Meaningful play is meaning, either designed or inherent, created through the execution of play

Play (activity)

Play is a term employed in ethology and psychology to describe to a range of voluntary, intrinsically motivated activities normally associated with pleasure and enjoyment...

. Meaningful play applies to the disciplines of psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 and game design

Game design

Game design, a subset of game development, is the process of designing the content and rules of a game in the pre-production stage and design of gameplay, environment, storyline, and characters during production stage. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in a game as...

.

Definition

In Rules of Play

Rules of Play

Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals is a book on game design by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, published by MIT Press.-Structure:The book is divided into four units, first introducing core concepts, then expanding on these with a detailed discussion of rules, play and culture.-Unit 1: Core...

, Katie Salen

Katie Salen

Katie Salen is a game designer, animator, and design educator. She is a professor in the DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media. She has taught at Parsons The New School for Design the University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and the Rhode Island School of Design...

 and Eric Zimmerman

Eric Zimmerman

Eric Zimmerman is a game designer and the co-founder and CEO of Gamelab, a computer game development company, which is known for the game Diner Dash. Each year Zimmerman hosts the Game Design Challenge at the Game Developers Conference...

introduce meaningful play as the goal of successful game design. They offer two definitions, one descriptive and one evaluative:

Descriptive definition: "Meaningful play in a game emerges from the relationship between player action and system outcome; it is the process by which a player takes action within the designed system of a game and the system responds to the action. The meaning of an action in a game resides in the relationship between action and outcome"

Evaluative definition: "Meaningful play is what occurs when the relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game"

Sources

• Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, MIT Press
• Video Games and Interactive Media: A Glimpse at New Digital Entertainment, by Stéphane Natkin
• Children's Play and Playgrounds, by Joe L. Frost, Barry L. Klein
• http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu/