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Games: A Tour Of The Major Categories And Why We Play

"Game" is one of those words that everyone understands without ever defining. Philosophers have argued about whether the category has any shared essence at all — Wittgenstein famously gave up and called it a "family resemblance" concept. What you can say practically is that the things we call games share some combination of rules, voluntary participation, and uncertain outcomes. They produce experiences we keep wanting more of.

The major categories

Board games. From ancient Senet to modern Catan, Wingspan, and Spirit Island. The hobby has gone through a renaissance in the last twenty years, especially in Germany and the US.
Card games. Traditional decks (Bridge, Hearts, Poker), customizable decks (Magic: The Gathering), and dedicated-card titles (Dominion, Hanabi). Cards offer randomness and hidden information cheaply.
Video games. The largest entertainment industry by revenue in the world, larger than music and movies combined. Ranges from solitaire puzzles to massively multiplayer worlds.
Tabletop role-playing games. Dungeons & Dragons and descendants. Half rules system, half collaborative storytelling.
Sports. Physical games with formalized rules. From soccer to table tennis. Distinct from purely athletic activities because the rules generate the strategy.
Party games. Designed for groups, short play time, low barrier to entry. Codenames, Just One, Werewolf.
Puzzle games. Solitary or near-solitary, with a clear correct solution. Crosswords, Sudoku, jigsaw puzzles, escape rooms.

What well-designed games do

A good game creates meaningful decisions. Every turn or every move should present the player with a choice where the right answer is not obvious. If the game is mostly luck, decisions do not matter. If the game has an obvious correct answer at every turn, the decisions are not interesting. The sweet spot is somewhere where the player has to think but cannot fully solve the problem.

The best games also provide a continuous feedback loop. You make a move, you see the result, you update your understanding, you make another move. Magic Circle theorists like Jesper Juul have written about this loop as one of the defining features of games as a medium.

Why we play

Bored kids invent games out of nothing. Adults invent games for money. Mathematicians invent games to study them. Athletes turn their bodies into game pieces. The activity seems to be a basic human drive, not unlike storytelling or music. We do not have a single tight scientific explanation. We have a lot of partial ones — practice for real-world problem-solving, social bonding, controlled mastery experiences, structured uncertainty as entertainment. Probably all true and all incomplete. For a longer read on the design history of the modern game industry, there is a good overview.