Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great 20th century philosopher of language and logic, was intrigued by games. For Wittgenstein, language was itself a game, and games, themselves, were a prime illustration of the fluid interplay in language between fixed rules and the primal human need for flexibility.

In Wittgenstein’s view, the boundaries of the word “game,” though commonly invoked without much thought, were hazy or nonexistent. Like a ghost, the exact meaning of game flees whenever we draw too near and examine it closely.

As games are examined, their “similarities crop up and disappear,” according to Wittgenstein. However, it seems to me that if we stop trying to define what a game is and instead look at what role games play in life, “game” can be reliably defined.

Before getting to that idea, first, here’s Wittgenstein in aphorisms 66 and 67 of Philosophical Investigations:

Consider for example the proceedings that we call “games.”
I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?

—Don’t say: “There must be something common, or they
would not be called ‘games’”—but look and see whether thereis anything common to all.

—For if you look at them you will not see something that is
common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole
series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but look!

Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious
relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many
correspondences with the first group, but many common
features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost.

—Are they all ‘amusing’? Compare chess with noughts and
crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience [Solitaire]. In ball-games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again this feature has disappeared.

Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the difference between skill in chess and skill in tennis.

Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the
element of amusement, but how many other characteristic
features have disappeared!

And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear. And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and crisscrossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes
similarities of detail.

I can think of no better expression to characterize these
similarities than “family resemblances”; for the various
resemblances between members of a family: build, features,
colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and crisscross in the same way. —And I shall say: ‘games’ form a family.

At the risk of appearing to pick a fight with Wittgenstein, I believe games are, no matter what their definition, a fundamental building block for communities. Like language, they are agreed structures that allow and foster meaningful interaction. (Even Solitaire is the seed for socializing between teacher and student, peer players (comparing lucky runs) and the player’s present self with the experience of past selves.)

And all games have distinct effects, effects that are regular and predictable enough that the effects might be codified and, in turn, used to help define “game.” (Would it be stretching logic to say “everything that produces the same effects as a game is a game” or are there exceptions to that rule?)

The common effects of games can be untangled into the following strands:

• Agreement: Even the most competitive games start with agreement — these are the rules, this is the goal, these are the spacial and behavioral edges of our field of play.
• Interaction: Participating in a game requires interaction — either with opposing participants, team mates, referees, spectators, or, at the very least (in the case of Solitaire, for example) a teacher.
• Collaboration: Nearly all games require collaboration. Team members work together to achieve a goal and even opponents must collaborate by abiding by common rules and taking turns.
• Identity: All players of a given type of game assume an identity as players of that game by grace of their common knowledge of the rules, investment of some portion of their lives in the game, their shared status in the community.
• Conversation: Beyond the process of “doing” a game, players engage in meta-conversations on, within, around that game.
• Primacy: Notwithstanding Wittgenstein’s erroneous claim that throwing a ball against the wall is a game, games all have a winner and/or loser, players who succeeds or fails at fulfilling the assigned task.
• Order: Like a crystal’s seed, public awareness of a player’s success contributes to a lattice-work of heirarchies that buttress and stabiliz the society around the game.

As noted above, these effects might themselves be used to create a sociological or psychological (or phenomenological?) definition of “game.” But we’ll play that game another day.

Meanwhile, go read what AI thinks of this blog post!