What is a (Video) Game?

Defining a video game is relatively simple: a video game is simply an electronic version of a game that generates its visual feedback on a video monitor.  This leads to the more important and abstract question then: “what is a game?”  Knowing the answer to this question forms the core understanding of games structures and essence.  After learning this, you will better understand any game you have played and will ever play at any time in your entire life.  

Difficulty arises when trying to form a distinction to how games are different from every other facet of life.  What purpose should games fulfill that other life activities may not?  

In 1950, a dutch historian by the name of Johan Huizinga gave the first good definition of a game.  The definition could be roughly summed up to describe a game as a “magic circle”, where the player engages in an activity with its own rules and expectations, that stands outside ”ordinary” life, and is ”not serious” but at the same time absorbs the player.  This first genuine attempt to define a game fell short though as too many potential overlaps with "real life" activities that are not games could be made (example: taking a final exam in a University could be taken as a “game” by his definition).  Many other attempts at definitions arose throughout the next fifty years by many people who defined certain aspects of games, such as that they were a psychological escape from every-day-life, as well as four main classifications of games.  However, no definitions made clear what differentiated a game from the rest of every-day-life activities.  Finally in 2003, a man by the name of Jesper Juul analyzed many of the academic papers on games, and published his own paper which summed up the 6 essential qualities needed for a game to be considered a true "game":

1. Fixed Rules - A game needs a fixed set of rules to be a baseline for every player to play against.
2. Variable and Quantifiable Outcome - The game must provide different possible outcomes.  The goal/outcome must also be well defined.
3. Valorization of the Outcome - Some possible outcomes of the game are better than others.  
4. Player Effort - The game must be challenging and it must allow the player to interact with and change the outcome based on their decisions.
5. Attachment of the Player to the Outcome - The player must care about specific aspects of the outcome.
6. Negotiable Consequences - The player must have the option to lose or leave the game at any time, as well as having the option to opt-out of any real life consequences (so losing the game will have no financial or physical impact on the player's real life).

Combining these definitions, we can finally describe a game as:
"A fixed set of rules determining a valorized and variable outcome, which the player is attached to and has to work towards, but has negotiable consequences."


And as stated initially, a video game is simply a game that uses a video monitor for its output.


Jesper Juul’s full paper can be found here: http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/gameplayerworld/