Five Attributes of a Game
– Every game has five attributes or fixed characteristics. The first characteristic of a game is that one is free and participates in it voluntarily. Huizinga wrote that a game is freedom.
In the integral method, we are talking about a group of children. How can we set things up so their actions are voluntary? Can a child join a game and leave it at will, or not?
– “Voluntary and free” refers to the choice of one’s actions and deeds until the person (whether a child or an adult) becomes certain that he is acting according to his conviction, the analysis he has made, and the decision he has reached. As long as he is not certain about the next move, he doesn’t do it.
And when he acts in life, or “makes a move,” just as in a game, he clearly knows that he is doing it himself. He has reached this conclusion on his own and is acting this way on his own.
– So this is the first attribute: doing it voluntarily and having the freedom to enter and leave.
Second: a game is always “make-believe.” A child has to know that it’s a game.
Third, a game has a spatial zone and a time, meaning there is a beginning and an end to the game, and certain spatial boundaries.
Fourth, a game always comes with rules.
Fifth and last: What’s important is the process of the game, while the result of the game is secondary. Huizinga even said that as soon as a result appears in a game, it stops being a game.
– If the result is set in advance, it limits the freedom of choice.
– You have said that there are games in the animate kingdom and even in plants. Could you explain?
– We observe the elements of a game even on the level of cellular development, the development of organisms, and within living organisms.
No growth or development is possible without the presence of several possibilities. There always has to be a specific choice that is played out and made, and this choice is always made through playing. This can be explained using the probability theory, mathematical theory, and others. Meaning, we see that Nature is playing.