What is a game?

Before I start blogging about gaming and game design, we have to first figure out how do we define a game. There are many definitions and debates on games and it's classification. Is game an art? Does game teaches you anything? Does it effect the mental state or human behaviour and so on. In this post I'll express my views on what I think is a game.

It is very easy for me to be inclined towards the idea that games are an art form. Maybe few decades earlier I would have had a different opinion but with the advancement in technology, making games has been more of an art work than before. Some games like Journey or any game by Tim Schafer from Double Fine Studios are visual orgies.
Art suggests an idea like in a painting, a picture, a sculpture or a film. They might not be real, like navi's in Avatar or Tom and Jerry, but they suggest an idea that we believe in. Games, like art, suggest ideas. The idea that there is a demigod who is going to kill every God he can find, or the idea that you have to save a princess by killing every turtle and eating mushrooms as much as you can. Games are surrounded by these highly imaginative worlds and by great artists who uses there skill to bring these creative(sometime down right insane) possibilities to real world. So games are surrounded by, made by, and presented by different art forms, just like movies. Games, being a visual communicator, cannot be denied as an art form.

However, because of its commercial nature, it can't be just called an art. For art creation does not have any monetary motives at its core. Games, specially these days, have business model that are integrated inside the game design. It no longer has just fun element in game design but ways to buy or sell products within the game. Games, for the most part, is a product. The sooner we accept it, the better it is, for us, to understand its inner functioning and it's characteristics. Games are a product that gives you a set of problems. It gives you a purpose to involve yourself to a problem and finding a solution for it. Games aren't just a product, but an entertainment product. Just like a  movie or a any product that communicates visually, it has to entertain the audience or it's user. If there is no entertainment then solving the problem would not result to anything since its not a real world problem but a 'suggestion of an idea'.

Games are the best examples of causality, the idea of cause and effect. Everything has a purpose and for every action there is a reaction in the game world. This forms the basis of the gameplay, which is beyond the scope of art( unless we go into technicality of the art form where shapes, forms, values etc react with each other to form a balanced composition). So a game would be anything that gives you a set of problem to solve and the process of solving this problem would effect the nature of the game. There is a purpose to everything we do in the game. Although, this idea of causality comes by default to any design since it exists in real world and can not be avoided. However, having knowledge or senses of its existence would help us understand the core mechanics of the game.

Games also provides us with basic fundamentals of behaviour and nature of the law. Every game have a set of rules, which would be the only way to play that game. Thus introducing a form of law and order that is needed to be addressed before you enter that world. If you change the rules of the game, you change the very nature of the game, making it a completely different game within the same world.
The fundamentals of behaviour comes from the gameplay itself. How one solves the problem, the repetitive nature, the rewards and punishments, the progression and frustration. All these would show you the behavioural fundamentals. Having knowledge of these behaviours would help design the game better and leave the player less frustrated or angry.

So to conclude, a game would basically project three things to you, this is the problem, these are the rulers, now how will you solve it? A good game will make this process fun and solving the problem would eventually give you satisfaction.