tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255299705122830812.post4678133417873774276..comments2024-03-29T09:18:29.382+09:00Comments on What a Horrible Night to Have a Curse...: Juul's Theory of Games Elements 4 and 5: Effort and AttachmentDennis Laffeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03053699552003336733noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255299705122830812.post-66916250679948241722018-04-18T14:35:19.977+09:002018-04-18T14:35:19.977+09:00I'm continuing this whether you agree or not w...I'm continuing this whether you agree or not with it, because I'm using it to organize my thoughts and see if I think Juul's idea is a good one to work from. I'm happy to hear your input, but you seem to be making a mistake in either not giving a clear definition of a game that you're working with (which is needed for academic discourse to keep us from arguing apples and oranges) or as you implied in your previous comment just dispensing with definitions altogether and assuming everyone agrees on what is and isn't a game (which isn't true).<br /><br />You say "the only true way to define whether or not something is a game, is whether folks interact with it, alone or with others." But there are lots of things that people interact with that we don't consider games. Juul mentions road traffic and rules of war as activities that behave in many ways like games but aren't. There must be more to the definition than just interaction and a heuristic judgment. Dennis Laffeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03053699552003336733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5255299705122830812.post-60497576390746406302018-04-18T02:59:09.713+09:002018-04-18T02:59:09.713+09:00A game is a game. There is no almost-a-game. If th...A game is a game. There is no almost-a-game. If the definitions you are using to describe games do not apply to all games, then that is not a definition for a game. Which is why I said earlier that the only true way to define whether or not something is a game, is whether folks interact with it, alone or with others.<br /><br />Craps is a game. You pick up the dice, you throw them and yes, the way you throw them affects the outcome, regardless of whether that is conscious control or not. Also, betting is about playing the averages, and knowing the odds will allow the experienced gambler to win more often than lose (as in Blackjack, where a deep enough pocket and a good sense of what to bet, when and what to hit on, mitigates the randomness of the draw to an extent).<br /><br />Puzzles are not games. Like books, the outcome is certain, and placing pieces, no matter what order you do them in, always heads towards a set result, no matter what you do. The only challenge with a puzzle is in how many pieces it has to sort through, and how long it takes to put them together, but by that definition, a book would be a game (how many pages, how long to read it).<br /><br />Granted, you could make a game out of reading or puzzling, but then the game (how fast can I do this) is separate from the technology used to implement it (the puzzle, the book, the number of apples picked, etc.). This falls into the realm of gamification, however, and that's another academic can of worms...Mr.Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18200440646294910750noreply@blogger.com