What’s in a Game?

Once more, my hopes of posting more here were dashed by illness. Since the last time I posted I had to go through another extended process of changing pain medication, side effects, withdrawal, and all. However, the good news is that what I’m now taking is having a really positive effect. The pain is mostly in check, though the dizziness still strikes intermittently. The proof of this is that I managed to give a paper for the first time in over a year, at this year’s undergraduate conference in Newcastle.

I’ve had an interest in the philosophy of games for quite a while, having previously co-written a piece on the aesthetics of table top RPGs with my good friend Tim Linward (here), and a piece on Herman Hesse’s Glass Bead Game and the history of the concept of game for the eponymous journal (here). However, I’ve done a lot more research on the topic than has actually lead to publications, and this has slowly coagulated into an outline of a theory of games. This talk at Newcastle is the first attempt to present this outline, which I’m hoping to write up into something vaguely publishable soon.