Essay On Play And Play

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Play is a verb that describes when one “engages in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose”. (Oxford Dictionary 2014) Play relates to the notion of “having fun” and defines the idea of “frivolity, light hearted, chaotic, free and open (child’s play), repetitive (ritual/child’s play/instrument), leisurely, productive, non-productive (opposite of work), creative, profane, sacred, innocent, competitive, interpretive, simulation, improvisation, happy (opposite of depression).” (Chau 2014) Play is an aspect of game. Game on the other hand is a noun that explains “a form of competitive activity or sport played according to rules”. (Oxford Dictionary 2014) Game is a play activity with rules that involves challenges and creates a form of distraction and diversion in the players’ lives. Given the definition, there are a few ways in which ‘play’ and ‘games’ can be different from one another.

The first difference is that play is often. It is free-formed and voluntary. “Play is superfluous. The need for it is only urgent to the extent that the enjoyment if it makes it a need. Play can be deferred or suspended at any time. It is never imposed by physical necessity or moral duty. It is never a task. It is done at leisure, during “free time”. (Huizinga 1955) According to Huizinga, “play is something added to or spread over life” in which “we are able to choose courses of action and to adjust those courses based on the internal satisfactions we receive.” (Henricks 2006)

Besides, play consists of different types of activity for one’s own pleasure and enjoyment. Examples are such as cycling, flying a kite, performing and so on. Furthermore, play is not limited to just humans. Mammals tend to play too....

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...t goals (Juul, 2003, p.39).” (Mildenberger 2013) An example of a game that has no definite goals and in a sense is unwinnable is SimCity. As Greg Costikyan observes, SimCity “has no inherent ‘win-state’, no explicit, built-in goal for the game. SimCity works because it allows players to choose their own goal, and supports a wide variety of possible goals.” (Lee 2003) However, SimCity is still considered a game as “there is a tendency that the positive outcomes are harder to reach than the negative outcomes - this is what makes a game challenging; a game where it was easier to reach the goal than not to reach it would likely not be played very much.” (Juul 2003)

In conclusion, there are ways in which ‘play’ and ‘games’ are different. The concept of play is building a world of make believes whereas games, is a system of rules optimizing challenges and strategies.

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