The desire to play is innate. And although some kinds of play seem particularly human, many animals--certainly mammals--play both alone and in company. Play crosses the boundaries between speakers of different vocal languages, between cultures, between the sexes, between age groups, and even between species. Perhaps play, more even than music, is the universal language.
In many ways play is unlike all other activities. It is purely voluntary, indulged in for its own sake and not to promote survival of the individual or the species. It creates nothing tangible, although it does contribute to physical, social, and psychological growth. The goals and motives of playing creatures are part of the play itself; players, as long as they are playing are outside "reality." Or perhaps more accurately, they are in their own separate reality, where the play is central and sometimes quite serious. But mostly it's fun.
Play is sometimes "explained" as simply a disguised means of teaching the young the ways of the world and fitting them for it. Wrestling with friends and siblings teaches fighting skills. Running and chasing improves lungs, heart, legs, and speed. Skipping stones across a lake bolsters judgment and coordination. All this may be true. Still, I like to think the Creator made some things--among them color, music, and play--for sheer pleasure.
Nevertheless, some play does fulfill practical functions, and it is impossible to say which is incidental to the other--the learning or the fun. Playing games seems to be particularly important in teaching and reinforcing knowledge of various kinds in both younger and older participants.
Games differ from simple play in three major ways. First, whereas play is noncompetitive, games involve competition between at least two players. There are, of course, games for loners, but players of games like solitaire usually "compete with" an invisible opponent, for instance "the Devil," or against a standard--say, the number of hits in a row or a previous personal record. In addition, since games are competitive, every game has a means of determining who wins and who loses. Thus two players batting a shuttlecock back and forth over a net may be "just playing" to warm up, not to win, or they may be "playing a game" by keeping score. Finally, agreed-upon rules, implicit or explicit, figure prominently in games. Some forms of play also involve rules; children in particular are often fanatical about the "right" way to play "house" or "store" or "statues." But the competitive aspect of playing games and the potential for winning--both absent from simple play--make rule violations more serious and thus more liable to be punished than in other kinds of play.
Games in culture
Many games model activities from outside the play world. Boxing, wrestling, competitive shooting, and many other games of physical skill, for example, imitate fighting or hunting techniques. Games of strategy also may simulate hunting or war activities; among games of this ilk are backgammon and chess. Games of chance have ties to divining--essentially a religious activity. For modern players, such connections are in many cases lost in antiquity, since the games frequently have survived the activities they mimic. But the games remain important for developing abstract thought, and they contribute to cognitive mapping and
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