What is a Game?
Today we are going to explore one of the most pivotal experiences of my life — games. Games have captivated me since childhood. I loved Dots and Boxes on the kids’ menu at restaurants. I played in Trading Card Game competitions, wrestling competitions, and martial arts (all of which I consider games). I later came to realize my biggest passion would lie in making and playing video games.
You’ve heard the story hundreds of times: nerdy person in basement spends every waking hour playing video games, never leaves mom’s basement to live real life. You’ve also heard from the media: video games cause violence and are a detriment to society. My goal today is to provide some history and personal experience to show the value games provide personally and globally.
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My secondary goal is to provide an example through which the members of oneleif can learn from. oneleif is a nonprofit organization which is all about learning together, and this article is a prime example of the output to expect from its members. If you’re interested in joining, here is a link to our discord: https://discord.gg/nDEFRb
So, what IS a Game?
There are tons of definitions and schemas to try and define what exactly constitutes a game. If we look at the Merriam-Webster dictionary, there are a few definitions. The one I find most accurate is the following:
Any activity undertaken or regarded as a contest involving rivalry, strategy, or struggle
I have some issues with this definition, as it isn’t quite broad enough in my eyes. So, if we look at some particular games, do they fit this description?
Example 1: Tic-Tac-Toe
This is a common game that even a child can play and learn critical thinking from. Tic-Tac-Toe has rules, and objective (to beat your opponent), and a rivalry. Okay, so by the definition above, it qualifies as a game. I will further discuss this game in a bit of a case study in a coming article.
Example 2: The Stanley Parable
The Stanley Parable is a video game, which is a work of art taking you through the myriad options available to a player. You communicate with the narrator to follow the story of an office employee in a desolate office space. There is no inherent rivalry, strategy, nor struggle (unless you count yourself as the rival of a narrator). By some accounts this may not count as a game. However, I strongly disagree. It is a “choose your own adventure” style of game in my eyes. I strongly believe having some way to define what constitutes a game is useful tool to know the scope of what is possible.
Knowing what is possible allows game developers to push the bounds of what constitutes a game. This phenomenon is similar to how artists, poets, and writers tend to push the bounds of what is possible in their artistic genre. This phenomenon is known as counterculture and has been pivotal to pushing the bounds of several fields.
The most notable example I can think of is back in the 17th/18th century. The people of England went through a period known as Enlightenment. Intellectuals were doing everything they could to overthrow the accepted ideas of the time. This led to the American Colonists adopting the counterculture phenomena, and eventually declaring independence. As you can see, knowing your bounds is useful so that you can use them to shatter what everyone believes is possible. I think every game developer wants to do this with their games. They want to create something truly new, truly unique.
Example 3: Go
Go (known to the Chinese as: wei ch’i) is a board game from China known to be played as far back as the 4th Century BC. The goal of Go is similar to Dots and Boxes — have ownership over most of the board. The board is 19x19 squares and you place stones, one at a time, to try and take control over sections of the board. There is innate rivalry and strategy, thus I would be surprised if anyone were to claim this is not in fact a game. I bring this game into question for a reason: it shows how games have been influential as far back as we can peer into history. Almost all ancient civilizations have some sort of game they played. The Egyptians played Senet, the Aztecs played Patolli, the Middle East (supposedly) played The Royal Game of Ur. All of this is to say, that games in general have been a way for cultures to be formed, bonds to be made, and fun to be had.
Don’t limit creativity
Limiting creativity is the foothold through which amazing people make true change. For example, the first-person shooter formula was all but set in stone thanks to Call of Duty and Battlefield. Similarly, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds popularizes an entire subculture of first-person shooters. What seemed overnight, we had top sellers like Fortnite and Apex Legends. By limiting themselves to their current standards, games like Call of Duty are shooting themselves in the foot. Gamers will only play the same thing for so long before it becomes downright boring. Thus necessitates the need for change, which not many are comfortable with. By limiting creativity, one may be crushing the dreams of an individual. However, if the same occurrence happens to others, it might just lead them to work to prove the oppressor wrong and change the world’s view forever.
Being influenced is okay
On the opposite side of counterculture is formalism, or the belief in some set of rules governing what is a game. For example, I brought up earlier that Call of Duty has given us a formula of what makes a first-person shooter. Another example would be Mario paving the way for the rules of a platformer game. Without having these examples to base a game off of, it would be less likely for Game Developers to come up with ideas out of the blue. For example, if we never had a first-person shooter, what is the likelihood that someone would make Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds?
To be concise, my point is this: there is a happy medium between rigorously confining yourself to what is out there, and re-using what is available with your own twist.
Why video games?
I would like to answer the question from moms everywhere: “why do you play video games so much they can’t be good for you”? Like so many things in life, they are great for you in moderation. Studies have shown that video games do a great job at reducing stress, depending on the type of game played. Studies have also shown (albeit many are flawed) that video game players have a discernible difference in perception and cognition over non-gamers. Thanks to a cross-sectional study from we have learned that “game training holds great promise as one of the few training techniques to show transfer beyond the trained task” (Boot et al., 2011). This means that gamers tend to be able to quickly transfer their cognitive capabilities to a new task, adapting and outperforming those that do not consistently play games. I have noticed this in my personal life as well when playing a new board game with family or other tasks that require quick mental adaptation.
The last reason I believe video games should retain the strong place in modern culture is the community aspect available to gamers. Thanks to voice chat and team-based software such as Discord, many gamers find themselves traipsing through multiple different communities weekly. On top of this, many gamers tend to find their own little online family they play with weekly/daily. I myself have a group of about 10 players that we all know each other on a first name basis. We all know some facts about each other’s lives, where we live, etc. If one of us goes missing, we all have each other’s phone numbers and will check in on each other. While we haven’t met each other in person (I have actually met a few of them) I still feel a strong bond of friendship with these guys as I have chatted with them for thousands of hours.
Games don’t just form a community. Their reach extends beyond the obvious. They form a mental connection between two players in chess for example. However, in a larger scope, games form a connection across time. Who knew I could be playing the same moves in Go as players thousands of years ago? In chess, I could be using an opening move made hundreds of years ago thanks to some grand master. Games also form connections across continents: I have friends from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, etc. Although our ping may be high when playing together, it is still amazing to be able to have a connection that was impossible not too long ago.
Conclusion
I have addressed why defining a game makes a difference, and why games are important in the first place. We need to define what constitutes a game so there can be those that go against the grain and make something completely new. This allows us to grow as humans, and as a culture.
Games are important for a few main reasons.
- Whether you just like to play them, or love the community you have found yourself in, video games most likely have a positive impact on your mental and emotional state.
- The connections they form in communities, across time and space. I would argue that games in general have been a large part of culture going back centuries, and they have led to profound ideas due to the nature of the critical thinking required.
- They allow players to escape their reality and forget about their problems.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have learned something new about games!
In further articles we will take a look at how I got started in Game Development, and I will start teaching you how to get started making a game.
References
Boot WR, Blakely DP and Simons DJ (2011) Do action video games improve perception and cognition? Front. Psychology 2:226. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00226
