None of these definitions is perfect but each has its strengths and weaknesses.
None of these definitions is perfect but each has its strengths and weaknesses. One of the first definition attempts came from Greg Costikyan in 1994. He wrote the influential article “I Have No Words and I Must Design” for Interactive Fantasy #2, a British journal about role-playing games. I have summarized Costikyan’s article before because it represents an early attempt to define a game and because it is relatively easy to understand.
Costikyan says an activity must have six elements in order to be considered a game. If it is missing any of the six elements, it is something other than a game, perhaps some other kind of play, but not a game. His six elements are: tokens, goal(s), opposition, decision-making, information and managing resources.
A game must have game tokens. He means that there must be something within the game that represents the player and the player’s status within the game. In Monopoly, for example, the player’s piece (top hat, race car, horse, and so on) is a game token because it represents the player. But the cards with the various properties that the player owns (Broadway, Marvin Garden, Illinois Ave, and so on) are also game tokens because they also represent the player’s status within the game. In addition, the fake money that a player has represent how wealthy or poor the player is and, therefore, are game tokens. In some games, like basketball, the player’s body is one of the game tokens.
A game must have a goal, something the player is striving for. In Monopoly, for example, the goal is to be the last player with money or, in other words, to bankrupt all the other players. in War, the goal is to obtain all of the cards in the deck. This is an element that makes some activities that we normally consider to be games not games in Costikyan’s point of view. For example, SimCity and The Sims are not games according to Costikyan because they don’t have goals that are set by the game. The player can create a goal to strive for but the game doesn’t impose that on the player.
A game must have opposition, something that gets in the way of the player reaching their goal. In a later version of his article, Costikyan renames this as struggle. That is, the player must have an obstacle they must struggle to overcome in order to achieve their goal. This is a simple, yet profound, statement. By entering into the realm of the game, the player agrees to try to reach the goal of the game in a kind of circuitous manner. The participant in the game of War will not just grab all of the cards in the deck but will instead abide by the rules of the game and attempt to overcome the obstacles that the rules place in their way. The opposition in a game typically comes from the rules of the game as well as any opponents who are trying to achieve the same goal. In Monopoly, for example, the opposing players are part of the opposition, one of the obstacles that gets in the way of a player reaching their goal. But competition is only one way to add