Game Definition

Games and sports are similar: a sport is an outdoor physical or mental contest or activity that involves physical activity and that people engage in for fun. In the past, sports were competitions where teams or individuals engaged in physically demanding activities, usually competitive. However, today there are many games and activities that are not competitive, but are just for fun and recreation. In some ways, they may even be classified as sports, but the participants are not competing with each other. For instance, most children’s games, such as hide and seek are not competitive games; they are games played just for fun, since winning requires no winner or loser, but simply a spot in next week’s draw.

Analytical work and sport can be used together to help explain many different social phenomena. For example, researchers have used analytical work to examine why some games, such as chess, seem to have a universal popularity, while others, such as checkers, seem to be more popular among some groups and populations. Similarly, when researching why some sporting events seem to have universal appeal, one can apply the same analysis to studying why some games seem to be popular with a particular race, nationality, age group or gender. This helps explain why certain games seem to have more appeal than others. This is also useful in explaining why certain games and athletic events seem to be popular among certain age groups or cultures.

It is also useful to keep defining games and explain their universal appeal if one wishes to use the phenomenon as a way to explain societal phenomena. One might therefore say that this definition is incomplete without the reference of other explanations. For example, it could be argued that people play games because playing games makes them happy. Alternatively, the explanation could be that people play games because it is addictive, which explains why so many people are attracted to online games such as World of Warcraft.

Not all game scholars are comfortable with this approach, since it necessarily presupposes prior knowledge about the nature of games. For example, some previous definitions have defined games in relation to card games, board games and console games. Since games are played across various platforms, it would be hard to generalize the definition. However, it must be noted that there are examples of previous definitions that still hold good today.

The new definition is explained below. Games are games by virtue of being a human activity with the participants interacting through a system of interaction. The interaction may be physical, textual or non textual in nature. The new definition therefore combines the earlier two definitions of game in one.

One advantage of combining these two definitions is that it provides a unified definition for the purposes of explanation. It allows researchers to use different kinds of analysis in their research, thereby enhancing the validity of the definition. One drawback however, is that the results obtained from different types of analysis may not be similar. It also complicates the task of identifying games since we have two types of definition. Acknowledging these shortcomings, the present study adopts a mixed definition of games which allows researchers to use different kinds of approaches in the study of game understandings.