Week One

A recent survey in the UK highlighted that “82% of nine to 19-year-olds have at least one games console and 70% play computer games online”(BBC Survey, 2006), so it is no surprise that many theorists have contested over a concrete definition for the term “game”. Salen & Zimmerman (2004, 96) (cited from the website below) argued that a “game” is “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome” However, this theory does have some potential flaws. It defines a game as needing some form of artificial conflict, but it cannot be applied to a game like Pinball as it is a singular game with no crisis or mystery to solve, you merely rack up points.
Another famous theorist, a philosopher called Ludwig Wittgenstein, believed that the word “game” couldn’t be defined by one singular description or definition (like what Salen & Zimmerman had done). His main line of argument was that games don’t share all the same features, but instead overlap on recurring characteristics. One such example could be found between Poker and Fifa 2007. Fifa 2007 doesn’t involve luck, it is competitive, and there is a winner/loser. In contrast, Poker is competitive, there is an outcome and the players are heavily reliant upon luck.
Another example could be that some people would say that games predominantly need more than one player, whether that is a human or a computer as opposition - Madden 2007 or Need For Speed. However, Solitaire does not need opposition and is still classed as a game.
One counter argument to all the examples above would be that the game genres are very different, so have different gaming qualities. However, if you take “outside activities” as a game genre, throwing a Frisbee involves accuracy, various players, and there is no winner/loser but the game Stuck in the Mud, has different qualities as it doesn’t take accuracy and there is a definite winner/loser.
Wittgenstein goes further to suggest that the term “game” is much like a rope, that it is not one fixed piece of thread, instead, it being a combination of smaller string entwined together to give us a broader definition. Another way of describing it would be that the definition of “game” would be much like a family, which has resemblances of one another and is not a singular clone.


Bibliography:

BBC Survey (2006) How gaming is all work and no play [Online]. Retrieved on 2nd March 2007 from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4774534.stm

Juul, J. (2007) "Game" From Half-Real: A Dictionary of Video Game Theory. [Online]. Retrieved on 2nd March 2007 from: http://www.half-real.net/dictionary/