What is a game?

The word 'game' can be used in almost every activity that you engage in. It's all in how creative can you get. This post attempts to prove that one can turn anything and everything into a game and ultimately my definition of a game would be this : An interactive activity which satisfies a particular emotional need in a particular point of time, and the need can be satisfied either singularly or with multiple entities (be it with humans or AI).

"A typical day of hardcore gamer Bob."
To Bob, life is a big playing field. He enjoys challenges, enjoys fun. And every moment of his life he demands fun and competition. So he would tell his family to be engaged in the "wake-up game". Where every morning, the family would compete in who would wake up the earliest without an aid of the alarm clock. Bob's wife, Barbara, would then go on to compete with him in the game of "office racing", to see who would reach the office using only public transport.

At work, Bob would engage in various games with his collegues, be it card games, online games, or even competing to type the fastest and most error free document, Bob would actively engage himself in games.

After work, Bob, ever the avid cook, would compete with his wife in the fastest egg frying game. And as the night goes by they would enjoy a game on the xbox or on computer.

And so Bob lived happily ever after in his game of life....

To me, this may perhaps be an exciting way to live. Every activity that you do has a certain goal and purpose. But every activity is binded with a set of rules to follow. So what exactly is a game? A mere pleasurable activity? A competitive engagement? Seriously the definitions are vague, but yet when a person is engaging in a game, you know that activity is a game activity and nothing else. Which leads me to think:

Gaming is essentially a human-only activity.
I'm not sure if animals are capable of playing games. Would animals engage in fishing for leisure purposes?

Gaming has links to rituals
To perform a ritual (which essentially is also a human-only activity), rules are adhere to so as the ritual would be complete. Games are binded by all kinds of rules so as people would get the maximum enjoyment out from it. Yet it is seen often that sometimes rules are bent to make the game enjoyable.

A game satisfies an emotional need
This is perhaps the most important factor. Bored? Play an online game. Feeling a need to vent out frustration? Play some mindless shooting games. And this emotional need is so varied that different games would suit different emotional needs.