Friday 9 March 2007

Week 1

To define the word ‘game’ is a difficult task to finish. Indeed, it is impossible to find one specific definition of game as all seems plausible if differences are given (Saunders, 2000). One interesting suggestion about how game should be defined is made by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein proposes that there is no same feature that all games are sharing but, instead, games have some similarities if examined carefully. This can be seen with comparing chess and frisbee for example. Chess is a game which involves skill, no luck and competitive and frisbee is a game which involves skill, luck and uncompetitive. Then, the similarity of these two games is skill. In this way, games which seem different can be called game. These similarities are called family resemblance meaning that the similarities that games share are like the similarities that family members have such as the color of eyes or the shape of nose. Furthermore, this notion includes the suggestion that all games are not the same but similar.

This notion is applied to three games, Doom 2, Samorost 2 and the game of life. Doom 2 is a violent and bloody shooting game which allows players to kill the opponents. This game involves skill, no luck and competitive because what are needed to achieve this game are player’s skill and this game continues with the competition with the opponents. Then, Samorost 2 is a quiet and relax puzzle adventure game where players save their dog kidnapped by aliens with solving puzzles. This involves skill, no luck and competitive as puzzle needs player’s skill to be solved and one big fun is competition with other players over how well they can solve puzzles. These two games share similarities though the impression and content of the games are completely different. Next, the game of life is originally a board game in which players compete with their wealth cost throughout their life in the game. Now, it can be played as a video game and online. No skill, luck and competitive are involved in this game because what players need to do is to turn roulette and the fun of this game is competition with others. The similarity of this with other two is competitiveness and it justifies Wittgenstein’s notion that games share similarities. Unlike shooting guns or solving puzzles, player’s action of the game of life is just to turn roulette so these three games look completely different. However, as Wittgenstein suggests, these games share similarities and all can be categorized as ‘game’. The faces of these games are different but some parts, eye or nose, are similar like family members.

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