So what's a "game", and how does it tie into life?

I guess the conventional idea is "why do we play games, and what is a game?"

Well, what do you define as a game? Because believe it or not, there has been a somewhat solid and realistic idea of what a "game" is.

Chris Crawford (Video game designer) theorized about games.

So for example. Tv shows, books, and movies are not games. Why? well, mainly because they aren't interactive.

So then we move to things that ARE interactive; the theory goes like this:

We have visualize something that is both: fun and interactive, this is called a play thing.

So there are two types of play things.

• One type is when there is no goal or thing you have to accomplish, you have yourself a toy.
• The other type of play thing is when you have a goal or objective to accomplish, then you have yourself a challenge.

So then there are two different types of challenges:

• If there are no other people involved (example: you playing alone with a Rubik's cube) this is called a puzzle.
• If there ARE other people however, now we've got ourselves a conflict.

And you may have just guessed that there are two different types of conflicts in this situation.

• In a conflict like a foot race, the people are not allowed to interfere or influence the other participants in the conflict...this is what defines a competition.
• However, If the other participants ARE allowed to interfere with, or influence the other participants, then we finally have ourselves a game. (Popular examples: soccer, football, basketball).

So a game is: Interactive, goal oriented, and involves other agents (participants) who can interfere with or influence other participants.

Technically speaking, the would mean that...life itself is in fact, a game.