That which we call Our Hero, by any other game, would play as sweet.
What is a game?
A game isn’t one thing, but a cluster of traits that, in sufficient combination, make us recognize something as a game. None of these are necessary, but enough of them is sufficient to make something a game. Some of those traits are:
- Competition and/or cooperation
- Ability to win and/or lose
- Use of toys, equipment, and/or pieces
- Play
- Fun and/or pleasure
- Turns
- Rules
- A self-contained world, protected from life’s other elements
- Practicing skills useful elsewhere
The trouble of defining game is the trouble of defining any abstract concept: when we say “X is a game,” we mean it has enough of the qualities we associate with games for our brains to light up in recognition. Hence our endless debates, like whether a hot dog is a sandwich.
Games vary across cultures because the pleasures of play vary too. At clown school, we seek a joy that’s light and friendly; in sport, the joy can be vicious, even cruel. Have you ever watched a professional tennis final? They’re clearly playing a game — but not playing games.
Defining abstractions always circles back to the Supreme Court’s test for pornography: we know it when we see it. Still, shared language demands some definitioning (now a word). And that task grows harder as meanings and technologies evolve: even “simultaneous” doesn’t mean what it once did.
I like games. Always have. And by that I mean: I like whatever fires my neurons to say that’s a game. I like them better than mere activities; give me competition or a timer, and I’m in.
So:
- Games are hard to define.
- Games share recognizable traits.
- I like games.
I recently stumbled upon a definition for game by the philosopher Bernard Suits: “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.” Elegant, but too narrow. It fits golf or chess, not politics or dating, where the obstacles aren’t unnecessary, just chosen. I don’t think “dating is a game” is metaphorical; I think it’s a real diagnostic description of how people behave in the world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested that definitional meanings work by family resemblance rather than rigid borders. I’ve always respected the man; nice company to stumble into.
Maybe that’s why I love games: they’re how we practice living within constraints — voluntary or not — and still find joy.
Life, after all, is the longest game we play.
Game on.
Julian Wise 