day 1 for ludic musings
Ludic, derived from the latin term "ludus" for play. Musing, synonymous w/ contemplation.
Moving forward to the 21st century, electronic gaming are present in just about every other living room, and have remained a consistent partner in the evolution of computing. Quite likely a gazillion man-hours have, and continue to be, invested in the search for the next dragon to slay. Much interest and considerable mental energy have been expended on explaining the phenomenon, or of exploring alternate ways to shift the gazillion man-hours on slaying virtual dragons to tackling other tasks.
For all the said invested man-hours, as an academic, a review of the literature yielded little informative data to construct a comprehensible picture of gaming. Demographic numbers of "gamers" are ever astronomical, at times, might as well re-title said tables as technology users.
Fundamentally, play is almost an universal characteristics that we all engage in - in one form or another, regardless of age, race, gender, or creed. We learn rules of engagement for life in play, among myriad of unspoken rituals and norms. Digital games may have started as gizmo curiosities, but the developments up to today and its presence in daily life seems to indicate it as an hybrid media platform that carries certain messages and engage with us in various forms.
Attempting to run through the list and types of gaming genre may be useful, its a good start in showcasing just how different games are from each other. This speaks to the previous statement on re-titling the demographics tables. Of course, closer inspection of representative demographics data that maps genre and demographics would go a long way in ludic research in just how much overlap or lack of occurs.
Games' primary role was, is, and will always be engagement first, or in another words, entertainment. Why would anyone jump through hoops just to get information? There are much easier and direct ways to get information, unless, jumping through such hoops derived a certain satisfaction.
Engagement in gaming are usually in two forms, via story/environment, and/or challenging mechanics. Good games (ones people play again and again) usually have both or extremely strong in at least one of the two aspects. Network technologies have paved the way for multiplayer platforms that have paved the way for games as distant collaborative efforts in engagement with the system.
This could go on and on, however, I'll save the details for another time. The survey of relevant literature revealed a deep interest on this subject by researcher across numerous disciplines in every corner of the globe. However, sustained empirical research are few and far in between. There are a good number of reasons for it, all of which speaks to challenge of such an endeavor. On the flip side, it is an area of heavy interest with wide wide open spaces for research exploration...
