Editing Game (section)

==Definitions==
{{Wiktionary|game}}

===Ludwig Wittgenstein===
[[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] was probably the first academic philosopher to address the definition of the word ''game''. In his ''[[Philosophical Investigations]]'',<ref name="wittgen">{{Cite book |last=Wittgenstein |first=Ludwig |title=Philosophical Investigations |title-link=Philosophical Investigations |date=1953 |publisher=Blackwell |isbn=978-0-631-23127-1 |location=Oxford |author-link=Ludwig Wittgenstein}}</ref> Wittgenstein argued that the elements of games, such as [[play (activity)|play]], rules, and competition, all fail to adequately define what games are. From this, Wittgenstein concluded that people apply the term ''game'' to a range of disparate human activities that bear to one another only what one might call [[family resemblance]]s. As the following game definitions show, this conclusion was not a final one and today many philosophers, like [[Thomas Hurka]], think that Wittgenstein was wrong and that Bernard Suits' definition is a good answer to the problem.<ref>{{Cite web |year=2007 |title=Was Wittgenstein Wrong About Games? |url=http://virtualphilosopher.com/2007/12/was-wittgenstei.html |access-date=28 June 2013 |publisher=[[Nigel Warburton]]}}</ref>

===Roger Caillois===
French sociologist [[Roger Caillois]], in his book ''Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men)''(1961),<ref name="callois">{{Cite book |last=Caillois |first=Roger |title=Les jeux et les hommes |publisher=Gallimard |year=1957 |author-link=Roger Caillois}}</ref> defined a game as an activity that must have the following characteristics:
* ''fun'': the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
* ''separate'': it is circumscribed in time and place
* ''uncertain'': the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
* ''non-productive'': participation does not accomplish anything useful
* ''governed by rules'': the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
* ''fictitious'': it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality

===Chris Crawford===
Game designer [[Chris Crawford (game designer)|Chris Crawford]] defined the term in the context of computers.<ref name="craw">{{Cite book |last=Crawford |first=Chris |title=Chris Crawford on Game Design |title-link=Chris Crawford on Game Design |publisher=New Riders |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-88134-117-1 |author-link=Chris Crawford (game designer)}}</ref> Using a series of [[dichotomy|dichotomies]]:
# Creative expression is ''art'' if made for its own beauty, and ''entertainment'' if made for money.
# A piece of entertainment is a ''[[play (activity)|plaything]]'' if it is [[interactive]]. Movies and books are cited as examples of non-interactive entertainment.
# If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a ''toy''. ''(Crawford notes that by his definition, (a) a toy can become a game element if the player makes up rules, and (b) ''[[The Sims]]'' and ''[[SimCity]]'' are toys, not games.)'' If it has goals, a plaything is a ''challenge''.
# If a challenge has no "active agent against whom you compete", it is a ''[[puzzle]]''; if there is one, it is a ''conflict''. ''(Crawford admits that this is a subjective test. Video games with noticeably [[algorithm]]ic [[artificial intelligence]] can be played as puzzles; these include the patterns used to evade [[Pac-Man#Ghosts|ghosts in ''Pac-Man'']].)''
# Finally, if the player can only outperform the opponent, but not attack them to interfere with their performance, the conflict is a ''competition''. ''(Competitions include [[racing]] and [[figure skating]].)'' However, if attacks are allowed, then the conflict qualifies as a game.

Crawford's definition may thus be rendered as: an interactive, goal-oriented activity made for money, with active agents to play against, in which players (including active agents) can interfere with each other.

Other definitions, however, as well as history, show that entertainment and games are not necessarily undertaken for monetary gain.

===Other definitions===
* "A game is a form of art in which participants, termed ''players'', make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal." ([[Greg Costikyan]])<ref name="no words">{{Cite web |last=Costikyan |first=Greg |author-link=Greg Costikyan |year=1994 |title=I Have No Words & I Must Design |url=http://www.costik.com/nowords.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080812015347/http://www.costik.com/nowords.html |archive-date=12 August 2008 |access-date=17 August 2008}}</ref> According to this definition, some "games" that do not involve choices, such as [[Chutes and Ladders]], [[Candy Land]], and [[War (card game)|War]] are not technically games any more than a slot machine is.
* "A game is a form of play with goals and structure." (Kevin J. Maroney)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Maroney |first=Kevin |year=2001 |title=My Entire Waking Life |url=http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/MyEntireWakingLife.shtml |journal=The Games Journal |access-date=17 August 2008 |archive-date=21 November 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081121181715/http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/MyEntireWakingLife.shtml |url-status=dead }}</ref>
* "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome." ([[Katie Salen]] and [[Eric Zimmerman]])<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Salen |first1=Katie |title=Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals |title-link=Rules of Play |last2=Zimmerman |first2=Eric |publisher=MIT Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-262-24045-1 |page=80 |author-link=Katie Salen |author-link2=Eric Zimmerman}}</ref>
* "A game is an ''activity'' among two or more independent ''decision-makers'' seeking to achieve their ''objectives'' in some ''limiting context.''" ([[Clark C. Abt]])<ref name="Abt1987">{{Cite book |last=Clark C. Abt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=axUs9HA-hF8C |title=Serious Games |publisher=University Press of America |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-8191-6148-2}}</ref>
* "At its most elementary level then we can define game as an exercise of voluntary control systems in which there is an opposition between forces, confined by a procedure and rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome." (Elliot Avedon and [[Brian Sutton-Smith]])<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Avedon |first1=Elliot |title=The Study of Games |last2=Sutton-Smith |first2=Brian |publisher=J. Wiley |year=1971 |isbn=978-0-471-03839-9 |page=405 |author-link2=Brian Sutton-Smith}}</ref>
* "To play a game is to engage in activity directed toward bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by specific rules, where the means permitted by the rules are more limited in scope than they would be in the absence of the rules, and where the sole reason for accepting such limitation is to make possible such activity." (Bernard Suits)<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Suits |first=Bernard |year=1967 |title=What Is a Game? |journal=Philosophy of Science |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=148–156 |doi=10.1086/288138 |jstor=186102 |s2cid=119699909}}</ref>
* "When you strip away the genre differences and the technological complexities, all games share four defining traits: a goal, rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation." ([[Jane McGonigal]])<ref>{{Cite book |last=McGonigal |first=Jane |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780143120612 |title=Reality is Broken |publisher=Penguin Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-14-312061-2 |url-access=registration}}</ref>