Comment by teamonkey
10 hours ago
Competition is not core to all games by any means. You could argue that challenge is core to games, for a particular definition of ‘challenge.’
10 hours ago
Competition is not core to all games by any means. You could argue that challenge is core to games, for a particular definition of ‘challenge.’
Solo/single player games are common now, but looking at pre computer history the majority of games are sports where you're competing against others either alone or in teams and board/card/dice games where you are competing against others (and probably gambling too).
Sure there are some solitaire card games, and toys like yo-yos, kendama and the like that could be classified as games. But competition defines most of what we consider "games" up until computers were able to simulate the other players in the form of hostile/friendly npcs, computer controlled 'players' etc.
Single-player games very much existed before computers: puzzles, solitaires, etc.
See second paragraph. 'Basically all' may have been an exaggeration, but the crux of my argument is that the concept that human beings know as a 'game' up until the advent of computer games more often than not involved competition.