Task: Defining Games.

  What is a Videogame?  A Videogame, by it's very name, is a game with a 'Video' element attached.  'Video' implies that, there is a visual component to the entertainment of the game itself.

  During our last Critical Games Studies class, our lecturer, Eddie Duggan, took us through the meanings of Videogames, Game & Play, down to the base definitions.  He begun by diverting our attention to a text by Johann Huizinga, who wrote Homo Ludens (originally published in 1938).  Homo Ludens, meaning "Playing Man" is a pun on Homo Sapiens, meaning "Knowing Man".

  Ludens says "Play is a free activity standing quite consciously outside ordinary life as being not serious, but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly".  I have to say, I completely agree with this, it's so easy to immerse yourself in a game, not only on a story level, but the gameplay aspect itself.

Moving further on, and getting a bit deeper into it, Salen and Zimmerman (Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, 2004) observe that "A game is a system in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome".

  One way of classifying games is by genre, Newman (Videogames, 2003) cites Beren's and Howard's 2001 typology (Rough Guide to Videogaming, 2001) which lists seven categories:

- Action and Adventure
- Driving and Racing
- First Person Shooter
- Platform and Puzzle
- Role-Playing
- Strategy and Simulation
- Sports and Beat Em' Ups

  However, genre's can be repetitive, they can be added to, changed dramatically to create some new classification, which I will not go onto list, It could be endless.  Newman also refers to the terms "Paidea" and "Ludus".  Paidea meaning a game that you play for pleasure, ie: Sandbox, Sim City, etc.  Ludus meaning a game that is constrained more by Rules and has a clear outcome, ie: Winning.

I'm going to list now a few of the games that come to mind following those rules.

Paidea
- The Sims
- Grand Theft Auto
- Sim City
- EVE: Online
- Everquest

Ludus
- Connect 4
- Chess
- Chequers
- Backgammon
- Battleships

  What's interesting about this is the outcome of said lists, my immediate thoughts for games that are "Ludus" are all board games, but why?  If you delve deeper into the types of game, you may come across terms such as Agon, Alea, Ilinx & Mimicry, which Caillois (2001) adapts from Huizinga.

Agon:  Competitive play, the struggle to win.
Alea:  Chance/Randomness, like the way Tetris plays.
Ilinx:  Style of movement, Parkour, Vertigo.
Mimicry:  Simulation, Make-believe, Role-Play.

  Some games combine these elements, Newman observed that the card game Poker combines Agon and Alea, as does Tetris.  Make of this what you will, when you really think about the definition of a game and it's play, I think this is exactly it.