When Is a Game a Game?

Whether analog or digital, games play a significant role in society, culture, and the economy. This importance is reflected in the many academic disciplines that explore the phenomenon of play. To bring these approaches together, the German Society for Game Studies (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Spielwissenschaft) has recently been founded—of which the Cologne Game Lab (CGL) is also a member. Prof. Dr. Greta Hoffmann from CGL shares her perspective in this interview.

Prof. Dr. Hoffmann, what exactly is a game?
That’s not an easy question to answer. During my doctoral research, I tried to approach the concept and collected over 80 definitions of “game” from various disciplines. I listed them in a table and broke them down into their individual components. In attempting to derive a new definition, I ended up arriving at an already existing mathematical one: a game is the sum of its rules. But even that only captures part of what a game is. This becomes clearer when looking at the English language, which differentiates between two terms: game and play. Game refers to rule-based, structured play, while play refers to free, unstructured activity. So, a game is not always just a game.

And is this broad spectrum what Game Studies is concerned with?
Exactly. Game Studies examines complex systems that emerge from rules—and that also play with the modification of these rules.
It explores games in all their diverse forms, both analog and digital, and not just in a physical sense—ranging from free play, toys, role-playing, construction games, board games, and digital game production to more abstract forms like language games, Goffman’s social games, or music as a form of play.

What are the goals of the German Society for Game Studies?
The overarching aim is to bring together the various disciplines—from computer science to sociology—that engage with the concept of play. Up to now, research in Germany in this area has been highly fragmented. Connecting different stakeholders from universities, museums, archives, and libraries creates synergies, strengthens academic and artistic exchange, and also helps to make the relevance and value of the topic more visible to policymakers and society.

More specifically, the society aims to focus on aspects such as game design and development, the cultural significance and history of games, game studies, gamification, the educational potential of games and learning systems, the psychological mechanisms of play, social systems and their dynamics, participatory forms of play, as well as game-based innovations in fields like business, health, and urban development that contribute to sustainable solutions.

You serve on the board as an assessor and are responsible for supporting early-career researchers. Why is that important?
Play as the future of learning is one of my key topics. In my view, there is no better tool for learning than inventing and developing a game. It’s about understanding systems, recognizing and interpreting rules, and identifying where the levers are—what parameters really matter. And I don’t mean just digital games, but games in the broader sense. That’s why I prefer to speak of game invention rather than game design in this context.

My work in early-career support will focus on building societal acceptance for games as a valuable learning medium, promoting game invention and development as an educational method, and fostering talent among students.

Original interview was done in german and can be found here.