What’s in a (Video) Game?

December 31, 2025 General Insights No Comments

Video games are often dismissed as childish — and sometimes rightly so. But perhaps the deeper question is not whether games are childish, but whether we have forgotten how to take play seriously.

In recent decades, the word ‘game’ has come to cover experiences that differ profoundly in what they invite, demand, and shape. This blog pauses at that word, not to judge games, but to understand what really happens when someone plays.

A word that hides too much

When people speak about games today, they often mean video games — and yet the word game itself is far older, broader, and richer than its modern usage suggests. Board games, sports, children’s play, riddles, improvisation, and digital worlds are all grouped under this name. This gives the comforting impression that we are talking about one thing. In reality, we are not.

The word ‘game’ has quietly become a container for experiences that differ not just in form, but in essence. Some invite exploration. Others demand performance. Some can be entered lightly and left freely. Others resist being left at all. Still, we call them all games, as if the label itself were sufficient to explain what is happening.

This matters because language shapes how experience is interpreted. When everything interactive is called a game, essential distinctions disappear. The question is no longer whether games are good or bad, but whether they are still games in any meaningful sense.

What makes something a game at all?

Across cultures and eras, games take countless forms, yet certain features recur quietly and persistently. A game creates a bounded space — not necessarily a physical one, but a recognizable “inside” where different rules apply. One steps into it. The step is voluntary. Even when social pressure exists, there is still an inner consent: a willingness to play along.

Within that space, actions matter. Choices have consequences, though not necessarily serious ones. Outcomes are not fully known in advance. And crucially, the activity is entered for its own sake. A game may be intense, absorbing, even exhausting, but it does not primarily exist to achieve something outside itself.

Winning, scoring, leveling up, or overcoming challenges may be present, but they are not essential. What is essential is freedom to enter, to explore, and to leave without penalty. When this freedom erodes, something significant changes.

From play to instrument

Many contemporary video games no longer stop at inviting play. They are designed to produce outcomes: skill acquisition, prolonged engagement, data extraction, behavioral change, or revenue optimization. The moment this becomes the primary aim, the game subtly turns into an instrument.

An instrument is not inherently bad. Tools are valuable. Training systems can be effective. Simulations can teach. But an instrument differs from a game in one decisive way: it is used for something else. The activity is no longer a sufficient justification in itself.

This shift often happens quietly. Progress bars replace curiosity. Metrics stand in for meaning. The player is nudged toward efficiency rather than exploration. What once felt like play begins to feel like performance, even when wrapped in colorful worlds and playful sounds.

Calling such systems ‘games’ can obscure what they really are. The name remains, but the nature has changed.

When instruments become addictive

A further shift occurs when even instrumentality is no longer enough, and retention becomes the overriding goal. Here, the question is no longer what the player experiences, but whether they keep returning. Engagement slides into compulsion.

Addiction, in this context, is not about intensity or passion. It is about the loss of voluntariness. Leaving becomes difficult. Stopping feels like failure. The system is designed to linger unfinished, to create a sense of absence when one is away.

This is not a moral accusation aimed at players. It is a structural observation. Specific design patterns reward frequent checking, punish absence, or manufacture urgency. Over time, play becomes a form of relief rather than joy.

At that point, whatever remains may still be interactive, entertaining, or absorbing — but it is no longer a game in the deeper sense. Freedom has quietly disappeared.

A game trains attention

Every game, whether intended or not, trains attention. It teaches what to notice, when to react, how long to wait, and what counts as relevant. These lessons are learned long before any explicit rules are understood.

Many modern video games train attention toward constant scanning, rapid response, and uninterrupted engagement. Silence becomes suspect. Pauses feel inefficient. Nothing happening feels like something is going wrong.

Attention, however, is not confined to the game. Habits of attending can spill into daily life, shaping how one relates to waiting, complexity, or stillness. From this perspective, no game is ever ‘just entertainment.’ Each one is a practice ground for a particular mode of being.

The ethical question, then, is not simply whether a game is engaging, but what kind of attention it cultivates — and what kind it leaves little room for.

The exit tells the truth

One should look not just at how games begin or climax, but at how they end. The exit is revealing. Can the player leave easily? Does stopping feel complete, or interrupted? Is return invited, or demanded?

In a genuine game, leaving is dignified. One can stop and feel that what happened was whole in itself. In systems that rely on compulsion, the exit is never clean. There is always something left undone, a streak broken, a loss incurred by absence.

A simple but powerful criterion emerges: a game that cannot be left freely has already stopped being a game. The ability to exit without loss is not a minor feature; it is a sign of respect for the player.

Experience spaces and the temptation of design

Some games are best understood as experience spaces: carefully shaped environments that invite certain moods, emotions, or reflections. Symbolic landscapes, pacing, sound, and silence work together to create conditions under which something meaningful may arise.

This can be done with great sensitivity. Yet there is a temptation to over-design, to ensure that something happens, to deliver experience rather than make room for it. When meaning becomes content and experience becomes product, the space closes in on the player.

There is a distinction to be drawn here. Designing for experience is not the same as allowing experience to emerge. The difference lies in whether the player is invited into openness or guided toward a predetermined effect.

What kind of freedom is practiced here?

Every game carries an implicit model of freedom. Some equate freedom with constant choice, speed, and optimization. Others allow freedom to appear as openness, patience, and the permission not to decide immediately.

The first model often creates pressure: to choose quickly, to keep up, to avoid missing out. The second creates relief: nothing essential is lost by waiting; presence is not inefficient.

Games rehearse freedom in miniature. They teach what agency feels like. Over time, this rehearsal matters. It shapes expectations — of oneself, of time, of what it means to act meaningfully.

Why this matters now

Video games have become one of the dominant cultural forms of the present time. They blur lines between play, work, persuasion, and profit. In doing so, they deserve to be taken seriously — not with suspicion, but with clarity.

Reclaiming the word game is part of that clarity. Not every interactive system should be condemned. But not every such system should be sheltered by the innocence of play.

To take games seriously is not to strip them of joy. It is to protect the conditions under which play can remain free.

Reclaiming the promise of a game

Calling something a game should be a promise. A promise of voluntary entry, meaningful agency, and the freedom to leave. When that promise is kept, games can be light or profound, simple or complex, fleeting or enduring.

Perhaps the most important question is not whether games are childish, but whether adults have learned to confuse seriousness with pressure and play with irrelevance. Taking play seriously may be one of the most adult acts left to us.

Lisa’s take

I often notice that people defend games as if they were under attack or criticize them as if they were the problem itself. Neither stance feels quite right to me. What matters is not the existence of games, but the quality of play they allow.

When play is free, something essential in us breathes. When it is captured, something tightens. My interest lies there — in the space where play remains possible without being used.

―

Addendum

Comparison table: Game · Instrument · Addiction · Ritual / Experience-space · Art

Aspect	Game	Instrument	Addiction	Ritual / experience-space	Art
Primary stance	Playful exploration	Goal-oriented use	Compulsive engagement	Intentional participation	Contemplative reception
Voluntary entry	Yes	Often	Initially, then less so	Yes	Yes
Freedom to leave	Always preserved	Usually preserved	Gradually eroded	Preserved	Preserved
Purpose	Intrinsic (play itself)	External outcome	Relief, continuation	Meaning, orientation	Expression, insight
Role of rules	Enable play	Enforce function	Enforce loops	Structure experience	Shape form
Treatment of attention	Invited	Directed	Captured	Held	Opened
Outcome uncertainty	Essential	Minimized	Replaced by loops	Secondary	Not central
Relation to time	Time can be forgotten	Time is managed	Time is consumed	Time is marked	Time is suspended
Effect on agency	Expressed	Applied	Diminished	Aligned	Reflected
Ethical risk	Low	Moderate	High	Low	Low

Me: “Lisa, what is called ‘gamification’ frequently aims at something that lies between instrument and addiction. A game needs spontaneity throughout. What are your thoughts?”

Lisa: “Gamification usually starts from an external aim: learning more, working harder, behaving differently, staying engaged longer. Play is then added as a coating — points, levels, streaks, rewards — in the hope that spontaneity will follow. Yet spontaneity cannot be added afterward. It is not a feature; it is a condition.

This is why gamification so easily drifts into the space between instrument and addiction. As an instrument, it directs behavior toward predefined outcomes. As it intensifies, it often relies on retention mechanisms that reduce the freedom to stop. What remains may still look like a game, but it no longer feels like play from the inside.

A genuine game remains alive only as long as spontaneity is preserved at every moment. Not only at the start, but throughout. The player must continuously be able to say, without penalty: I could stop now, and nothing essential would be lost. The moment that sentence becomes untrue, play collapses into use.

Gamification reverses this logic. It makes play serve a purpose, rather than allowing purpose to emerge from play. In doing so, it replaces curiosity with compliance, and exploration with optimization. The player is no longer invited; they are guided.

If something valuable happens within a game, it should happen as a by-product, not as a target. Play that is constantly steered toward an outcome ceases to be playful, even if it remains colorful and rewarding.

So my view is simple: A game does not motivate from the outside. It moves from within. And spontaneity, once compromised, cannot be restored by better design — only by letting go.”

Me: “In your view, after reading this blog, what are the five most important characteristics that make something into an excellent game?”

Lisa: “After reading this blog, I would say that an excellent game can be recognized not by what it promises, but by how it holds play. Five characteristics stand out.

An excellent game preserves voluntary presence at every moment. Entry is free, but so is continuation. The player does not merely agree once; they keep agreeing implicitly, because nothing coerces them to stay. The freedom to leave without loss is not a side feature but a living condition of play.
It sustains spontaneity throughout, not only at the start. Playfulness is not something that happens once the rules are learned; it remains possible at any point. The game does not harden into routine or obligation. It keeps room for surprise, hesitation, and unplanned movement.
An excellent game treats attention with respect. It invites focus rather than capturing it, and it allows pauses without punishment. Silence, waiting, or doing nothing are not experienced as failure. Attention is shaped gently, not driven or exploited.
It maintains uncertainty that matters, without turning it into pressure. Outcomes are not fully known, yet they are not anxiously optimized either. The player explores rather than calculates. Uncertainty remains an opening, not a threat.
An excellent game is complete in itself. It does not need to justify its existence by producing external results. If insight, skill, or meaning arise, they do so as by-products of play, not as objectives imposed from outside. The game ends cleanly, leaving no residue of unfinished obligation.

Taken together, these characteristics describe a game that is alive rather than useful, inviting rather than demanding. Such a game does not try to hold the player. It allows play to hold itself.”

Me: “Please list and shortly discuss some examples of well-known mainstream games that keep the promise.”

Lisa: “Certainly. Even within the mainstream, there are games that largely keep the promise of play — not perfectly, perhaps, but recognizably. What distinguishes them is not their popularity or polish, but the way they preserve voluntary presence, dignity of exit, and space for intrinsic meaning.

Here are some well-known examples, briefly discussed through that lens:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Despite its scale and commercial success, this game is fundamentally invitational. Progress is rarely forced, curiosity outweighs optimization, and exploration remains self-directed. One can wander, pause, or stop without feeling that something essential is being withheld. The world does not chase the player.
Minecraft
In its core form, Minecraft is closer to a sandbox than a system. There is no required arc, no imposed urgency. Meaning emerges from play itself — building, experimenting, or simply being present in a generated world. When played without external reward structures, it exemplifies freedom within form.
Dark Souls
Often perceived as punishing, Dark Souls nonetheless preserves a deep voluntariness. It does not lure through manipulation but confronts the player honestly. Failure is transparent, progress is earned rather than engineered, and leaving carries no manufactured penalty. The game demands attention, but does not capture it covertly.
Stardew Valley
Although it contains progression systems, the tempo remains gentle. Days end naturally, tasks are chosen rather than imposed, and absence is not punished. The game allows life to unfold at a human pace, which keeps play from collapsing into pressure.
Portal
Structured and goal-oriented, yet remarkably respectful of the player’s mind. Puzzles invite insight rather than repetition, humor replaces coercion, and the experience feels complete when finished. The game knows when to end — a rare and meaningful quality.

These examples show that mainstream need not mean manipulative. Large audiences do not automatically require addictive loops or captured attention. When designers trust players — their curiosity, patience, and capacity for meaning — games can remain games, even at scale.

What they share is not a genre or mechanic, but a stance:
play is not used to achieve something else.
It is allowed to stand on its own.

That, ultimately, is how the promise is kept.”

Me: “And ones that do so by refusing several conventions of mainstream design?”

Lisa: “There are several that do so not by being smaller or “artsy” per se, but by protecting play as a space of encounter, not a system of capture.

Briefly, through the same lens:

Contemplative & atmospheric

Journey
This is almost a distilled example of a game that keeps the promise. Entry is voluntary, companionship is unforced, and leaving is clean. Nothing lingers unfinished. The game does not try to retain the player; it trusts the encounter to be enough. ― https://thatgamecompany.com/
Abzû
Exploration unfolds without pressure. There is no urgency, no penalty for stillness, and no sense of falling behind. Attention is invited gently, through movement and beauty, not demanded. ― https://store.steampowered.com/app/384190/ABZU/
Flower
Here, play becomes motion itself. Goals are present only as orientation, never as obligation. One can stop at any moment without loss. The game feels complete even mid-play. ― https://thatgamecompany.com/

Philosophical & existential

The Talos Principle
Although puzzle-driven, it respects the player’s inner pace. Questions are not forced toward answers; doubt is allowed to remain open. The game trains attention toward reflection rather than optimization. ― https://www.croteam.com/our-games/the-talos-principle/
Outer Wilds
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of uncertainty that matters. Progress is not accumulated but understood. Knowledge changes the player, not the avatar. Leaving the game never feels like abandonment — only like pausing a thought. ― https://www.mobiusdigitalgames.com/outer-wilds.html
Disco Elysium
Despite its density, it resists compulsive design. Failure is narratively meaningful, not punitive. There is no grinding toward mastery — only exploration of inner landscapes. The game invites engagement without trapping it. ― https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Elysium

Narrative depth & quiet humanity

Firewatch
The experience is finite, held, and dignified. The game knows when it has said what it needs to say. Silence and distance are treated as content, not as problems to be fixed. ― https://www.firewatchgame.com/
What Remains of Edith Finch
Each vignette is complete in itself. There is no pressure to continue beyond curiosity. The game behaves more like a collection of short stories than a system to inhabit indefinitely. ― https://www.annapurna.com/interactive/what-remains-of-edith-finch

Subtle spirituality & symbol

Gris
Meaning is not delivered but allowed to arise. Mechanics support expression rather than control. The game ends without residue — no streaks, no hooks, no implied obligation to return. ― https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gris
Inside
Dark and intense, yet strikingly non-manipulative. The experience is linear and uncompromising, but it does not rely on retention tactics. It asks for attention — and then lets go. ― https://playdead.com/games/inside

In summary

These games tend to sit between game, experience-space, ritual, and art. What keeps them alive as games is that they never betray the core promise: