What is the definition of the word game

Recent Examples on the Web

Most of the game was centered around Graham Ashcraft and Bryce Elder.


—Bobby Nightengale, The Enquirer, 11 Apr. 2023




The 6-foot-8 Howell averaged 9.5 points and 8.0 rebounds per game for the Warhawks — one of the Jaguars’ Sun Belt Conference rivals — this past season.


—Creg Stephenson | Cstephenson@al.com, al, 11 Apr. 2023




Throughout the game, the two were also seen amicably chatting between themselves and with a friend.


—Rosa Sanchez, Harper’s BAZAAR, 11 Apr. 2023




The game also introduced more great characters like Yoshi and Bowser’s throng of Koopalings.


—Jacob Linden, Popular Mechanics, 11 Apr. 2023




Gobert threw a punch at Anderson during a timeout in the second quarter of the game.


—oregonlive, 10 Apr. 2023




The winner moves on to face the loser of the 7 vs. 8 game.


—Tim Reynolds, Chicago Tribune, 10 Apr. 2023




Shohei Ohtani grounded out with the bases loaded to end the game.


—Noah Trister, ajc, 10 Apr. 2023




Counsell managed the 1,180th game of his career as the Brewers faced the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field to tie Phil Garner’s franchise record.


—Journal Sentinel, 10 Apr. 2023

Milroe did well in his eight games played last fall, which included one start against Texas A&M and a mid-game injury replacement for Bryce Young at Arkansas.


—Nick Alvarez | Nalvarez@al.com, al, 13 Apr. 2023




Diamondbacks Daily:Pre-game pitching moves made to shore up staff, with Davies to IL Davies’ turn in the rotation will come up again on Friday in Miami.


—Theo Mackie, The Arizona Republic, 9 Apr. 2023




Jones was even part of the post-game celebration Monday night with Newton and his teammates, giving his cousin a celebratory lift during the festivities.


—Christopher Kuhagen, Journal Sentinel, 4 Apr. 2023




For all the pre-game talk about rewriting the economic order, the end result typically looks like three yards and a cloud of dust.


—Gene Maddaus, Variety, 3 Apr. 2023




Not after the carnage of the post-game locker room.


—Staff And Wire Reports, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Mar. 2023




Perhaps the best story of Sierra Canyon’s season came from the bench, where 12-year-old team manager Erik Ginsburg was waiting, briefly going viral in January after cleaning wet spots during mid-game pauses with hilarious ferocity.


—Luca Evans, Los Angeles Times, 28 Mar. 2023




But the robot celebrations and the iconic post-game commentary during A.J. Hinch’s playoff-clinching speech put Conger right at the top of this list.


—James Yasko, Chron, 24 Mar. 2023




Just be sure to PGA (post-game analyze) the cooking class with a one-on-one chat afterwards.


—Alyssa Girdwain, Women’s Health, 17 Mar. 2023

The large battery and cooling tech can keep you gaming for long stretches, and Asus has some unique accessories to improve the experience.


—WIRED, 30 Mar. 2023




Unfortunately, that was the one and only game his dad, Kyle Green, could get to Milwaukee this season.


—Lori Nickel, Journal Sentinel, 29 Mar. 2023




Hearst Autos doesn’t need to game algorithms for traffic or promote lousy products to earn a buck.


—Gannon Burgett, Car and Driver, 28 Mar. 2023




Even though the park was already deep into development by the time of the takeover, Disney wanted to pull its intellectual property but eventually settled with the operator, gaming giant Genting.


—Caroline Reid, Forbes, 22 Mar. 2023




Who says Apple can’t game?


—Antonio G. Di Benedetto, The Verge, 20 Mar. 2023




Totoki touted upcoming movies titles like Gran Turismo, the success of Sony Pictures Television’s The Last of Us for HBO and another ten projects at the film and TV studio that similarly has gaming IP and are ripe for adaptations on other media platforms.


—Etan Vlessing, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Mar. 2023




Officials have said that the crackdown on the tech industry, which saw a flurry of regulations torpedo the influence of companies from gaming to online education, has ended.


—Meaghan Tobin, Washington Post, 3 Mar. 2023




Mark Hamelburg, a senior vice president at AHIP, an industry group, said that insurers aren’t gaming the payment system and that they are supposed to do a complete and accurate job of recording enrollees’ diagnoses.


—Anna Wilde Mathews, WSJ, 2 Mar. 2023


See More

This article is about all types of games in general. For games played on a consumer electronic, see Video game. For other uses, see Game (disambiguation).

A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool.^[1] Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).

Games are sometimes played purely for enjoyment, sometimes for achievement or reward as well. They can be played alone, in teams, or online; by amateurs or by professionals. The players may have an audience of non-players, such as when people are entertained by watching a chess championship. On the other hand, players in a game may constitute their own audience as they take their turn to play. Often, part of the entertainment for children playing a game is deciding who is part of their audience and who is a player. A toy and a game are not the same. Toys generally allow for unrestricted play whereas games present rules for the player to follow.

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.

Attested as early as 2600 BC,^[2][3] games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.^[4]

Definitions

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein was probably the first academic philosopher to address the definition of the word game. In his Philosophical Investigations,^[5] Wittgenstein argued that the elements of games, such as 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 resemblances. 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.^[6]

Roger Caillois

French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men)(1961),^[7] 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 defined the term in the context of computers.^[8] Using a series of dichotomies:

1. Creative expression is art if made for its own beauty, and entertainment if made for money.
2. A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive. Movies and books are cited as examples of non-interactive entertainment.
3. 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.
4. 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 algorithmic artificial intelligence can be played as puzzles; these include the patterns used to evade ghosts in Pac-Man.)
5. 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^{[original research?]}: 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)^[9] According to this definition, some «games» that do not involve choices, such as Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, and 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)^[10]
• «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)^[11]
• «A game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context.» (Clark C. Abt)^[12]
• «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)^[13]
• «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)^[14]
• «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)^[15]

Gameplay elements and classification

Games can be characterized by «what the player does».^[8] This is often referred to as gameplay. Major key elements identified in this context are tools and rules that define the overall context of game.

Tools

Games are often classified by the components required to play them (e.g. miniatures, a ball, cards, a board and pieces, or a computer). In places where the use of leather is well-established, the ball has been a popular game piece throughout recorded history, resulting in a worldwide popularity of ball games such as rugby, basketball, soccer (football), cricket, tennis, and volleyball. Other tools are more idiosyncratic to a certain region. Many countries in Europe, for instance, have unique standard decks of playing cards. Other games such as chess may be traced primarily through the development and evolution of its game pieces.

Many game tools are tokens, meant to represent other things. A token may be a pawn on a board, play money, or an intangible item such as a point scored.

Games such as hide-and-seek or tag do not use any obvious tool; rather, their interactivity is defined by the environment. Games with the same or similar rules may have different gameplay if the environment is altered. For example, hide-and-seek in a school building differs from the same game in a park; an auto race can be radically different depending on the track or street course, even with the same cars.

Rules and aims

Games are often characterized by their tools and rules. While rules are subject to variations and changes, enough change in the rules usually results in a «new» game. For instance, baseball can be played with «real» baseballs or with wiffleballs. However, if the players decide to play with only three bases, they are arguably playing a different game. There are exceptions to this in that some games deliberately involve the changing of their own rules, but even then there are often immutable meta-rules.

Rules generally determine the time-keeping system, the rights and responsibilities of the players, scoring techniques, preset boundaries, and each player’s goals.

The rules of a game may be distinguished from its aims.^[16][17] For most competitive games, the ultimate aim is winning: in this sense, checkmate is the aim of chess.^[18] Common win conditions are being first to amass a certain quota of points or tokens (as in Settlers of Catan), having the greatest number of tokens at the end of the game (as in Monopoly), or some relationship of one’s game tokens to those of one’s opponent (as in chess’s checkmate). There may also be intermediate aims, which are tasks that move a player toward winning. For instance, an intermediate aim in football is to score goals, because scoring goals will increase one’s likelihood of winning the game, but isn’t alone sufficient to win the game.

An aim identifies a Sufficient Condition for successful action, whereas the rule identifies a necessary condition for permissible action.^[17] For example, the aim of chess is to checkmate, but although it is expected that players will try to checkmate each other, it is not a rule of chess that a player must checkmate the other player whenever possible. Similarly, it is not a rule of football that a player must score a goal on a penalty; while it is expected the player will try, it is not required. While meeting the aims often requires a certain degree of skill and (in some cases) luck, following the rules of a game merely requires knowledge of the rules and some careful attempt to follow them; it rarely (if ever) requires luck or demanding skills.

Skill, strategy, and chance

A game’s tools and rules will result in its requiring skill, strategy, luck, or a combination thereof, and are classified accordingly.

Games of skill include games of physical skill, such as wrestling, tug of war, hopscotch, target shooting, and stake, and games of mental skill such as checkers and chess. Games of strategy include checkers, chess, Go, arimaa, and tic-tac-toe, and often require special equipment to play them. Games of chance include gambling games (blackjack, Mahjong, roulette, etc.), as well as snakes and ladders and rock, paper, scissors; most require equipment such as cards or dice. However, most games contain two or all three of these elements. For example, American football and baseball involve both physical skill and strategy while tiddlywinks, poker, and Monopoly combine strategy and chance. Many card and board games combine all three; most trick-taking games involve mental skill, strategy, and an element of chance, as do many strategic board games such as Risk, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne.

Single-player games

«Single-player game» redirects here. For single-player video games, see Single-player video game.

Most games require multiple players. However, single-player games are unique in respect to the type of challenges a player faces. Unlike a game with multiple players competing with or against each other to reach the game’s goal, a one-player game is a battle solely against an element of the environment (an artificial opponent), against one’s own skills, against time, or against chance. Playing with a yo-yo or playing tennis against a wall is not generally recognized as playing a game due to the lack of any formidable opposition. Many games described as «single-player» may be termed actually puzzles or recreations.

Multiplayer games

«Multiplayer game» redirects here. For multiplayer video games, see Multiplayer video game.

A multiplayer game is a game of several players who may be independent opponents or teams. Games with many independent players are difficult to analyze formally using game theory as the players may form and switch coalitions.^[19] The term «game» in this context may mean either a true game played for entertainment or a competitive activity describable in principle by mathematical game theory.

Game theory

John Nash proved that games with several players have a stable solution provided that coalitions between players are disallowed. Nash won the Nobel prize for economics for this important result which extended von Neumann’s theory of zero-sum games. Nash’s stable solution is known as the Nash equilibrium.^[20]

If cooperation between players is allowed, then the game becomes more complex; many concepts have been developed to analyze such games. While these have had some partial success in the fields of economics, politics and conflict, no good general theory has yet been developed.^[20]

In quantum game theory, it has been found that the introduction of quantum information into multiplayer games allows a new type of equilibrium strategy not found in traditional games. The entanglement of player’s choices can have the effect of a contract by preventing players from profiting from what is known as betrayal.^[21]

Types

Games can take a variety of forms, from competitive sports to board games and video games.

Sports

Many sports require special equipment and dedicated playing fields, leading to the involvement of a community much larger than the group of players. A city or town may set aside such resources for the organization of sports leagues.

Popular sports may have spectators who are entertained just by watching games. A community will often align itself with a local sports team that supposedly represents it (even if the team or most of its players only recently moved in); they often align themselves against their opponents or have traditional rivalries. The concept of fandom began with sports fans.

Lawn games

Lawn games are outdoor games that can be played on a lawn; an area of mowed grass (or alternately, on graded soil) generally smaller than a sports field (pitch). Variations of many games that are traditionally played on a sports field are marketed as «lawn games» for home use in a front or back yard. Common lawn games include horseshoes, sholf, croquet, bocce, and lawn bowls.

Tabletop games

A tabletop game is a game where the elements of play are confined to a small area and require little physical exertion, usually simply placing, picking up and moving game pieces. Most of these games are played at a table around which the players are seated and on which the game’s elements are located. However, many games falling into this category, particularly party games, are more free-form in their play and can involve physical activity such as mime. Still, these games do not require a large area in which to play them, large amounts of strength or stamina, or specialized equipment other than what comes in a box.

Dexterity and coordination games

This class of games includes any game in which the skill element involved relates to manual dexterity or hand-eye coordination, but excludes the class of video games (see below). Games such as jacks, paper football, and Jenga require only very portable or improvised equipment and can be played on any flat level surface, while other examples, such as pinball, billiards, air hockey, foosball, and table hockey require specialized tables or other self-contained modules on which the game is played. The advent of home video game systems largely replaced some of these, such as table hockey, however air hockey, billiards, pinball and foosball remain popular fixtures in private and public game rooms. These games and others, as they require reflexes and coordination, are generally performed more poorly by intoxicated persons but are unlikely to result in injury because of this; as such the games are popular as drinking games. In addition, dedicated drinking games such as quarters and beer pong also involve physical coordination and are popular for similar reasons.

Board games

Board games use as a central tool a board on which the players’ status, resources, and progress are tracked using physical tokens. Many also involve dice or cards. Most games that simulate war are board games (though a large number of video games have been created to simulate strategic combat), and the board may be a map on which the players’ tokens move. Virtually all board games involve «turn-based» play; one player contemplates and then makes a move, then the next player does the same, and a player can only act on their turn. This is opposed to «real-time» play as is found in some card games, most sports and most video games.

Some games, such as chess and Go, are entirely deterministic, relying only on the strategy element for their interest. Such games are usually described as having «perfect information»; the only unknown is the exact thought processes of one’s opponent, not the outcome of any unknown event inherent in the game (such as a card draw or die roll). Children’s games, on the other hand, tend to be very luck-based, with games such as Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders having virtually no decisions to be made. By some definitions, such as that by Greg Costikyan, they are not games since there are no decisions to make which affect the outcome.^[22] Many other games involving a high degree of luck do not allow direct attacks between opponents; the random event simply determines a gain or loss in the standing of the current player within the game, which is independent of any other player; the «game» then is actually a «race» by definitions such as Crawford’s.

Most other board games combine strategy and luck factors; the game of backgammon requires players to decide the best strategic move based on the roll of two dice. Trivia games have a great deal of randomness based on the questions a person gets. German-style board games are notable for often having rather less of a luck factor than many board games.

Board game groups include race games, roll-and-move games, abstract strategy games, word games, and wargames, as well as trivia and other elements. Some board games fall into multiple groups or incorporate elements of other genres: Cranium is one popular example, where players must succeed in each of four skills: artistry, live performance, trivia, and language.

Card games

Card games use a deck of cards as their central tool. These cards may be a standard Anglo-American (52-card) deck of playing cards (such as for bridge, poker, Rummy, etc.), a regional deck using 32, 36 or 40 cards and different suit signs (such as for the popular German game skat), a tarot deck of 78 cards (used in Europe to play a variety of trick-taking games collectively known as Tarot, Tarock or Tarocchi games), or a deck specific to the individual game (such as Set or 1000 Blank White Cards). Uno and Rook are examples of games that were originally played with a standard deck and have since been commercialized with customized decks. Some collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering are played with a small selection of cards that have been collected or purchased individually from large available sets.

Some board games include a deck of cards as a gameplay element, normally for randomization or to keep track of game progress. Conversely, some card games such as Cribbage use a board with movers, normally to keep score. The differentiation between the two genres in such cases depends on which element of the game is foremost in its play; a board game using cards for random actions can usually use some other method of randomization, while Cribbage can just as easily be scored on paper. These elements as used are simply the traditional and easiest methods to achieve their purpose.

Dice games

Dice games use a number of dice as their central element. Board games often use dice for a randomization element, and thus each roll of the dice has a profound impact on the outcome of the game, however dice games are differentiated in that the dice do not determine the success or failure of some other element of the game; they instead are the central indicator of the person’s standing in the game. Popular dice games include Yahtzee, Farkle, Bunco, Liar’s dice/Perudo, and Poker dice. As dice are, by their very nature, designed to produce apparently random numbers, these games usually involve a high degree of luck, which can be directed to some extent by the player through more strategic elements of play and through tenets of probability theory. Such games are thus popular as gambling games; the game of Craps is perhaps the most famous example, though Liar’s dice and Poker dice were originally conceived of as gambling games.

Domino and tile games

Domino games are similar in many respects to card games, but the generic device is instead a set of tiles called dominoes, which traditionally each have two ends, each with a given number of dots, or «pips», and each combination of two possible end values as it appears on a tile is unique in the set. The games played with dominoes largely center around playing a domino from the player’s «hand» onto the matching end of another domino, and the overall object could be to always be able to make a play, to make all open endpoints sum to a given number or multiple, or simply to play all dominoes from one’s hand onto the board. Sets vary in the number of possible dots on one end, and thus of the number of combinations and pieces; the most common set historically is double-six, though in more recent times «extended» sets such as double-nine have been introduced to increase the number of dominoes available, which allows larger hands and more players in a game. Muggins, Mexican Train, and Chicken Foot are very popular domino games. Texas 42 is a domino game more similar in its play to a «trick-taking» card game.

Variations of traditional dominoes abound: Triominoes are similar in theory but are triangular and thus have three values per tile. Similarly, a game known as Quad-Ominos uses four-sided tiles.

Some other games use tiles in place of cards; Rummikub is a variant of the Rummy card game family that uses tiles numbered in ascending rank among four colors, very similar in makeup to a 2-deck «pack» of Anglo-American playing cards. Mahjong is another game very similar to Rummy that uses a set of tiles with card-like values and art.

Lastly, some games use graphical tiles to form a board layout, on which other elements of the game are played. Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne are examples. In each, the «board» is made up of a series of tiles; in Settlers of Catan the starting layout is random but static, while in Carcassonne the game is played by «building» the board tile-by-tile. Hive, an abstract strategy game using tiles as moving pieces, has mechanical and strategic elements similar to chess, although it has no board; the pieces themselves both form the layout and can move within it.

Pencil and paper games

Pencil and paper games require little or no specialized equipment other than writing materials, though some such games have been commercialized as board games (Scrabble, for instance, is based on the idea of a crossword puzzle, and tic-tac-toe sets with a boxed grid and pieces are available commercially). These games vary widely, from games centering on a design being drawn such as Pictionary and «connect-the-dots» games like sprouts, to letter and word games such as Boggle and Scattergories, to solitaire and logic puzzle games such as Sudoku and crossword puzzles.

Guessing games

A guessing game has as its core a piece of information that one player knows, and the object is to coerce others into guessing that piece of information without actually divulging it in text or spoken word. Charades is probably the most well-known game of this type, and has spawned numerous commercial variants that involve differing rules on the type of communication to be given, such as Catch Phrase, Taboo, Pictionary, and similar. The genre also includes many game shows such as Win, Lose or Draw, Password and $25,000 Pyramid.

Video games

Video games are computer- or microprocessor-controlled games. Computers can create virtual spaces for a wide variety of game types. Some video games simulate conventional game objects like cards or dice, while others can simulate environs either grounded in reality or fantastical in design, each with its own set of rules or goals.

A computer or video game uses one or more input devices, typically a button/joystick combination (on arcade games); a keyboard, mouse or trackball (computer games); or a controller or a motion sensitive tool (console games). More esoteric devices such as paddle controllers have also been used for input.

There are many genres of video game; the first commercial video game, Pong, was a simple simulation of table tennis. As processing power increased, new genres such as adventure and action games were developed that involved a player guiding a character from a third person perspective through a series of obstacles. This «real-time» element cannot be easily reproduced by a board game, which is generally limited to «turn-based» strategy; this advantage allows video games to simulate situations such as combat more realistically. Additionally, the playing of a video game does not require the same physical skill, strength or danger as a real-world representation of the game, and can provide either very realistic, exaggerated or impossible physics, allowing for elements of a fantastical nature, games involving physical violence, or simulations of sports. Lastly, a computer can, with varying degrees of success, simulate one or more human opponents in traditional table games such as chess, leading to simulations of such games that can be played by a single player.

In more open-ended computer simulations, also known as sandbox-style games, the game provides a virtual environment in which the player may be free to do whatever they like within the confines of this universe. Sometimes, there is a lack of goals or opposition, which has stirred some debate on whether these should be considered «games» or «toys». (Crawford specifically mentions Will Wright’s SimCity as an example of a toy.)^[8]

Online games

Online games have been part of culture from the very earliest days of networked and time-shared computers. Early commercial systems such as Plato were at least as widely famous for their games as for their strictly educational value. In 1958, Tennis for Two dominated Visitor’s Day and drew attention to the oscilloscope at the Brookhaven National Laboratory; during the 1980s, Xerox PARC was known mainly for Maze War, which was offered as a hands-on demo to visitors.

Modern online games are played using an Internet connection; some have dedicated client programs, while others require only a web browser. Some simpler browser games appeal to more casual gaming demographic groups (notably older audiences) that otherwise play very few video games.^[23]

Role-playing games

Role-playing games, often abbreviated as RPGs, are a type of game in which the participants (usually) assume the roles of characters acting in a fictional setting. The original role playing games – or at least those explicitly marketed as such – are played with a handful of participants, usually face-to-face, and keep track of the developing fiction with pen and paper. Together, the players may collaborate on a story involving those characters; create, develop, and «explore» the setting; or vicariously experience an adventure outside the bounds of everyday life. Pen-and-paper role-playing games include, for example, Dungeons & Dragons and GURPS.

The term role-playing game has also been appropriated by the video game industry to describe a genre of video games. These may be single-player games where one player experiences a programmed environment and story, or they may allow players to interact through the internet. The experience is usually quite different from traditional role-playing games. Single-player games include Final Fantasy, Fable, The Elder Scrolls, and Mass Effect. Online multi-player games, often referred to as Massively Multiplayer Online role playing games, or MMORPGs, include RuneScape, EverQuest 2, Guild Wars, MapleStory, Anarchy Online, and Dofus. As of 2009, the most successful MMORPG has been World of Warcraft, which controls the vast majority of the market.^[24]

Business games

Business games can take a variety of forms, from interactive board games to interactive games involving different props (balls, ropes, hoops, etc.) and different kinds of activities. The purpose of these games is to link to some aspect of organizational performance and to generate discussions about business improvement. Many business games focus on organizational behaviors. Some of these are computer simulations while others are simple designs for play and debriefing. Team building is a common focus of such activities.

Simulation

The term «game» can include simulation^[25][26] or re-enactment of various activities or use in «real life» for various purposes: e.g., training, analysis, prediction. Well-known examples are war games and role-playing. The root of this meaning may originate in the human prehistory of games deduced by anthropology from observing primitive cultures, in which children’s games mimic the activities of adults to a significant degree: hunting, warring, nursing, etc. These kinds of games are preserved in modern times.^{[original research?]}

See also

• Game club
• Gamer
• Girls’ games and toys
• History of games
• Learning through play
• List of games
• Ludibrium
• Ludology
• Ludomania
• Mobile game
• N-player game
• Personal computer game

References

Further reading

• Avedon, Elliot; Sutton-Smith, Brian, The Study of Games. (Philadelphia: Wiley, 1971), reprinted Krieger, 1979. ISBN 0-89874-045-2.

English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• enPR: gām, IPA^(key): /ɡeɪm/
• Rhymes: -eɪm

Etymology 1[edit]

From Middle English game, gamen, gammen, from Old English gamen (“sport, joy, mirth, pastime, game, amusement, pleasure”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaman, from Proto-Germanic *gamaną (“amusement, pleasure, game», literally «participation, communion, people together”), from *ga- (collective prefix) + *mann- (“man”); or alternatively from *ga- + a root from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think, have in mind”).

Cognate with Old Frisian game, gome (“joy, amusement, entertainment”), Middle High German gamen (“joy, amusement, fun, pleasure”), Swedish gamman (“mirth, rejoicing, merriment”), Icelandic gaman (“fun”). Related to gammon, gamble.

Noun[edit]

game (countable and uncountable, plural games)

2. A playful or competitive activity.
   2. A playful activity that may be unstructured; an amusement or pastime.

      Synonyms: amusement, diversion, entertainment, festivity, frolic, fun, gaiety, gambol, lark, merriment, merrymaking, pastime, play, prank, recreation, sport, spree

      Antonyms: drudgery, work, toil

      Being a child is all fun and games.

   3. (countable) An activity described by a set of rules, especially for the purpose of entertainment, often competitive or having an explicit goal.

      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:game

      • 1983, Lawrence Lasker & al., WarGames:

        Joshua: Shall we play a game?
        David: … Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?
        Joshua: Wouldn’t you prefer a good game of chess?
        David: Later. Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War.
        Joshua: Fine.

      Games in the classroom can make learning fun.

   4. (UK, in the plural) A school subject during which sports are practised.

      • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, →OCLC, page 37:

        From time to time, track-suited boys ran past them, with all the deadly purpose and humourless concentration of those who enjoyed Games.

   6. (countable) A particular instance of playing a game.

      Synonym: match

      Sally won the game.

      They can turn the game around in the second half.

      • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter I, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

        “I’m through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.

   8. That which is gained, such as the stake in a game.
   10. The number of points necessary to win a game.

       In short whist, five points are game.

       See also: for the win

   12. (card games) In some games, a point awarded to the player whose cards add up to the largest sum.
   14. (countable) The equipment that enables such activity, particularly as packaged under a title.

       Some of the games in the closet we have on the computer as well.

   16. One’s manner, style, or performance in playing a game.

       Study can help your game of chess.

       Hit the gym if you want to toughen up your game.

       • 1951, J. D. Salinger, chapter 11, in The Catcher in the Rye, Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC:

         I played golf with her that same afternoon. She lost eight balls, I remember. Eight. I had a terrible time getting her to at least open her eyes when she took a swing at the ball. I improved her game immensely, though.

   18. (countable) Ellipsis of video game.

       • 2019 May 8, Jon Bailes, “Save yourself! The video games casting us as helpless children”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

         There’s a sense here, as well as in games such as Limbo, that we’re making ourselves experience our children’s reality, trapped in the chaos that the adults have created.

4. (now rare) Lovemaking, flirtation.
6. (slang) Prostitution. (Now chiefly in on the game.)

   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v], lines 61–63:

     ſet them downe, / For ſlottiſh ſpoyles of opportunitie; / And daughters of the game.

   • 1755, Tobias Smollett, translating Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Volume 1, I.2:

     [H]e put spurs to his horse, and just in the twilight reached the gate, where, at that time, there happened to be two ladies of the game [translating mugeres moças], who being on their journey to Seville, with the carriers, had chanced to take up their night’s lodging in this place.

8. (countable, informal, nearly always singular) A field of gainful activity, as an industry or profession.

   Synonym: line

   When it comes to making sales, John is the best in the game.

   He’s in the securities game somehow.

10. (countable, figuratively) Something that resembles a game with rules, despite not being designed.

    In the game of life, you may find yourself playing the waiting game far too often.

    • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 77, column 2:

      I ſee you ſtand like Grey-hounds in the ſlips, / Straying vpon the Start. The Game’s afoot:

    • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter I, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

      “I’m through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.
12. (countable, military) An exercise simulating warfare, whether computerized or involving human participants.

    Synonym: wargame

14. (uncountable) wild animals hunted for food.

    The forest has plenty of game.

    • 1907, Burroughs, John, Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt‎^[2], Houghton Mifflin Company, →OCLC, pages 5-6:

      I had known the President several years before he became famous, and we had had some correspondence on subjects of natural history. His interest in such themes is always very fresh and keen, and the main motive of his visit to the Park at this time was to see and study in its semi-domesticated condition the great game which he had so often hunted during his ranch days; and he was kind enough to think it would be an additional pleasure to see it with a nature-lover like myself.

16. (uncountable, informal, used mostly for men) The ability to seduce someone, usually by strategy.

    He didn’t get anywhere with her because he had no game.

    • 1998, “She’s Strange”, performed by Nate Dogg:

      She’s strange, so strange, but I didn’t complain / She said yes to me when I ran my game

18. (uncountable, slang) Mastery; the ability to excel at something.

    • 1998, “He Got Game”, performed by Public Enemy:

      What is game? Who got game? / Where’s the game in life, behind the game behind the game / I got game, she’s got game / We got game, they got game, he got game

    • 2005, Kermit Ernest Campbell, Gettin’ Our Groove on: Rhetoric, Language, and Literacy for the Hip Hop Generation, →ISBN, page 123:

      In the contemporary arts of the academic contact zone, I say African American students got game!

    • 2009, Michael Marshall, Bad Things, →ISBN, page 24:

      My dad had game at that kind of thing, and I spent long periods as a child watching him.

20. (countable) A questionable or unethical practice in pursuit of a goal.

    Synonyms: scheme, racket

    You want to borrow my credit card for a week? What’s your game?

    • 1902, George Saintsbury, Dryden, page 182:

      It was obviously Lord Macaulay’s game to blacken the greatest literary champion of the cause he had set himself to attack.

Derived terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

• → Brazilian Portuguese: game
• → Dutch: gamen, game
• → Irish: géim
• → Japanese: ゲーム
• → Korean: 게임 (geim), 겜 (gem)
• → Norman: gamme
• → Norwegian: gamen, game
• → Spanish: game
• → Welsh: gêm

Translations[edit]

Adjective[edit]

game (comparative gamer, superlative gamest)

1. (colloquial) Willing and able to participate.

   Synonyms: sporting, willing, daring, disposed, favorable, nervy, courageous, valiant

   Antonyms: cautious, disinclined

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 36, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 180:

     « […] But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Moby Dick?”

   • 2016 February 23, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ‘ Sacha Baron Cohen’s vital, venomous action movie’”, in The Daily Telegraph (London):

     Some of Grimsby’s other (extraordinarily up-to-date) targets include Donald Trump and Daniel Radcliffe, whose fates here are too breath-catchingly cruel to spoil, and also the admirably game Strong, whose character is beset by a constant stream of humiliations that hit with the force of a jet of…well, you’ll see.

2. (of an animal) That shows a tendency to continue to fight against another animal, despite being wounded, often severely.
3. Persistent, especially in senses similar to the above.

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

game (third-person singular simple present games, present participle gaming, simple past and past participle gamed)

1. (intransitive) To gamble.

   • an impressive protest against gaming, swearing, and all immoral practices which might forfeit divine aid in the great struggle for National Independence

2. (intransitive) To play card games, board games, or video games.

   • 2017 June 16, Joanna Walters, “Inside the rehab saving young men from their internet addiction”, in The Guardian‎^[3]:

     “The first few days after getting here are weird. It’s a version of cold turkey because you’ve been gaming around the clock and suddenly, nothing. […] ”

3. (transitive) To exploit loopholes in a system or bureaucracy in a way which defeats or nullifies the spirit of the rules in effect, usually to obtain a result which otherwise would be unobtainable.

   • 2012 August 31, Amanda Holpuch, “Trolls game Taylor Swift competition in favor of school for the hearing impaired”, in The Guardian‎^[4]:

     A large batch of online trolls have gamed a web contest that promises a Taylor Swift performance at any school in the US. The target? Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

   • 2020 February 6, Alex Hern, quoting Natalie Hitchins, “Amazon Choice label is being ‘gamed to promote poor products’”, in The Guardian‎^[5]:

     “Amazon risks betraying the trust millions of customers place in the Amazon’s Choice badge by allowing its endorsement to be all too easily gamed,” said Which?’s Natalie Hitchins.

   • 2023 January 25, Christian Wolmar, “An informative cab ride on the state of the railway”, in RAIL, number 975, page 34:

     It is an example of what real entrepreneurship can do on the railway, but sadly there are not many other examples. Most of the private sector businesses in rail are simply ‘gaming’ the system, trying to outdo or outthink the regulator and the Government in order to generate profit.

4. (transitive, seduction community, slang, of males) To perform premeditated seduction strategy.

   • 2005 October 6, “Picking up the pieces”, in The Economist‎^[6]:

     Returning briefly to his journalistic persona to interview Britney Spears, he finds himself gaming her, and she gives him her phone number.

   • 2010, Mystery, The Pickup Artist: The New and Improved Art of Seduction, Villard Books, →ISBN, page 100:

     A business associate of mine at the time, George Wu, sat across the way, gaming a stripper the way I taught him.

   • 2010 July 9, Sheila McClear, “Would you date a pickup artist?”, in New York Post‎^[7]:

     How did Amanda know she wasn’t getting gamed? Well, she didn’t. “I would wonder, ‘Is he saying stuff to other girls that he says to me?’ We did everything we could to cut it off […] yet we somehow couldn’t.”

Derived terms[edit]

• game the system
• gamer

Translations[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Adjective[edit]

game (comparative more game, superlative most game)

1. Injured, lame (of a limb).
   • around 1900, O. Henry, Lost on Dress Parade

     You come with me and we’ll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home very nicely, I am sure.»

See also[edit]

• game on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams[edit]

• MEGA, Mega, mage, mega, mega-

Chinese[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• (leetspeak) 驚／惊 (geng¹)

Etymology[edit]

From English game.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

game

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) game (especially video games and online games) (Classifier: 隻／只 c)

Derived terms[edit]

References[edit]

• English Loanwords in Hong Kong Cantonese

Dutch[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ɡeːm/
• Hyphenation: game
• Rhymes: -eːm

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowed from English game.

Noun[edit]

game m (plural games, diminutive gamepje n)

1. A video game, an electronic game.

   Synonyms: videogame, videospel

Hyponyms[edit]

• computerspel

[edit]

• gamen
• gamer

Etymology 2[edit]

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb[edit]

game

1. first-person singular present indicative of gamen
2. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of gamen
3. imperative of gamen

Middle English[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old English gamen, gomen, from Proto-West Germanic *gaman, from Proto-Germanic *gamaną, of disputed origin.

Alternative forms[edit]

• gamen, gemen, gomen, gome, gammen, gaume, gamme, gamin, gomin, gomyn, gomun, gam, geme

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡaːm(ə)/, /ˈɡam(ə)/, /ˈɡaːmən/, /ˈɡamən/
• (from OE gomen) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɔːm(ə)/, /ˈɡɔːmən/
• (Kent) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɛːm(ə)/, /ˈɡɛːmən/

Noun[edit]

game (plural games or game)

1. Entertainment or an instance of it; that which is enjoyable:
   1. A sport or other outdoor or physical activity.
   2. A game; a codified (and often competitive) form of entertainment.
   3. Sexual or romantic entertainment or activity (including intercourse in itself).
   4. An amusing, joking, or humorous activity or event.
2. Any kind of event or occurrence; something that happens:
   1. An endeavour; a set of actions towards a goal.
   2. Any kind of activity having competition or rivalry.
3. The state of being happy or joyful.
4. Game; wild animals hunted for food.
5. (rare) One’s quarry; that which one is trying to catch.
6. (rare) Gamesmanship; gaming behaviour.
7. (rare) The reward for winning a game.

Derived terms[edit]

• gameful
• gamely
• gamen

Descendants[edit]

• English: game, gammon (dialectal gam) (see there for further descendants)
• Scots: gemme, gem, gyem
• Yola: gaame, gaume, gaaume

References[edit]

• “gāme, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2019-07-09.

Etymology 2[edit]

From Old English gæmnian, gamnian, gamenian.

Verb[edit]

game

1. Alternative form of gamen

Portuguese[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Unadapted borrowing from English game.

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈɡejm/, /ˈɡej.mi/

Noun[edit]

game m (plural games)

1. (Brazil) electronic game (game played on an electronic device, such as a computer game, a video game or the like)

   Synonyms: videojogo, jogo

Quotations[edit]

For quotations using this term, see Citations:game.

See also[edit]

• jogo

Etymology 2[edit]

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Pronunciation[edit]

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -ɐmɨ, (Brazil) -ɐ̃mi
• Hyphenation: ga‧me

Verb[edit]

game

1. inflection of gamar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Spanish[edit]

Noun[edit]

game m (plural games)

1. (tennis) game

Swedish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from English game. Attested since 1900.

Pronunciation[edit]

• Homophone: gem

Noun[edit]

game n

1. (tennis) game

Declension[edit]

Declension of game
	Singular	Plural
Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	game	gamet	game	gamen
Genitive	games	gamets	games	gamens

Derived terms[edit]

• gammal i gamet

References[edit]

• game in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• game in Svensk ordbok (SO)

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A game is something that people often do for fun. It is different from work. Many sports are games, and there are many professional sports. In those cases, there is money to be made, because it is a type of entertainment.

There are different kinds of games using many kinds of equipment. For example, in video games, people often use controllers or their keyboard to control what happens on a screen, such as a television screens and computers ones too. In card games, players use playing cards. There are also games that use your body, such as the Kinect. Most games need equipment, but not always. Children’s street games often need no equipment.

In board games, players may move pieces on a flat surface called a board. The object of the game varies. In race-type games like ludo, the object is to reach the end first. In go the object is to surround more space. In soccer it is to score more goals. Some games have complicated rules, some have simple rules.

Definitions[change | change source]

Ludwig Wittgenstein[change | change source]

Ludwig Wittgenstein was probably the first academic philosopher to address the definition of the word game. In his Philosophical Investigations,^[1] Wittgenstein demonstrated that the elements (parts) of games, such as play, rules, and competition, all fail to correctly define what games are. He concluded that people apply the term game to a range of different human activities that are related, but not closely related.

Homo Ludens[change | change source]

Homo Ludens (Playing Man) is a book written in 1938 by Dutch historian Johan Huizinga.^[2] It discusses the importance of the play element in culture and society. Huizinga suggests that play is a condition for the generation of culture.

Roger Caillois[change | change source]

French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men),^[3] said that a game is an activity which is these things:

1. free: the activity is voluntary
2. separate: the activity cannot happen everywhere or, all the time
3. uncertain: the people doing the activity do not know how it will end
4. non-productive: doing the activity does not make or do anything useful
5. governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
6. fictitious: the people doing the activity know that the game is not reality

Chris Crawford[change | change source]

Computer game designer Chris Crawford tried to define the word game using a series of comparisons:^[4]

1. Something creative is art if it was made because it is beautiful, and entertainment if it was made for money.
2. Something that is entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive. Movies and books are entertainment, but not interactive.
3. If a plaything does not have any goals to complete, it is a ‘toy. If a plaything has goals, it is a challenge.
4. If a challenge does not have an opponent, it is a puzzle. If it has an opponent, it is a conflict.
5. If the player can do better at something than an opponent but cannot affect the opponent, the conflict is a competition. Racing and figure skating are competitions. However, if attacks are allowed, then the conflict qualifies as a game.

Crawford’s definition of a game is: an interactive, goal-oriented activity, with opponents to play against, and where players and opponents can interfere with each other.

History of Games[change | change source]

The first writer of history was Herodotus, an ancient Greek. He wrote a book called “The Histories” around 440 BC, which is nearly 2500 years ago. Some of the stories he wrote were not true, and we don’t know if this is one of those.

Herodotus tells us about king Atys; he ruled about 5,500 [five thousand five hundred] years ago in a country called Lydia. His country was in western Asia Minor, near modern Greece. Atys had a serious problem; his lands had very little food because the climate was not good for agriculture. The people of Lydia demonstrated patience and hoped that the good times of plenty would return.

But when things failed to get better, the people of Lydia thought up a strange solution for their problem. The path they took to fight their natural need to eat – the hungry times caused by the unusually hard climate — was to play games for one entire day so that they would not think about food. On the next day they would eat, so eating occurred every second day. In this way they passed 18 years, and in that time they invented dice, balls, and all the games commonly played today.^[5]

Games appear in all cultures all over the world, an ancient custom that brings people together for social opportunities. Games allow people to go beyond the limit of the immediate physical experience, to use their imagination. Common features of games include a finish that you cannot forecast, agreed upon rules, competition, separate place and time, imaginary elements, elements of chance, established goals and personal enjoyment. Games are used to teach, to build friendships, and to indicate status.

In his 1938 history book the Dutch writer Johan Huizinga says that games are older than human culture. He sees games as the beginning of complex human activities such as language, law, war, philosophy and art. Ancient people used bones to make the first games. Dice are very early game pieces. Games began as part of ancient religions. The oldest gaming pieces ever found – 49 [forty nine] small painted stones with pictures cut into them from 5,000 [five thousand] years ago – come from Turkey, so perhaps the history of Herodotus is true. One of the first board games, Senet, appears in ancient Egypt around 3,500 [three thousand five hundred] years ago. The ancient Greeks had a board game similar to checkers, and also many ball games.

The first reference to the game of Go occurs in Chinese records from around 2,400 [two thousand four hundred] years ago. Originally the game Go was used by political leaders to develop skill in strategy and mental skill. Knowing how to play Go was required by a Chinese gentleman, along with the skills of artistic writing or calligraphy, painting and the ability to play a musical instrument. These were regarded as the four most important skills. In ancient China, a gentleman had to pass a test in these four key skills in order to get a good paying job in the government. The Chinese brought Go to Korea, and it entered Japan around 1,500 [one thousand five hundred] years ago, and it has been popular ever since.^[6]

In March 2016 a Google computer program beat the best Go players in the world. Go is believed to be the most complex board game ever created. Is this computer program smarter than a person? Well, it did beat the South Korean Go master Lee Se-dol, and Lee was surprised by the result. He acknowledged defeat after three and a half hours of play. Demis Hassabis, who made the Google program, called it an important moment in history, because a machine beat the best person in the world in an intelligent game. Such computer programs rely on what is called artificial intelligence. Go is a two-player game of strategy said to have had an origin in China perhaps around 3,000 [three thousand] years ago. Players compete to win more territory by placing black and white “stones” on a board made up of 19 [nineteen] lines by 19 [nineteen] lines.^[7]

The first computer game that was ever created was probably the game OXO by Alexander Douglas in 1952. It was a version of tic-tac-toe. But most people consider the first true computer game where players actually participate to be Tennis for Two developed in 1958 by the physics scientist William Higginbotham. He wanted to teach about gravity, the force of attraction between masses. These men who created the early computer games did not forecast the potential for the popular use of games, because at that period in modern history it took a small room full of computers to make these games work! Another early game was Spacewar! developed in 1961 by MIT university student Steve Russell. In 1972 the company Atari produced the Pong game which was a huge commercial success; being a commercial success means that it made a lot of money. This was the true beginning of computer games that could be played at home.^[8]

Today, all around the world people spend more than 3,000,000,000 [three billion] hours a week playing computer games.^[9] This is equivalent to more than 342,000 [three hundred and forty two hundred thousand] years!

Other definitions[change | change source]

• «A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome».^[10]
• «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)
• «A game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context«.^[11]
• «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».^[12]
• «A game is a form of play with goals and structure».^[13]

[change | change source]

• Video game
• Puzzle
• Sports
• Toy

References[change | change source]