Internal Structure of a Game

I want to take a cut at the internal structure of a game to provide some vocabulary for discussing aspects of a game and to provide some distinctions between a game of some of the related phenomena.

First, a game must have a deciding factor. The deciding factor determines who, if anyone, has won the game. For example, in Chess, the deciding factor is having a King in Check. In football, it is the team with the most points. In golf, it is the person with the least points. There may or may not be constraints on the deciding factor. In football, for example, there is a time limit whereas in many games there is not.

Second, if the deciding factor is numeric, the game must have goals which are both complete units of activity and ways to accumulate points. So, scoring in football, getting a ball in a hole in golf, or exposing your winning hand in poker would be examples of goals.

On the way to achieving a goal there may be objectives the satisfaction of which helps you to achieve the goal but for which you do not get points. You may get credit for objectives in game statistics. But, the satisfaction of the objective does not contribute to the deciding factor.
Depending on the complexity of the game there may be subobjectives which are smaller problems that must be solved in order to achieve an objective.

There may be contratints on how goals or objectives are achieved.

And, to borrow a term from Suits, there is a 'lusory attitude'. The point of playing the game is the inherent satisfaction one achieves through playing a game. That is, the point of the game is the game itself. So, if one is playing professional poker to earn their livelihood, it would no longer be a game under this defintion. There is an element of practicing for real life that makes a game a game. As soon as it is no longer practice but actually is real life, it is no longer game.

Those are my thoughts for now. I may change some of this as I figure out more about it.

Man the Rehearser

I think I may have tried to set aside the concepts of play and fun a little too quickly. Why is play fun? I think there is an important reason for this and this reason is also important in understanding games. Think back to the puppies playing on the floor. They are rehearsing skills that will become important when they are adults. The play fighting they engage in is preparation for real fighting later. Now, granted, they are probably not going to encounter any life threatening struggles with other animals on my living room rug. But nature selected animals int he past who were good fighters and evolution does not change course just because my living room is a safe environment.

Taking a step back from this we can see how animals who practiced important survival skills would be more likely to survive. Further, we can see that animals who derived pleasure from practicing survival skills would be more likely to practice them and hence more likely to survive. Taking this to its conclusion we can see how natural selection would favor animals who found play to be fun. This argument could stand a little fleshing out. But, the sketch, I believe, makes the point.

In the case of humans, the necessary survival skills would include not only survival skills like wrestling with siblings, but would also include cognitive skills such as planning, problem solving, strategizing, and coordinating. Early humans did not have the advantages of speed, power, claws, teeth or other weapons that other animals had. There advantage, or at least one of their advantages, was the cultivation and application of the above skills.

So, incorporating the argument from the previous paragraph, we can see how early humans who derived pleasure in practicing these skills would have a higher chance of survival. Over time the adaptation 'derives fun from play' would become a species characteristic.

There is probably some survival value in all things we do for fun. However, I am sticking to play. Play is fun because it allows us to enjoy the rehearsal of skills that historically have provided survival value. Not all play is games, but games represent a special kind of play; a special kind of rehearsal. Understanding games as a special kind of rehearsal helps us to understand the nature of games and that understanding can, in turn, be applied to other things we need to such as work and education. But, once again, I am getting ahead of myself. Next time I will look at games as a special kind of play; a special kind of rehearsal.