Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/26620
Title: The word game : the ontology of an undefinable object
Authors: Aarseth, Espen
Calleja, Gordon
Keywords: Virtual reality -- Social aspects
Ontology
Shared virtual environments
Issue Date: 2015
Publisher: Foundations of Digital Games
Citation: Aarseth, E., & Calleja, G. (2015). The word game : the ontology of an undefinable object. 10th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. California.
Abstract: In this paper we address the problem of defining games formally, following Wittgenstein's dictum that games cannot be defined adequately as a formal category. Several influential attempts at definitions will be evaluated and shown to be inadequate. As an alternative, we propose a descriptive model of the definable supercategory that games belong to, cybermedia, that is pragmatic, open, and capable of meeting the needs of the diverse, intensely interdisciplinary field of game studies for a uniting conceptuallization of its main phenomenon. Our approach, the Cybermedia model, consisting of Player, Sign, Mechanical System, and Material Medium, offers a medium-independent, flexible and analytically useful way to contrast different approaches in games research and to determine which aspect of the phenomenon one is talking about when the word ‘game’ is used.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/26620
ISBN: 9780991398249
Appears in Collections:Scholarly Works - InsDG

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