{"id":107,"date":"2004-08-09T20:12:28","date_gmt":"2004-08-09T18:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.dk\/ludologist\/?p=107"},"modified":"2004-08-09T20:17:53","modified_gmt":"2004-08-09T18:17:53","slug":"ancient-greece-victory-at-any-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2004\/08\/09\/ancient-greece-victory-at-any-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Greece: Victory at any cost"},"content":{"rendered":"

Competing for his third Olympic crown, Arrichion had found himself being choked in a stranglehold from behind. Unable to free himself from the ferocious grip, Arrichion managed to grip his opponent’s ankle and twist it until it broke. <\/p>\n

In agony his opponent submitted, but by then the damage was done – Arrichion’s throat had been crushed and even as he was proclaimed the winner, he breathed his last.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s BBC News on death in ancient Greek games<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Is this a game?<\/p>\n

It is arguably the most difficult philosophical question concerning the concept of “game”: Games are supposed to be played for fun, but sometimes players do get seriously hurt or even die. Is it still a game<\/em> then?
\nRoger Caillois argues that professional athletes do not play, but work. It’s also part of my game definition<\/a>, where games have “negotiable consequences” – and a “game” where all “players” endanger their lives is hence not a game.<\/p>\n

It’s certainly a fuzzy aspect of what makes something a game: The difference between the process of<\/em> political elections and various Idol and Popstars TV shows is not quite clear, but I think this is just the fuzzy heart of games: A game activity has to be<\/em> “mostly harmless”, and then any number of consequences can be assigned to its outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Competing for his third Olympic crown, Arrichion had found himself being choked in a stranglehold from behind. Unable to free himself from the ferocious grip, Arrichion managed to grip his opponent’s ankle and twist it until it broke. In agony his opponent submitted, but by then the damage was done – Arrichion’s throat had been … Continue reading “Ancient Greece: Victory at any cost”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}