[I posted this comment on Jeff Towle's weblog but I'm putting it here too for future reference.]

Whenever I consider the conundrums surrounding the concepts of "play" and "games" I keep returning to comparisons in the animal world, particularly to puppies and dogs and wolves.

So wolves play, and wolves can also be deadly serious. For a wolf, what separates play from "real life?"

The moon won't be full for another two days so for now I can only make educated guesses here about what goes on in the mind of a wolf. But it seems your typical wolf doesn't spend too much time classifying things. He doesn't write papers about whether X is a game and whether Y is "real life." He just doesn't have time for "limb discipline" and the rest, with so many furry things to kill and so many wolf-privates to sniff.

From what I've seen, your typical wolf feels like playing and frolicking sometimes, like being horny other times, and like being serious (fighting, hunting, defending turf) other times -- with a full spectrum of feelings/motivations between the extremes. The difference between game and serious real-life exists in the mind and emotional state of the wolf, not in the structure of the forest.

We've all seen this scene: a big dog happily approaches a little dog in the park and dearly wants to play and sniff the little dog's butt, and the big dog sniffs and frolics with wholehearted dedication. But the little dog won't have any of this sniff-and-frolic shit. The little dog is trying to eat a dog biscuit or a piece of duck crap or something. This is serious business and that little dog is in an angry and serious mood. The little dog growls and every time the big dog comes nearby the little dog yips and fiercely lunges at the big dog, who dodges and bounces back for another sniff, still solidly operating in game-mood.

Beyond that, game and play concepts are invented by us, no? So classify them however you want, but don't all the other complex pieces seem to be more or less arbitrarily-imagined constructs resting on these simple foundations? I'd be interested to see what a specialist in animal behavior would have to say about these game and play questions.

-Sean