Descriptive Meaningful Play

Meaningful play in a game emerges from the relationship between player actions and system outcomes. It is the process in which a player takes an action within a designed system of a game and the system response to the action. The meaning of an action in a game resides in the relationship between the action and the outcome.

This means that meaning is derived in games only when the results of actions are seen through play.

Let’s take the example of the game Gross-Out, in which people go around in a circle and one by one tell more and more disgusting stories than the last. Each player makes a choice to tell a story, and the outcome of that choice is reflected in the reactions of other players. Once all the stories are told players vote on which one was the most disgusting.

In this case the meaning of the action is more than just the narrative content of the story. It is also not just the theatrics used to tell the story. It is how the other players react to this, and the outcome of the game. The meaning is that one player is voted to be the king of Gross-Out, and has beaten all of the other players in telling the most disgusting story.

What does this mean?

This understanding of meaningful play can be applied to all games. It refers to the wall all games generate meaning through play. Every game lets players take actions and assigns outcomes to those actions. We call this form of meaningful play Descriptive because it describes what happens in every game. This is our first understanding of meaningful play.

Some games don’t have meaningful experiences, so we need a definition that helps us determine when meaningful play actually occurs.