Game-Play Analysis: Theories of Play. Part 1: Your task is to ‘define’ play and/or games ala Caillois and Huizinga (consider borrowing or modifying or critiquing or extending key concepts and ‘classifications’ from their work). Try to integrate a few key quotes from their texts into your own discussion/definition.
Then, using that definition of play, hop online or turn on your console and find a game to investigate. Then, figure out the rules and what you think the core element(s) of ‘ludus’ or play is (see, for example, Caillois’ “classification” system below).
Your job is to really think about what constitutes ‘playing’ in an online or console or another kind of game and to write a bit about that experience (in relation to definitions of play).
Play:
the word when typed into google comes up with a simple if problematic definition: To engage in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. - Issue number 1) "rather than a serious/practical purpose", by playing is how we learn about ourselves and the world around us. So when children play there is no purpose? How about development.
Huizinga "the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation"
Caillois mentions that " there is no doubt that play must be defined as a free and voluntary activity" (4). He identifies six categories of play: free, separate, uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules, and make-believe. Caillois then goes on to define 4 patterns of play- Agon (competition), Alea (chance), Mimicry (simulation), and Ilinx (vertigo). Last but not least Ludus - rule focused play. Ludus is what we generally consider a game, whereas Paidia the other definition describes that which we generally consider play.
I jumped into Madden 15, checking and analyzing to see if I can identify the ludus and rules. The problem with sports games is that well its based on a game virtually universally played in reality. Thus I the player am already familiar with the sporting rules and how the game should run. However by playing the game I still always learn new rules and structures of the game itself.
This then is why ludus leads to “the acquisition of a special skill, a particular mastery” (Caillois, 21) - because any challenge in the video game requires specific skills to resolve