Caillois’s Terminology

We looked at how you can categorise different video games depending on things like rules and what the player does when playing the game.

We started by looking at how Newman, J, said we categorise games depending on if you play the game for pleasure or are limited by rules and have an outcome they need to achieve to continue. He did this by looking at Roger Caillois terminology. These are known as:

  Paidia: Play for pleasure.
  Ludus: Limited by rules with a clear outcome to achieve.

 Newman then continued to show more ways that we can categorize out games by looking at Caillois's adaption of Huizinga's four terms. These were:

Agon(Competition):Sports and Racing.
Alea(Chance):Betting and Roulette.
Ilinx(Vertigo):Mountain Climbing and Skiing.
Mimicry(Simulation):Theater and Cinema.

From looking at these different categories we discussed how games we know and play fit into each category or with most games into multiple categories. I decided to pick a game I play and see how they fit into these categories.

FIFA 15: This is a football game and is a ludus game. This is because there are very strict rules that the player has to follow or they would be penalised. FIFA is also an agon game because there is a lot of competition between the two teams to try and win the game.