Social Ontology of Digital Games

This chapter is a theoretical foundation of the ontology of digital games. The methodology follows the philosophical discipline named ?>social ontology?> combined with the neurological findings about fiction. The second half of the chapter analyzes some features of digital games: interaction, rules, and simulation. It presents the latest scientific results about the psychological ontogeny of games, the socio-ontological theories of games, and some of their applications to game analysis. During the development, designers and programmers constantly use naive interpretations about what games are. The chapter can lead designers and programmers to develop games not with subjective points of view but rather with an objective knowledge of the fundamental game properties.