The purpose of this article is to discuss the issue of digital versus non-digital games. I want to sketch a framework in which games are classified on the basis of their game-play rather than the material they employ. This means that such odd entities as sports, puzzle games, board games, and video games can be discussed with the same concepts. In order to do this, I outline how one can look at game-play from the perspective of ecological psychology (Gibson and Pick, 2000; Gibson, 1977, 1986; Reed, 1987, 1996). This discipline describes game-play in terms of perceiving and acting in accordance with affordances in games. This approach makes it possible to see new family resemblances among games, based on whether a game challenges the player’s ability to perceive affordances or the player’s ability to use affordances. The ecological approach to game-play thus takes a cross-section through attempts to classify games based on the kind of technology they employ.
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