The recent article on Boomerang Puzzle got me to thinking about something. I remarked (rather strongly, at that) that I didn't think Boomerang Puzzle was a video game. Afterwards - and even during the writing process for that article - I got to thinking about what exactly is a video game? How do we define what qualifies as a video game, and what does not? So I decided that it was worth writing about, and here we are.
I'll propose a working definition of both a game and a "video" game in this article. Not only will it be helpful for me going forward, but I also want to present it for discussion. I'm sure I'll miss something, or you, reader, will come at it from a different perspective, which I wholly welcome. Discussion and debate are good and healthy things, provided they don't become hostile.
A Brief History of Games
It's a history blog - you know I'm going to delve into some historical data. The concept of games as a recreational activity is most likely as old as the human race itself (regardless of whether you hold to a creationist or evolutionary worldview.)
One of the oldest known games to us is the Royal Game of Ur, named after the great Sumerian city of Ur (in modern day Iraq) - the same city the Biblical character Abraham likely originated from. It was played all across ancient Mesopotamia as far back as 2,600 B.C., according to archaeologists - old enough for Abraham himself to have played it! It also made its way to Egypt, where a variant arose called the Game of Twenty Squares. Game boards were discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun, and even as far away as Crete and Sri Lanka.
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| Royal Game of Ur game board, dating back to 2,600 B.C. |
The objective of the Royal Game is quite simple: get your pieces from one end of the game board to the other. It's pretty much the same core game objective as Backgammon. Two players play on the same board, consisting of 3 rows of squares, with both players sharing the middle space and owning one of the edge rows. Each player has 7 pieces that they must get from one end of the board to the other. Movement is done by using four-sided triangular dice. Two of the points on these triangular dice are coloured, giving a 50-50 chance of getting a coloured point facing directly up. On a player's turn, they would roll four of these dice, and however many coloured points they get is how many places they move on along the board.
There are some extra rules to make things more interesting, however. The basic form of the game has five special spaces on it - four on the edge rows, and one in the centre square. The edge squares give the player an extra dice roll, and the middle one is a "safe" square. This means that a piece that lands on it cannot be removed. That's where the other main rule comes in - the centre row. Since both players move their pieces along the centre, what happens if a piece lands on the square their opponent's piece is on? Like Backgammon, that piece is kicked off the board, and has to start its course all over again. With all the similarities to Backgammon, it's likely, according to historians, that this game was an ancestor of the family of games which includes Backgammon.
Another ancient game that's possibly even older is Senet. Senet originated in Egypt, possibly as far back as 3,100 B.C.! The rules of this game are more obscured to us today, but it's believed that the game itself had religious significance for the Egyptians. The objective of Senet is, like The Royal Game of Ur, to get all your pieces off the game board. Also like The Royal Game, Senet's game board is comprised of a board of 3 rows, but with 10 tiles in each row. Players would use "throw-sticks," sticks with one coloured side, to determine moves, and avoid hazards on the game board.
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| Senet game board for Pharoah Amenhotep III, circa 1,390 B.C. |
We've already seen another ancient game in action on the blog, Mancala, in my Awari article from last year. Almost unbelievably, there's potential archaeological evidence of Mancala boards dating back to 6,000 B.C.!! This is a mathematical game played across almost the entire world, with variants in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Players take turns sowing "seeds" (stones) into their houses on the game board, with the aim being to capture more "seeds" than your opponent by the end of the game. Rules vary wildly by region, with Kalah, the Western variant Awari was based on, being one of the simpler ones.
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| Modern Mancala. |
All of these games have several common factors, which are the defining characteristics of what a "game" is as its core.
Core Components
All the games I've mentioned above all have several shared components that make them a game. These components are fairly consistent across games historically, and so work as a suitable base from which to define a "game" and, extension, a "video game."
1. Objectives
A game is an objective-based activity. This is fairly self-explanatory. There's always some sort of end goal to be achieved in order to win a game. The Royal Game of Ur and Backgammon's common objective is to get all your pieces on, across and off the board before your opponent does. Chess and Checkers require you to capture all of your opponent's pieces to win. Every kind of sport has an objective, usually scoring more points than your opposition.
Video games are the same in this regard. In an RPG, the chief objective is often to defeat some sort of big-bad to restore peace to the land, such as defeating the Dragonlord in the original Dragon Quest (or Dragon Warrior, if you prefer,) or saving the world from being destroyed by Lavos in Chrono Trigger. Racing games mostly have the same simple objective - win the race. Strategy games, whether real-time or turn-based, ask you to acquire and spend resources to defeat your opponents before they defeat you. Puzzle games - solve the puzzle. The list goes on. Failure to achieve an objective usually results in some form of punishment, like losing a life or losing hard-earned progress, although less so today; there tends to be less harsh consequences for failure in more modern games, but failing objectives is still possible, in most cases.
Even a game like Minecraft, which started life as an open-ended sandbox that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into this category still has objectives - survive, gather resources to create better means of survival, and explore the world. Later on it was given a technical "End" goal (*wink*), but the game doesn't truly end, even after completing this objective.
2. Game "Board"
Every game has a "game board" in some fashion or another. Physical board games are obvious, but even digital and card games have a form of "board" that the game is played on that defines the setting of the game. A real-time strategy game like Age of Empires, or even an RPG like Skyrim has a game map - the digital "board" that the game takes place on. Platformers have their level maps, and so too first/third-person shooters. Puzzle games have more obvious boards in a lot of instances - just look at the grids Match-3 puzzlers like Bejeweled or Jewel Quest are played on. Some of them look like Chess or Royal Game of Ur boards.
Card games mostly have pre-determined layouts of where the main deck goes, where the discard pile is (if applicable,) and where players place certain cards on the table in relation to other cards. Something like Solitaire has a fairly obvious game board. TGCs like Yu-Gi-Oh or the Pokémon Trading Card Game straight-up have mats to use like game boards.
3. Rules & Mechanics
Without rules, there is no order. Just pure anarchy. Some people might revel in that, but not I. Games certainly don't revel in the idea, either. For a game to be a game, it must have both gameplay mechanics, and rules governing the use of those mechanics. The mechanics are kind of like the physical pieces of the game, while the rules put limitations on their usage.
It's a fairly simple area to deal with in board games, and sports as well. The mechanics of Tennis are simply hitting the ball with the racket, with the objective of getting it past your opponent, or forcing them into an error. The rules are what points you get for forcing your opponent's error, how many points you need to win, how many times the ball is allowed to bounce, that the ball must stay in the court, etc, etc... Monopoly has money as a mechanic, and there are rules governing how money can and cannot be used. Of course, we always like to break the rules and cheat, or just come up with our own rules.
Video games, on the other hand, aren't so simple. Depending on the size and complexity of the game, there can be hundreds of mechanics, and thousands upon thousands of rules governing how they can be used. Often the rules and mechanics are far more tightly interwoven, which can result in the lines becoming blurred. Super Mario can jump, but how high? What happens if you tap the jump button instead of holding it down? That piece of equipment can only be equipped by x class in y slot, and has this much protection and that much weight - oh, and it has elemental resistances, too, and a +2 bonus to strength. You can gather food and wood in Age of Empires, but it specifically costs 50 food for a villager, and 30 wood to build a house. Plus, if you don't have houses, you can't get more villagers or other units. Cavalry units are a +2 to population instead of foot units being +1. That AoE example factors in the mechanics and rules surrounding resource gathering, unit production and population - all interconnected and working together. The rabbit hole keeps going deeper and deeper here, so I'll refrain from any more examples, otherwise I'll have to make this into a book.
4. Interactivity
I thought about this one later into the piece while driving home one night recently. One of the big differences between games and other forms of entertainment, like film, art and TV, is the interactivity factor. Don't just watch that sport on television - play it!
With video games, interactivity is what makes them especially unique. It immerses the player in a world more than any film or show can. You're not watching Frodo Baggins' quest to take the one ring to Mt. Doom - you're playing it, like you're Frodo himself. You aren't watching a sport on TV, you're participating in a simulated match yourself, controlling the players and making strategic decisions. Video games allow the player to be directly involved in making choices that have consequences, either immediate or later down the line, depending on the type of game. If the media being viewed doesn't let you make interactive choices, it can't be a game.
5. It's Just Fun
Finally, games are meant to be fun. If it's not fun, it's work. Games are at heart a recreational activity, meant to bring pleasure, relief and rest after a hard working day. Unless, of course, your work is games, in which case I envy you, or if the game in question is a sport. Recreation and pleasure are certainly present with sports, rest... not so much.
There's certainly other benefits to different forms of games. Sports help with fitness, hand-eye coordination and (sometimes) teamwork. Board games and video games can build critical thinking and problem solving skills, as well as teamwork and social connections in multiplayer settings.
But, ultimately, games are meant for enjoyment. Fun, laughter, getting a good fright, showing off the newest cool thing you built in Minecraft - it's all meant to bring some form of entertainment.
But What About x Game?
Naturally, some exceptions crop up from time to time in today's gaming climate. With such a massively wide scope of programs calling themselves "games" these days, some are going to not neatly fit into the categories I've just described. So, what do we do with these? Are they still games, or something else?
First, let's talk about a game I've mentioned a few times - Minecraft.
Minecraft doesn't exactly fit into category 1 of objectives. It doesn't exactly have a winning objective (The End notwithstanding,) and is functionally an endless sandbox. However, I think it's still a game. It has objectives, and the player also has freedom to create their own goals, or even their own minigames within it.
Plenty of other games are out there that buck the objective category also. Any kind of sandbox game would suit, SimCity, The Sims - anything without a precise, winning objective. One could even make an argument that many arcade games, like Galaxian or Pac-Man, are endless and without winning objective. However, these all still have some kind of objective. Whether that be to survive as long as you can, beat the high score, or save your city from an alien invasion... what, what?
Another sort of game that might come up as a "what if" is "walking simulators." You know, games like Journey, Dear Esther or The Stanley Parable. There's not a whole lot to do, but just... walk around. There's still objectives, and these games do have an ending, so I think it's fairly cut-and-dry that they're games.
When it comes to interactivity, I've mentioned several times on the blog the phrase "illusion of choice." This is a term I use to refer to games where player choice is present, but doesn't actually affect the outcome of said choice - by it either being predetermined or completely random. The go-to examples here are Dartmouth Championship Football and PDP-10 Timesharing Basketball. These games have choices the player can make, but the outcome is entirely random - your choice is effectively irrelevant. Are we to still consider these games? I think so, because they still have all the other components of a game, and interactivity is still technically present; the player still has to make strategic choices, even if the outcome is random.
Where I would say the line gets crossed is with a program like The PDP 10 Timesharing World Series. That's a program I looked at way way back at the start of the blog. It's not a game, because you don't actually play anything in it. The only "choice" you make is choosing a seed number at the start of the program, which then simulates a preset game of baseball based on that seed. You don't pitch, don't bat, don't field - no interactivity at all, so not a game.
Even the aforementioned walking simulators win in this category - as they're all about interactivity. You walk through the world, interact with it, maybe solve puzzles if there are any present in the game, but you still get to choose where you go and how you explore the game world.
I don't think there's much in the way of exceptions to the "game board" category, so let's move on to some possible exceptions to the "fun" category.
Starting with that dreaded word... edutainment. Some games are intended for a purpose other than entertainment, which is learning. Education and computers have a long standing relationship that goes back into the 1950s and the formation of computing as a whole, so I think it was a natural inevitability that, once computer games started being made, creating games meant for educational purposes would occur.
Based on their intent, I'd still classify "edutainment" games as games. The purpose of educational games is to inject an element of fun into learning. How fun these games are is up to user discretion. I played educational games like Word Rescue and Math Rescue growing up like they were normal games, not even thinking about the educational aspect. Plenty of us, I'm sure, played Number Munchers while at school. We also had Math Circus, which was great fun.
What's determined as "fun" is more subjective than the other factors. I don't exactly find horror games to be much fun, but many others do. This component is more about authorial intent than the others. If the developer intended for it to be fun entertainment, then I'd still call it a game. Spreadsheets are not a game, however, as fun as I might find them. They are intended for non-recreational purposes - though we can still find recreational purposes for them... that is not what they were designed for.
I think that just about covers it for exceptions and objections I can think of. Please, if you can think of others, leave a comment.
Quick Recap
That does it for now. I just had the idea on a whim and thought, "why not?" These will be good bonus articles that I can put out every so often when I have an idea I want to air out. I have a few more drafted, so if this one works out well, I might consider posting more.
So, to recap, the defining components of a game I outlined were:
- Objective-based.
- Set on a "game board," with pieces, physical or digital.
- All games have rule and mechanics.
- Games are interactive - you have choice, and it matters!
- They're meant to be fun!
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