What exactly is a game?

In the first chapter of McGonical’s book she talks about four defining traits of a game, first she talks about goals and how they give a sense of purpose to a player. When playing a game having objectives or goals is key to player to keep their attention and make the player feel good about them self when the complete goals in a game. Second she talks about rules, rules  give the player limitation and make the players think before they actually make the move in the game. McGonical states this “They unleash creativity and foster strategic thinking,” I like what she says here because rules make the player think strategically and that is what a game should be about. Thirdly feedback system is another key part to the game because this helps the player see how they are doing and what the are achieving. Lastly she talks about voluntary participation and how a gamer needs to accept the goals and rules of the game and be cooperative with the game. I think that between those she covered a lot of the same aspects as us, but puts them in a more open perspective and includes more than we did. In our group discussion we gave a wide variety of  things that were all over the place, but if we took all of ours we could put them into the four defining words that McGonical gave us in her book. So I would have to agree that my thoughts and the classes fit in with what the author gave us.