[mntmoss]

Definitions of games are quite prolific.

In academia many end up going back to Huizinga's "magic circle" [0] which he was writing about in the 1930's, before any video games were around(although many immediate mechanical precessors were in evidence like pinball and slot machines).

From the perspective of a game creator or player, what tends to be of primary importance is the information conveyed through the game, which can be primarily aesthetic(a pretty picture) or deal with specific themes and principles. In this light, introducing the magic circle is of some importance because of its clarifying property: the information is exploring these concepts, and not some others that you might be interested in.

And so it goes with many opinions about games, too: if it doesn't cover the topics they want in they way they like, players reject the game. Some players need to see violence and power struggle, others need cozy reassurance.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_circle_(virtual_worlds...