Game

We define a game to be an organized mental exercise with a set of rules and any number of participants. Under this definition, chess, solitaire, crossword puzzles, and Super Mario Bros. are all games, but sports such as basketball are not because they are more physical than mental.

Of course, nobody will seriously argue that sports are not a form of game. After all, we say phrases like "baseball game" and "basketball game" without a second thought. The fact of the matter is that our slightly artificial definition is just more practical for the gameinfo wiki. Sports are excluded because they tend to be different from other kinds of games because of the large reliance on physical attributes such as strength and stamina, whereas most other kinds of games have no reliance on them at all. Of course, there are exceptions. For instance, Dance Dance Revolution relies on physical stamina and doesn't have much of a mental factor. However, it would be silly to include all other arcade and console games and leave out Dance Dance Revolution just because of this.

Of course, games about sports still fit our definition of "game". NBA Jam is a game, in our sense of the word, because it does not rely on physical activity. The skills required to play NBA Jam are entirely different from the skills required to play basketball on the court. This holds even for a more realistic simulation such as NBA Live '98. They do have one thing in common: both require fast reflexes to play well.

Are reflexes a physical factor, or a mental factor? They are mental in the sense that the brain processes information in order to activate the reflex. Therefore, our definition of "game" includes games that primarily involve hand-eye coordination, fast reflexes, and instinctive reactions -- not necessarily conscious thought.