Thinking Games: Philosophical Explorations in the Digital Age

1 Introduction

The philosophy of games is a rapidly expanding research field that invites sustained engagement with questions of agency, representation, normativity, or the aesthetics of structured interaction. Once considered peripheral to the core concerns of philosophy, games now command urgent attention – not only as pervasive cultural artifacts but also as formal systems that challenge inherited notions of meaning, embodiment, and cognition.^[1] As digital technologies have transformed games into complex algorithmic and immersive environments, the philosophical terrain has shifted dramatically. Digital games are no longer mere rule-based entertainments – they are interactive, computational systems with aesthetic, ethical, and political implications.^[2]

Long before the rise of digital technologies, games have drawn sustained philosophical attention as cultural practices that reveal essential features of human agency, freedom, rule-following, and imagination. From ancient philosophical reflections on play as a form of education or ritual, to twentieth and twenty-first-century theories by Johan Huizinga, Roger Caillois, Jacques Henriot, and Kurt Squire non-digital games have been approached not merely as leisure activities but as serious objects of inquiry or educational means. Board games, card games, sports, and children’s play have all served as sites for exploring the boundaries between fiction and reality, competition and cooperation, structure and spontaneity. These games have often served as models or metaphors for broader philosophical concerns, including language, ethics, education, and political order. As such, the philosophy of games has deep roots that predate the digital era, offering a foundation from which to assess the transformations introduced by computational mediation and interactive technologies.

This transformation places the philosophy of games in deep and necessary dialogue with both the philosophy of technology and the philosophy of the digital. In digital games, agency is structured through code, feedback loops, and invisible constraints; subjectivity is mediated by avatars and interface metaphors; and world-building becomes a programmable, often proprietary practice. The question is no longer just “what is a game?” but “what kind of knowing, acting and being do games now afford?.”^[3] Digital games instantiate a procedural form of expression – what Ian Bogost famously termed “procedural rhetoric” – that requires us to rethink the very medium of philosophical reflection.

At the same time, digitalization raises ontological and epistemological challenges: What distinguishes digital play from analog play? Can philosophical content emerge through systems of interaction rather than propositions? And who, ultimately, controls the structures of experience – designers, players, or platforms? These are not merely speculative questions. They are vital to understanding how games – as one of the most pervasive and sophisticated cultural-technical forms of our time – shape and are shaped by wider social forces.^[4]

This special issue responds to these developments by assembling contributions that critically and creatively examine the intersection of games, gamification, and philosophy. The articles collected here span topics from games ontology to gamification, from metaphilosophy to aesthetics, from ecological design to serious games, and together, they offer a compelling picture of a field in motion – one that is both interrogating its own foundations and reaching outward to shape broader conversations in philosophy, technology, and digital culture.

2 Contributions

The first two contributions of the special issue examine the ontology of video games. In “On What Makes Some Video Games Philosophical,” Benny Mattis builds upon the foundations of procedural rhetoric – articulation of philosophical insight through interacting rules and game processes as observed by Ian Bogost and Thomas J. Spiegel – to ask: what distinguishes some games as truly philosophical rather than merely expressive? Reflecting on Plato’s Phaedrus and a broader dialectical tradition, the article interrogates how philosophy functions dialectically rather than rhetorically alone. Mattis argues convincingly that games should be evaluated not merely in terms of their propositional content but as artifacts that foster dialogue, critique, and collective reflection. The evaluative standard becomes their capacity to initiate philosophical exchange – beyond immediate gameplay – thus positioning certain video games as active participants in philosophical praxis.

“Playable Concepts? For a Critique of Videogame Reason,” an essay by Giacomo Pezzano undertakes a bold metaphilosophical inquiry into what it would mean for video games to philosophize in their own right. Rejecting the unexamined primacy of writing in academic philosophy, Pezzano proposes a structured “Critique of Videogame Reason,” framing video games as media capable of sensorimotor insight in a “Transcendental Aesthetic” and requiring a distinctly “gamish” epistemic mindset in the “Transcendental Analytic.” His “Transcendental Dialectic” envisions philosophy as multimodal – immersive, emersive, dialogic – beyond the constraints of textual argumentation. The result is a visionary argument for a more inclusive, multimodal philosophical praxis that engages the unique capacities of video-ludic media, pointing toward a future where games themselves are sites of thought.

The next two contributions deal with the notion of gamification. First, the text by Karl Egerton entitled “The Gamification of Games and Inhibited Play,” addresses a compelling paradox: how gamification – a strategy typically applied to non-game contexts – can also occur within games themselves and why this internal gamification may jeopardize the richness of play. Egerton offers a precise definition of gamification that makes nontrivial gamification within games possible, then distinguishes between achievement, striving, role, and authorial forms of play. He argues that built-in game systems like trophies and leaderboards systematically promote achievement-driven and striving play at the expense of exploratory, character-driven, or creative modes. The result is a subtle form of constraint – a trend toward inhibited play – where design norms limit players’ freedom to inhabit roles or author their own experiences, opening a crucial debate about autonomy, creativity, and moral aesthetic in game design.

One more text in this context is: “Rethinking gamification within a genealogy of governmental discourses.” Here, Justin Nony undertakes a genealogical investigation of gamification, situating it not merely as a design strategy or behavioral technique, but as a historically situated project of governmentality. Drawing from Foucault’s methodology and the history of ideas, the article critiques the dominant psychological and structuralist framings of games that underpin much of gamification discourse. Against the tendency to treat games as discrete systems or behavior-shaping tools, it offers a layered historical account of how notions of “play” and “rules” have evolved – particularly through ruptures from Aristotelian and classical traditions to neoliberal modes of governance. The analysis shows that gamification emerges from a transformation in the concept of play itself, one that reengineers player subjectivity and affect for instrumental ends. This work offers a vital philosophical reframing: gamification is not only about motivation design, but about power, subject-formation, and the regulation of everyday life through ludic structures.

The last two contributions concern ethics and politics in relation to the philosophy of games. In their “Integrating Ethics of Technology into a Serious Game: The Case of Tethics,” Giannis Perperidis, Iason Spilios, Manolis Simos, and Aristotle Tympas confront the pressing polycrisis of digitalization, biomedicalization, and environmental degradation by proposing an education tool that is based on a critical philosophy of technology. For this, they designed a board game, Tethics, which immerses players in ethical decision-making scenarios, representing stakeholders such as developers, policymakers, and civil society. Drawing on Andrew Feenberg’s critical theory of technology, the authors argue that serious games can serve as both philosophical inquiry and educational and public engagement tools. Tethics challenges the instrumentalist and determinist views of technology, offering a dynamic, experiential understanding of ethical dilemmas, informed by in-design ethical approaches to technology. This approach exemplifies how game design can refine philosophical discourse and foster a more nuanced relationship with technology in the face of contemporary existential threats.

Finally, Stavros A. Mouzakitis in his “Battlefields of Play & Games: From a Method of Comparative Ludology to a Strategy of Ecosophic Ludic Architecture,” offers an ambitious, interdisciplinary framework he terms Comparative Ludology, tracing the layered history of play – from war-games through to the emergent “war-of-games” – and revealing how games permeate political, cultural and architectural spheres. Central to his argument is the provocative hypothesis of the “Immanence of Play”: the notion that everything may be understood as a form of game, prompting a shift from essentialist definitions toward dynamic, process-based thinking. Moving from theoretical mapping to praxis, the article culminates in a proposal for Ludic Ecosophic Architecture, a strategy leveraging serious environmental games rooted in political ecology and ecosophy. This manifesto-like piece vividly situates game design within ecological, political, and spatial concerns, offering fertile ground for reimagining games as agents of ecological and architectural critique.

3 Conclusion

The contributions gathered in this special issue reveal the growing depth, diversity, and critical urgency of philosophical inquiry into games and gamification. Together, they demonstrate that games are not merely objects of entertainment or aesthetic appreciation, but complex cultural forms entangled with ethics, politics, subjectivity, and technological mediation. As digital games increasingly shape our practices, perceptions, and social environments, philosophy is uniquely positioned to interrogate their meanings, functions, and consequences. The articles included here do not offer a unified theory or a single critical stance, but rather a constellation of approaches that reflect the richness and complexity of the field. It is precisely in this multiplicity that their value lies. Rather than closing a debate, this issue seeks to open new lines of questioning – inviting further reflection on the ludic dimensions of contemporary life and on the philosophical possibilities that games, as forms of thought and practice, continue to unfold.