Is the essential thing about a game that it has to be pointless - if fun?
Photo by Ahron de Leeuw on Flickr. CC-BY licensed.
Pretty much the first reaction from some software developers I saw on Twitter when the tax breaks for the video games industry (as it must be known, because Google likes the term - don't blame me) was: why them, and not me?
It's an interesting point. Why should games get it, but more general software - lines of code that let you do something, shall we say, vaguely, er, contributory to the economy - not qualify? Is the government saying that creating distractions is lauded, but creating serious stuff like accountancy software or photo-editing software isn't?
And what the hell is a game anyway? I pointed out, when the Digital Britain first mooted the idea, that the idea of "cultural games" would lead you logically to something like GTA: Weston-super-mare.. which wouldn't entirely make sense.
The "games" one though is going to be even more knotty, I think.
For example: is Foursquare, where you "check in" to various locations using your GPS-aware phone and "unlock badges" and try to become the "mayor" of a location, a game? It's got some of the elements of a game: challenge, ranking, though arguably not difficulty.
A quick Google search on "game definition" turns up necessary elements such as "a contest with rules to determine a winner" and "an amusement or pastime".
In fact, it seems that the unifying aspect of the definition of a game is that it should have no usefulness outside itself. Is that how the taxman (or woman) is going to apply this new rule? And, contemplating that, is there any way that, say, Microsoft could remake Word or Powerpoint to make it into that most vaunted of tax break beasts, a game? Suggest - and discuss - away.
