When we talk about computer games we are picking out a set of things in the world. Typically we will think of PC games, console games, flash games – that sort of thing. However I think that there is vagueness when we think about boundary conditions and, more interestingly, that these boundary cases tell us something about how we conceptualize games.
As this is a long post it's worth putting the answer I get to, then running through how I get there, so this is my proposed definition:
A computer game is a game where at least some of the bounds of game-acts are essentially controlled by information technology.
This is my thought process - at a brief glance it looks to me that there are two areas in which we might find necessary conditions for something to be a computer game. These are: display of action and decision-making.
[Three posts in a row, I’m sure I just heard a gong from the side of the stage]
Display of Action
An obvious definition of a computer game seems to be that that a necessary part of the game is that actions are displayed by technology. A broader argument would be that the game is mediated by technology.
The latter of these definitions seem weak. We might play a game of chess by email but here the mediation seems ancillary to the game and thus not something that would determine its categorisation.
The notion of display also seems too limited. We need to work out what we mean by technology and display here – something may be displayed on a TV and most TV’s these days are effectively computers, they certainly are technology. So mere display of action especially when that display is just a picture of the acts seems insufficient for our needs.
What I think people are getting at when they talk about display is representation. When we interact with a computer game our acts are displayed on technology and generally through some form of representation. We act on an interface device and the act is represented by a block or a ship or a wolf or something acting in either direct or indirect response to us.
But again I don’t think that representation is sufficient. The reason is that acts can be represented but the representation can be in direct relationship to the act i.e. we simply replace video display noted above with some kind of rendered display – motion capture would seem to fall under this definition. Also there are Eye Toy games where there is simply the image of us as a player.
It looks like the key point in the notion of display or representation that has been lurking back there is the fact of the necessity of interface, but again I think that all the counter examples above include the fact of an interface.
But I do think that interfaces have something to tell us.
What I think underlies these ideas is not display, representation or interface but rather boundedness. That is, it seems to me that the defining quality behind these notions that video games are those things where the affordances provided by the technology (interface, representation, code) are a necessary and essential boundary to game acts.
Decision Making
An alternative approach to the definition of a computer game is by looking at the role of technology in decision making, or more properly, in determining game outcomes.
We might argue that if decisions in a game are determined wholly by technology then that game is a computer game. We may then as whether partial decision-making also counts.
Here the argument would go that if decision making in a game is determined by technology then that is a computer game. One motivation behind this as a definition is that we picking out those practices where technology is essential to the outcomes practice. We might also argue further that such practices have a distinct character (at least within the general set of games) because of the character of the outcomes or their mode of determination.
This character is derives from the fact of technology making a decision as we can say that a characteristic of technology based decision making is that there is a strict relationship between input data and outcome. Thus for any set of conditions C there will be decision D, and that for every instance of the conditions C the decision will always be D.
This one might argue is different from games were humans make the decisions because while in the ideal case we might think that conditions C would lead to D, in practice humans have a much higher bandwidth so, in practice, there may never be absolutely identical conditions and / or there will be interpretation of those conditions leading potentially to different outcomes.
Thus there seems to be a difference in the contingency and the expectations about contingency between the cases where humans are making decisions and computers are.
A challenge to this comes in the potentially hypothetical case of functional equivalence, and here we reach into all kinds of philosophical arguments about what matters behind what we can see and know – so I’m thinking about Turning tests, Searle’s Chinese room, Chalmer’s Zombies etc.
The argument would go like this: suppose that decision making is done by computer but that that computer system uses techniques such as AI to replicate human decision making to such a degree that under observation the nominal referee would pass the Turing test i.e. we would not be able to determine from function whether a human or machine were making the decisions.
In this case does it still mean anything to say that one instance is a computer game and one is not – if so, what it is that is important that we are picking out; or do we simply have games and the technological component is neither hear nor there.
Bounds and decisions
Here I want to re-introduce the idea of the computer as a necessary boundary of the game. We might say that one way in which a computer can provide a boundary is by it being outcome determining. In this way we are giving primacy not to the functional aspects of the boundary but to its technical nature.
But I wonder if this works, even in the case where there is not functional equivalence (assuming here that where we see computers as being distinct in the way that they make decisions then something certainly appears to be a computer game to a degree that the functionally equivalent machine would not). Let’s take racing as an example – and here I’m being generic about the genre of game, it can be athletics, horse racing, F1, rally – what ever. Suppose that the outcome of the race is determined by a sensor picking up that at least one participant has gotten over the finish line, the sensor triggers an image being taken or the use of some other sensing device, the input from this is processed and the processor determines which of the participants was in fact the first over the line. So it’s a photo finish where image detection is determining what ‘won by a head’.
A specific example of this is the use of ‘Hawkeye’ technology in tennis to help determine whether a serve was out or not. Thought at present it is used only as an aid not as the decision maker – but we can imagine a rule shift to it primacy - as evidence seems to suggest that it is more accurate than line judges (also even in this case the technology is determining only part of the outcome of the match – though it may be crucial)
Here technology is outcome determining. What’s more we can see cases where the technology would certainly not be functionally equivalent to a human – a human may react in very different ways to effetely the same circumstance they may also participate in negotiation over the outcome.
My sense is that determination of outcomes is not essential to the notion of computer game, because even in the examples given above where there might be a computer determined non-negotiable outcome, the acts involved in the game e.g. tennis, are not bounded by technology – thus it feels that the game is actually not a computer game despite this use of computers.
A refinement might be how replaceable the technology is. So in the examples given above we are in situations where the technology could be replaced by a human (as the examples posited are hypothetical where we have gone the other way). But there might be games where all the acts are completely non-mediated but the game is constructed on the notion that the outcomes that those acts lead to are and only are determined by computer.
Here I think we get harmony with the definition that started to emerge above because here we have a boundary that is not merely based on technology but is essentially based on technology the fact that the boundary happens to be related to outcomes seems not to the important point.
Negotiation
Lastly I want to touch on negotiation. I think that it seems inherent in the idea of the essential nature of the computer that the acts or the meaning of the acts is in the act of play non-negotiable.
However we must take into to account cases which are common in MMOs where players argue with GMs or argue on forums about the meaning of acts and whether they fit within the rules of the game or not, they also argue about aspects of the game itself.
I think we would agree that MMOs are computer games. But there is also negotiation – very like arguing over line calls in tennis.
What I think that this shows is that something can be a computer game under this definition and outcomes can be negotiable, that is I don’t think the that point has anything like the force that it seems to have when it’s examined in the context of practice.
Proposed Definition
I thus arrive at this very simple notion of what a computer game is:
A computer game is a game where at least some of the bounds of game-acts are essentially controlled by information technology.
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