Caillois – The Classification of Games

As Caillois describes it, games can be categorized into what he describes as “fundamental Categories.” This categories, Agôn, Alea, Mimicry, and Ilinx. This 4 classifications give way to describe almost every game people engage in regardless of cultural or geographic differences.

However, where Caillois differed from previous academics in this field was the argument that play has to be “free and volunteer.” meaning a person cannot be leveraged or force into play. Lastly Caillois makes a strong statement that play in and of itself is its own reward, any additional prize or reward is just additional from the reward we get from play.