A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports/games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).
Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.
Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.
Read more about Game: Gameplay Elements and Classification, Types
Famous quotes containing the word game:
“I hate that aesthetic game of the eye and the mind, played by these connoisseurs, these mandarins who “appreciate” beauty. What is beauty, anyway? There’s no such thing. I never “appreciate,” any more than I “like.” I love or I hate.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“One of life’s primal situations; the game of hide and seek. Oh, the delicious thrill of hiding while the others come looking for you, the delicious terror of being discovered, but what panic when, after a long search, the others abandon you! You mustn’t hide too well. You mustn’t be too good at the game. The player must never be bigger than the game itself.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“I have a notion that gamblers are as happy as most people, being always excited; women, wine, fame, the table, even ambition, sate now & then, but every turn of the card & cast of the dice keeps the gambler alive—besides one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)