What Do We Do When We Play?

We play something, we play a game. A Game: that is obviously a different kind of Reality than the "normal" one, and playing a different activity than the normal one. What is different? This is the question Heinrich Popitz wants to clarify: What is this strange other reality that we create through play?

If a child enjoys running through the outgoing waves on the seashore – is that a game? It can become a game – what must be added? Why can we call both chess and a dreamy pushing around of colorful stones a game? One can play almost anytime. An everydayness, then, but an everyday possible experience of the extra-ordinary. What is extra-ordinary about it? What do we do when we play?

Let's start with a simple distinction of forms of play: functional games, fantasy games, rule games. Functional games (or practice games) emerge in the first months of life. After play-like body movements, especially with the mouth and hands, functional games with objects develop, such as rattle-let, drop-let, swim-let, and the first interaction games. In the alternation of hiding and coming out again (peek-a-boo game), the theme of hiding and breaking out of hiding is discovered, which then runs through the history of the game in an infinite number of variations.

POPITZ, Heinrich, 1994. Spielen. Göttingen: Wallstein-Verl. Göttinger Sudelblätter. ISBN 978-3-89244-082-6.