Games
- A game is an image of a certain set of interconnected practices.
- The rules of a game are the game. That is, the rules of a game are an expression of the relationship between these interconnected practices.
- In expressing this relationship, the rules of a game show one what is required to play the game. All rules allow for the possibility of play. To play a game is to bring that game to life.
- Enjoyment can come only as a result of some form of play. All possibilities of play anticipate some kind of enjoyment, although not all games allow for the possibility of enjoyment.
- Some rules allow for the possibility of enjoyment without excluding other possible forms of enjoyment. Some rules only allow for the possibility of enjoyment if certain or all other forms of enjoyment are excluded. And some rules do not allow for the possibility of enjoyment.
- Just because a game may not allow for the possibility of enjoyment doesn’t mean that no enjoyment is possible within the game. It only means that the presence of enjoyment threatens the life-status of the game.
- To articulate the rules of a game is not to give the rules, but an image of the rules (which themselves constitute an image). Or, in other words, an articulation of the rules of the game is not the same thing as the rules of the game.
- The rules of a game do not communicate what a player should or shouldn’t do; they only communicate what is required to play the game – to bring the game to life. Games do not give ethical imperatives.
- Ethical imperatives occur when players invest a certain organization of desire into the social field or network of a game. This organization of desire is at work to keep a certain image of the game alive (i.e. at play).
- No game is brought to life in isolation. There is always an assemblage, games attached to one another.
- To cheat in a game is to attempt to bring to life a false image of the game in order to produce a certain outcome. By “false,” I do not mean “wrong” or “incorrect,” but rather “deceptive.” The false image appears to bring the game to life, but actually doesn’t.
- It is always possible for others to believe in a false image of the game.
- The possibility of cheating can only take place within the game. However, cheating can neither be included nor excluded by the game in which one is cheating, although cheaters can certainly be excluded from the game. This exclusion can only occur, though, either by the players of a game or by the rules of another game attached to it. But there is no provision from the game itself that allows for the exclusion or inclusion of cheaters.
- Although the possibility of cheating can only take place within the game in which one is cheating, the act of cheating itself is not the result of a play within the game, but of a play that takes place within another game attached to this one. Subsequently, the enjoyment one may get from cheating does not occur within the game in which one is cheating, but rather within another game attached to it.