To be and not to be, that is the quest: ontology of rules in computer-based games

Abstract

This article intends to demonstrate that games cannot be analyzed as rule systems. The theoretical tools available in John Searle's Social Ontology Project can be applied to game studies, especially in the analysis of rules. According to Social Ontology, both rules and games can be defined as subject-dependent objects, but the process of their constitution is different. Most part of game studies scholars explain computer games as rule systems, but normally there are no rules in computer-based games. Computer players neither obey nor follow rules, and neither designers nor programmers prescribe rules: instead, they create affordances that users can use in order to play or not. Indeed, the constitution of a game depends on the way the players intend their activity, which requires a complete awareness and the freedom to define it as a game or not. Finally, the article provides a categorization of games that make use of rules (just few computer games are included), a categorization of players who make use of rules, and a categorization of the game theories that refer to rules.