Pure concept of game and historical derivations + biology

My personal preference is to conceive of a game as an activity that has victory conditions (activities without victory conditions I would call toys--not in a demeaning way, I have nothing against toys). This creates some uncomfortable outcomes for some people; for example, World of Warcraft is not a game, but a toy. I find the distinction really useful though. The reason I mention this is because a victory condition is the only rule a game needs. I can say to the person next to me, "fist one to that tree across the street wins", and I have established a game; however, if I say, "let's just run," I have not established a game. So, victory conditions are the only thing necessary to establish a game and a game requires at least one victory condition.

With that said, "fun" isn't necessary for a game--though it may be preferable. Many games aren't remotely fun, like Russian roulette. I think what you're calling fun can be generalized and better described as positional goods. A positional good is what you get when you fulfill a victory condition; it is that sense of winning. This is distinct from an exchange good because it's value is based not in what you can trade it for, but in the obstacles to achieving it (gold medals, for example, are positional goods; things like world peace can be conceived as positional goods as well). There has been quite a lot of philosophical work done with regard to positional goods, including work with regard their relationship to biology. You'll probably find some of that helpful.

Of course MMOs are games. Even with your own argument that a game requires a victory condition (and I'm sure also requires a failure condition), for any particular fight, there's a success state and a failure state. You can win the fight, or lose the fight and then play again to have another fight. It's more like layers of success and failure, winning fights to win dungeons to win whole game expansions.

By your argument, if you're playing D&D and someone asks if you're playing a game, you wouldn't know if it's a game or not until you decide if you'll have an end to your campaign some day.

I think the fun and rules definition fits better. Fun of course is relative, but if the intention of the rules is to give a fun experience (whether it successfully meets that goal or not), I think that makes something more of a game. I'm fine with throwing out Russian Roulette from the games category based on that.

"By your argument, if you're playing D&D and someone asks if you're playing a game, you wouldn't know if it's a game or not until you decide if you'll have an end to your campaign some day."

It's not that you wouldn't know; it's that it wouldn't be a game until there are victory conditions. What's the problem with that? Why isn't, for example, playing make-believe with Barbies a game? Maybe you think it is. That's fine, you can define game however you want. I just find grounding it in victory conditions the most useful definition. Again, I have nothing against toys. Toys are great. D&D without victory conditions is a toy or an activity probably better described as playing (rather than, say, gaming).

"Even with your own argument that a game requires a victory condition (and I'm sure also requires a failure condition), for any particular fight, there's a success state and a failure state. You can win the fight, or lose the fight and then play again to have another fight. It's more like layers of success and failure, winning fights to win dungeons to win whole game expansions."

You are arguing that WOW is a toy that is comprised of a bunch of small games; I agree. That is a useful way to talk about WoW.

"Fun of course is relative, but if the intention of the rules is to give a fun experience (whether it successfully meets that goal or not), I think that makes something more of a game."

The point of a game isn't necessarily to have fun though. Take war games (as in, the kind that the military takes part in). Certainly, some people might have fun participating in those, but their purpose isn't to experience fun.

And again, you can define game however you want. Certainly you can say that anything that isn't fun for you, or that claims a purpose other than fun isn't a game, but to what end? Why pick that joint to cut at? As you've pointed out, fun is subjective, and there are a ton of things that are fun but aren't games as well as games whose purpose isn't fun. In fact, a game's purpose is subjective. People use games (the same game even) for different purposes: fun, fulfillment, challenge, pride, experimentation, etc. Victory Conditions have the benefit of being an objective criteria that seems to fit just about every game in existence.

All that being as it may, D&D and WoW, RPGs in general do--as you've noted--feel like games and we do call them games (even I do!). I think what makes these activities feel like games is that they share mechanisms and tools associated with games, and players do ultimately devise their own victory conditions (aka. set their own goals). So, I think, even under my definition, they could still be called game--games characterized by informal victory conditions.

What we call a game and what we don't is a question of how to classify different activities. It's not the same discovering a fact about reality. It's just semantics, to get an accurate definition of the word.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games are Games. Everyone knows it. It's even in the name. If your definition doesn't include them, that doesn't mean you've discovered some new fact about MMOs. It means there's something wrong with your definition.

Weird article. I don't really think he was talking about games when he described "infinite games", as he called life itself a game, then went on about spiritual things. I do like the idea of infinite games though. Like most MMOs, or the Sims, or Horde Mode in various games.

- Of course, now that I mentioned The Sims, I do see the Sims as kind of straddling the line of game and toy. I think what makes it still a game to me is the needs and wants that get fulfilled or not. Your actions earn you points of various kinds, and money. You can attempt to increase your relationship with someone, and succeed or fail. I think if you remove those, and put total control of that into the player (like you might do with hacks/mods), then you really start to leave game territory.

Not really. Your definition changes the meaning of the word to something people find surprising and controversial. There are more useful definitions of the word, definitions discussed in this topic, which encompass more activities into games without being too inclusive.

You simply asserted that a game requires an ending (because victory conditions before the ending don't count?), then when examples are given of games without an ending, you declare that those are not games. What makes you think that's a valid use for the word when so many games get thrown out?

What if you don't finish a game? Was it not a game because you never got to the victory condition?

You said earlier that MMOs are a toy comprised of many games, because I have a victory condition for each quest. So if I play World of Warcraft and do a few quests, then you're saying a more accurate use of the word "game" would be to tell people:

These examples have some absurdity to them. That should show that there's something wrong with that definition. Not just because of historical use of the word game, but because it's not that useful, and leads to confusing conversation.

It's not the victory condition that makes a game. The victory condition simply ends it. This, I think, describes something useful about games.

"Your definition changes the meaning of the word to something people find surprising and controversial."

It's an interesting definition, I admit it. Another great feature of it, thank you.

"There are more useful definitions of the word, definitions discussed in this topic, which encompass more activities into games without being too inclusive."

I haven't heard a more useful or description definition. And "inclusiveness," where inclusiveness means correspondence with every usage of the word, is not more useful, but less useful. I'm not giving the word definition to make people less surprised by it, or to avoid controversy, but to provide a useful tool for talking about the kinds of activities the original post was getting at.

"You simply asserted that a game requires an ending (because victory conditions before the ending don't count?), then when examples are given of games without an ending, you declare that those are not games. What makes you think that's a valid use for the word when so many games get thrown out?"

That's not what I asserted; that's what you interpreted. Mostly because you're confused about what a victory condition is (which I'll get to later). But ending is a feature of a victory condition, and it's a feature that exposes the impossibility of what you're describing. If there is game beyond the victory conditions, that means that these particular conditions are not "victory" conditions--they did not signal victory, aka. the ultimate end. So no, victory conditions in the middle of a game don't count because there are never and have never been such a thing. The idea is absurd.

This is another good feature of my definition. Its logically coherent and rationally discernible.

This line you've been taking has another fatal problem. You can't really say "when examples of games are given" because what we're arguing about is what games are. When you give examples of an activity and call it a game, you're assuming the answer to the question we're investigating. It's circular logic. It runs like this:

You: this is a game.
Me: why is that a game?
You: because I said it's a game.

And like I've said, this is a perfectly valid use of colloquial language. We're free to just call things by names because we're in the habit of calling those things that name; however, it's not a useful tool for investigating the nature of the thing being named. And the nature of the thing is what I'm discussing; not the history of our linguistic habits.

"What makes you think that's a valid use for the word when so many games get thrown out?"

I've given dozens of reasons. Just scroll up. The only reason you've given to the contrary is that you and others are in the habit of using the word differently.

"You said earlier that MMOs are a toy comprised of many games, because I have a victory condition for each quest. So if I play World of Warcraft and do a few quests, then you're saying a more accurate use of the word "game" would be to tell people:"

No, I'm saying--again--it's a more useful definition of the word. You're looking for accuracy of usage (in vein I would say, because it's pretty obvious there isn't one single accurate usage). That's fine if you want to look for that, but that's not what I'm doing and I have been clear about that since my very first comment. That I am not after the same thing as you is not an error on my part.

Let me put this in--hopefully--a more easily digestible way. You are treating the usage of language as if it's evidence to the nature of a thing referred to by that language. It isn't. It's convenient when the usage of language corresponds to the nature of things, but it's rarely the case.

"These examples have some absurdity to them. That should show that there's something wrong with that definition. Not just because of historical use of the word game, but because it's not that useful, and leads to confusing conversation."

A conversation that blends together WoW, picking up women, chess, playing cricket, any amusement or pastime, materials used in playing games, an occasion on which games are played, the number of points required to win a game, the score at a particular stage in a game, a style of playing a game, a style of being in general, a vision of life, and so on including every use of "game" ever imagined.... is far more absurd than anything I've said.

What's more, you're examples of "absurdity" are themselves absurdly irrelevant. I'm explicitly not suggesting my definition of game in order to accommodate colloquial discourse about average goings on in the world, but in order to be clear about phenomenon in the world and to give the word some content to work with. That my definition of "game" isn't useful in all contexts and for all purposes just puts it on par with every other definition of game. But hey, if you have a definition that captures every usage of game ever employed, don't let me hold you back.

"It's not the victory condition that makes a game. The victory condition simply ends it. This, I think, describes something useful about games."

This isn't an argument. You are just obstinately denying without any reason. I can just as easily deny your denial. You need to provide reasons for why victory conditions are a bad definition.

More importantly, you're misunderstanding what a victory condition is (I told you I'd get back to it). It isn't simply demarcating the end of an activity. If I say to someone, "walk to the end of the street and you will have completed your walk along the street," I have established an ending but not established a victory condition. A victory condition requires a positional good. So, if I said, "walk to the end of the street and you win," then I have established a victory condition (and a game). So, it is false to say that victory conditions simply end the game. "Supplies an ending" is an insufficient description of a victory condition.

Positional goods are key here. Let's go back to MMOs. Don't MMOs have positional goods? They have character levels, special clothing, and all sorts of rewards. These rewards are goods, but not positional goods. Why? Because everyone can get them. (In fact, they're semi-positional, but that's a whole other can of beans best opened later). So no, MMOs do not supply positional good, so they don't have victory conditions, so they aren't games. Here comes the big claim:

Pursuing positional goods is what distinguishes games as activities.

Consider a PvP dual in an MMO. That is a game. One person will win and no matter how many other duels there are, that fact will never change. No one else can ever win that duel. Winning that particular duel is a positional good and it's what sets that activity aside as a game. When we call MMOs games, it's only because they contain such activities, and we are naming the whole activity after one of it's parts (like referring to the crew of a ship as hands isn't really saying that they are literally hands). There is no such positional good at stake in an MMO (as a whole). This is why MMOs end in disillusionment rather than satisfaction. When an MMO is over, it's because you are bored with the toy.

@3M

That's pretty much along the lines I'm shooting down.