Galloway introduces its readers with the idea that video games are actions.  In order to play the video game, users must cooperate with a machine in order to achieve a goal that exists in a world of its own.  Although users may not always be ‘playing’ the game according to authors Huizinga and Caillois, Galloway suggests that video games are different and that they must be interpreted differently from traditional games.  There is this separate factor, the machine, who introduces the idea that a game can be played even when users are not actively interacting with the game.  The machine can create gaming elements, such as those creatively pointed out in Upgrade Complete, that immerse intrinsically motivated players into a virtual world of gamic actions (p. 38).

It is interesting to see how Galloway attempts to interpret several definitions of ‘play’ into video game culture.  “To arrive at a definition of video games, then, one must take Huizinga and Caillois’s concept of play and view it as it is actually embedded inside algorithmic game machines” (p. 21).  Does Galloway mean to say that ‘play’ is programmed into video games and that any video game user is implied to be a player?  The definition of play has evolved concurrently with culture (in my opinion), so would this just be the next step in our (the world’s?) definition of play?

And what gets me the most is Galloway’s idea of diegetic machine.  Even when a user is not there, the game continues to ‘play’.  Although no operator actions are occurring, do machine actions constitute play?  Galloway doesn’t answer the question when he brings up the idea of cut scenes and only suggests a different interpretation, but I’m curious as to what he would say if he were to give a direct answer.