Theory of Play

So, I've been reading several other blogs lately about video games; what makes them fun, what makes them fail, elements of a successful game, and so on. Some of these are written by people with a lot of experience making games, some by people with no experience making games, and both are awesome. I think everyone has opinions on what they like and, more importantly, *why* they like it.

Anyway, my biggest gripe with the game design discussion at large is that people are talking at it from every conceivable angle. When people talk about this stuff, they limit the range of their discussion to the kinds of games they like and know about. I mean, you kind of have to. But, it also means that two people talking about games are using the same words, but talking about very different things.

I think the root of this problem lies in the very idea of a game.

I remember in one of my first classes in grad school the professor asked the class 'what is a game?'. It took a little while for the 'duh' factor to wear off. I mean, we were all here to learn *how* to make games, not what they are. We already knew what they were. Games are . . .

The truth is, games are not easy to define, and out of a class of about 25 people, we had 25 different definitions of what constitutes a game. There was a lot of overlap between them, but between any two people I could name some random activity and one person would define it as a game while the other one would not.

Since that class I've spent a lot of time thinking about not just what a game is, but where games come from and why we play them. One of the minor epiphanies I've had is that the reason everyone has a slightly different idea about what constitutes a game is because the notion of a game is already so intrinsic. You don't need to explain the concept of a game to someone in order to play it, you just need to explain the rules. There's already something very deep-seated in people in general geared towards playing games and watching other people play games.

So, as I find time and ways to word them properly, I'll be posting about what I think games are and why we play them.