A game is an activity that allows for interaction between players in a structured way. While some games only focus on a single aspect of play, others may incorporate multiple aspects to create the overall experience. Games can range from competitive sports to pure narrative-driven adventures and everything in between. The primary distinction a game makes from other forms of entertainment is the ability to interactively participate with the game’s environment. This can be as simple as moving 2D blocks in Tetris or as immersive as inhabiting a full-scale virtual world in a video game.
All games must contain some type of goal or challenge for players to pursue. While some games may only have one goal, many have multiple goals that vary in complexity or time to achieve. In addition, all games must contain rules and mechanics for players to interact with and apply. Some examples of these elements include accumulating points, collecting tokens, solving puzzles and completing challenges.
Many games are categorized by the components required to play them, such as a board and pieces, cards, miniatures or computer. This can also be an indicator of the difficulty and/or complexity of the game. For example, games that require the most physical exertion are typically competitive sports while those that require a small amount of space and little physical energy fall into the category of tabletop or card games.
In order to engage in a game, players must consent to the ludological agreement and abide by the rules of the game. This means that players will often take actions that are inefficient in terms of reaching the game’s aims. This also suggests that the aims of the game are not necessarily based on skill and/or luck, but rather on the design of the rules and constraints in which the game is played.
While there is some debate about the definition of a game, most scholars agree that games are a form of entertainment and that they offer a different kind of interactive entertainment than other media. Some scholars have gone further to suggest that games can be used for learning. Specifically, they can encourage players to develop creative solutions to problems within the game’s ‘possibility space’.
Games have been compared to other activities such as math and science due to the imposed structure and rules which constrain these disciplines. However, some scholars have also argued that these comparisons are problematic as they do not fully account for the complexity of the games and the ways in which people play them. In particular, these comparisons overlook the ambiguity and interconnectedness of all games.