Games are an aesthetic practice with its own boundaries of time and space that enables its participants the playful and experimental encounter with rules and constraints.

Dissection

• “Games are an aesthetic practice”
  • phenomenological approach where games are constituted through player’s subjective experience; games as experiences with their own internal meaning systems [Martin Feige]
  • expressive media with aesthetic properties and procedural rhetoric [Ian Bogost]
• “with its own boundaries of time and space”
  • “magic circle” [Huizinga]
  • separate from ordinary life, limited in time and space [Caillois]
  • “lusory attitude” where players accept artificial limitations and boundaries [Barnard Suits]
• “enables its participants”
  • participatory experiences created through player engagement [Avery Alder]
  • player agency and interaction as core aspects [Chris Crawford]
  • voluntary activities requiring active participation [Huizinga]
• “the playful and experimental encounter”
  • types of play types (agon, alea, mimicry, ilinx) and the spectrum from paidia (free play) to ludus (structured play) [Caillois]
  • spaces for experimentation and exploration [Avery Alder]
  • interaction and player choice in creating meaningful play [Chris Crawford]
• “with rules and constraints”
  • “voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” - constraints as defining characteristic [Bernard Suits]
  • formal systems with rules that create conflict and countermeasures [Chris Crawford]
  • procedural rhetoric where meaning emerges from interaction with rule systems [Ian Bogost]
  • rules as essential elements that create the order within play [Huizinga & Caillois]

Notes

• Rules are an inherent aspect of human experience, shaping the structure of society and behaviour. Rules are not exclusive to games, but games over environments where participants can engage with rule systems in ways that are not possible in other settings.
• The act of game creation is a form of play itself, which is often overlooked in attempts to define games. Historical practices and the play of children offer a perspective where game-making is not separate from play but integral to it. Games are in a constant state of becoming, undergoing transformation through play, reiteration through design, and reimagination through participation. This phenomenological approach positions games not as fixed objects, but as emergent practices constituted through both creation and engagement.
• Likewise, this perspective enables the inclusion of cheating, hacking, modding, and rule adaptation, defining games as negotiated spaces rather than fixed systems.
• Some more recent (formalist) approaches to game definition have neglected the social dimension of games. Queer theory’s emphasis on performativity and fluid boundaries be useful in understanding games as experimental communal practices and ways of becoming.