Within Caillois article, he states that “formal characteristics of play we might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside “ordinary” life as being “not serious.” The act of playing a game is seen to him as a free will, something that is not demanded someone to do, yet will gain the interest from people to play, bring a sense of interest to people without having any profit from that. I personally see this in most Ludus games even with rules are in place.
Caillois also states, within games that involve skill also involve a risk from the players, this is seen in most casino games because there is a profit to winning the game, yet he states that once the player has learned the skill of a game, they later lose interest in the game because for them it is an easy win. This has happened to me when it comes to card games also.
Caillois classified games into 4 groups. Agon, Alea, Mimicry, and ilinx. He divided this based on chance, rubrics, simulation, etc. Agon would be were sports games, mimicry would games like pirate (never played that game), ilinx would be most childhood game like patty-cake, and mary-go-round, and alea would be games states above that deal with something to gain or profit.
I found Agon games to be interesting because it is the most fundamental in which it is seen in sports physically and on video. I find playing sports games a bit weird because it plays off the physical way of playing sports, but only uses your mind and the controller or, to me, more of a simulation. Yet Bogost believe that these games are not that but are the actual sport itself when played on a videogame.
Game Studies 