Dan Badran 5/2/2021 Response Paper 1 A mental phenomenon that is studied by many game designers and developers known as psychological flow which is when the mind is aroused enough to be interested and pay attention to a game that isn’t overly challenging as to cause irritation or anger and isn’t underwhelming as to bore the person. Any person who engages in the act of play, whether it’s a video game, physical activity or a game of intellect, they have to get into the mental state of psychological flow. However, there are no universally agreed on definitions for play and game, which have been debated and discussed by play theorists, philosophers, historians, anthropologists, literary critics and more. Johan Huizinga, a Dutch historian wrote the book Homo Ludens: A study of play element of culture, defines play as free activity outside of ‘reality’ and not serious, though it is time consuming and completely absorbs a person. Huizinga continues to define it as an activity with no material interest or gain and has its own rules and concept of time. Play also encourages the formation of social groupings. Play is a part of culture and relates to language, philosophy, myths, ritual, art, law, civilization and more. However, when Huizinga relates play to rituals or religious ceremonies, he briefly questions whether or not the participants are aware of the fact that they are ‘only playing’ but then concludes that ‘only playing’ doesn’t matter. Huizinga says “Now this last named – element, the fun of playing resists all analysis, all logical interpretation.” (Huizinga 3) which provides evidence to why he concluded that ‘only playing’ doesn’t matter; because the act of playing is fun and fun has no logical interpretation to it. Huizinga also says “All these hypotheses have one thing in common: they all start with the assumption that play must serve something which is not play, that it must have some biological purpose.” (Huizinga 3) and “Play only becomes possible, thinkable and understandable when an influx of mind breaks down the absolute determinism and cosmos.” (Huizinga 4) meaning that play has no actual purpose and can only exist by free will; an ‘activity’ is not play if it serves a purpose or if the participant didn’t willingly volunteer. For Huizinga, play is imaginative, it’s not serious and is an essential part of culture; though there are many who criticize and refine the definition(s) of play. Roger Caillois was a French literary critic who redefined play based off of Huizinga’s definition. In his book Man, Play and Games Caillois divides play into different categories and suggests a different definition for it. Caillois says: “Such a definition, in which all the words are important and meaningful, is at the same time too broad and too narrow. It is meritorious and fruitful to have grasped the affinity which exists between play and the secret or mysterious, but this relationship cannot be part of the definition of play, which is nearly always spectacular or ostentatious.” (Caillois 4) which implies that he views Huizinga’s definition of play as not ‘play’ itself but rather by its relationship to the context or setting it is found in. Caillois continues to criticize Huizinga’s definition when he explains that certain games such as gambling or betting games do have material interest involved (Caillois 5). However, Caillois agrees on a few aspects of Huizinga’s definition of play which are that it is free, – meaning that the participant has to willingly volunteer and not be forced – it is separate, - meaning that it has its own boundaries of space and time, it is separate from reality – it is rule bound, so it has its own set of rules that the players follow and it is make-believe, it’s imaginative and fictional. Caillois also says it is unproductive, not producing any material goods however there may be the exchange of goods between players. The subcategories Caillois divides play into are agon, alea, mimicry, illinx, paida and ludus. Agon is when play requires skill and competition, alea is when play has luck or probability involved, mimicry is when the setting of play mimics real life and has illusion involved. Illinx is when a player’s state is dizziness or has a falling effect; an example would be when someone rides a roller coaster. Caillois defines paida as “uncontrolled fantasy” (Caillois 13) so it is chaotic and free flowing, whereas ludus is calculated and precise. Brian Sutton – Smith was an American play theorist who also tried to define play and examine why the definitions had such ambiguity. In his book The Ambiguity of Play, Smith begins by giving some examples of definitions of play that denote ambiguity such as Geoffrey Bateson who said that “play is a paradox as it is and isn’t what it appears to be” (Sutton-Smith 1). Smith then provides a list to help describe his definition of play: mind play, – which is about fantasy and daydreams – solitary play which includes hobbies, playful behavior, – which constitutes pranks – informal social play which is going to real life playful settings such as vacations or parties, vicarious audience play – which is about television – performance play, which includes being a performer such as a musician or actor, celebrations and festivals, contests games – which is about athleticism or gambling – and risky/ deep play which includes extreme activities such as skydiving. Smith uses seven different rhetorics in order to examine the ambiguity of play and relates them to other definitions of play, including Huizinga’s. Smith aimed to find the extent of ambiguity as an outcome of the rhetorics or if it differs between different players. C.Thi Nguyen, a philosopher, used a different approach to defining play by differentiating it from game and by examining previous definitions. There are many different definitions and interpretations for play and game. The ways in which those definitions intersect; by pointing out the necessity of it being free, imaginative and separate from reality is how psychological flow can be further studied and understood in order to develop more engaging games and activities.
