What is a game?

Researchers of gaming studies field are always discussing this subject. One thing is certain: there’s no absolute answer for this question. A game can be defined in many ways and videogames – specifically – become so complex platforms that is very difficult to reach one single idea about “what is a game”.

The good point is: there are lots of good visions about it. In an excellent presentation made at DiGRA’13 keynote named “The Ambiguity of Game Studies: Observations on the Collective Process of Inventing a New Discipline” the author Janet Murray discusses (among other things) what is a game.

The graph below, from the book “First Person" shows one (of many) interpretations of this subject:



I strongly recommend the complete reading of this presentation. You can find the slides HERE.

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Player/interactor

In the early days of the videogame industry, PONG could be elected a huge turning point in this scenario. As Cohen (1984, p.17) reminds us, PONG was a tremendous success inside the arcades around the world and many people lined up to play the game.

And it’s important to remember that PONG, in these early years, became also a domestic console and one new component was added in the growing gaming market.



For the first time one person – at home or arcade - started to interact with a screen with real time responses using a controller. In this moment the spectator gained “new powers” and was transformed in something new: an interactor.

As proposed by Murray (1997, p.153) “the interactor is the author of a particular performance within an electronic story system”. In this new ecosystem the interactor would be a kind of spectator who has capacity for agency, understood as the ability to perform significant actions and experience the proposal of a fictional universe.

So, more than simple players, we have a world full of interactors. Today many people are not necessarily playing a game, but interacting with digital platforms that use the ludic language. I think it’s important to think beyond the player and try to observe a more complex piece in this complex stage: the role of the interactor.

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References:

COHEN, Scott. Zap: The Rise and Fall of Atari. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984.

MURRAY, Janet (1997). Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: MIT Press, 1997.

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