12 Fun in Games: Games Are Fun. At Least, Sometimes They Are. Aren't They?

When we talk about games, it is easy to get the impression there is some unified medium or form underlying these fungenerating artifacts. The catch—all term games denotes a sameness among its designees, like the physical forms of books and magazines or like movies, where there are always the constituent parts of sound and image presented through speaker and screen. But games defy this simple lexical clumping in almost every way possible. Just think of all the things grouped under the game banner: sports, tabletop role—playing games, schoolyard games, board games, card games, live—action role—playing games, mobile games, parlor games, console games, and PC games. Experiences as varied as competition, role playing, whimsy, gambling, and puzzle solving, to name a few, are categorized as games. Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of "family resemblances"
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reminds us that this lexical quirk finds sameness where there are but passing connections.