helps differentiate games from more informal kinds of play. Casually tossing a frisbee around is play, but playing a match of Ultimate Frisbee is a game.
However, for designers, the value of a definition is not its ability to describe some kind of objective truth, but instead definitions are useful if they help us understand and solve problems. So I would never propose that there is a single, “correct” definition of a game. Definitions can help us come to terms with complex concepts, but there are always going to be exceptions to a definition, places where it breaks down and fails to clearly apply. In fact, these more ambiguous, less-definable cases are often the most interesting ones.
For example, the idea from our definition that the conflict of a game is “artificial”—that it is separate from ordinary life”—is certainly true of the classical notion of a game. From a traditional point of view, the king in Chess is only valuable within a Chess game, and winning a Chess match doesn’t affect your life outside the game. However, there are many interesting games that violate this characteristic, that blur the lines between the space of the game and the space of real life. Games that are designed to teach players or convince them of something, or games like Alternate Reality Games that use real life as the playfield of the game, are all examples of games that aren’t, strictly speaking, “artificial.”
It is important to use definitions to understand what we mean when we talk about games. But it is just as important to recognize the limitations of any given definition as well. And as well all know, definitions, like rules, are made to be broken.
We’ll hear from others in the future. We’d love to hear from readers about what you think constitutes a game.
Next: Why a Former Teacher Now Designs Games > >
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