We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play like a baby detaching itself from the womb: it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.
Quotes about culture
Culture will, in a sense, always be played according to certain rules […]. Hence the cheat or the spoil-sport shatters culture itself.
The view we take […] is that culture arises in the form of play, that it is played from the very beginning.
As artifacts of the culture that produced them, wargames do serve in the continual exercise of historical revision and socially useful amnesia.
Games are now a major cultural force. The time is ripe for us to dig deeper into the many questions that games raise.