Games are rules?

I think the most interesting point made in the reading is that games are rules. How does this influence the way we interpret games? Try your best to describe a game without describing its rules. Not really possible, right? And that's simply because rules make the game. And this is not only true for digital games; it applies to board games, sports and even simple games like Rock, Paper, Scissors. And what is the purpose of rules? To provide a controlled environment, mostly to enable the title of "winner" to be given to one of the participants. Games are just a set of rules that exist to objectively show that one person (or team) is better than another.

If this is to be true, then these rules must not give an advantage to one player over the other, otherwise it would be an invalid determiner of victory. In videogames, this concept is called game balance. A game can be balanced one of two ways, either by making the situation for both players as similar as possible or by giving players advantages and disadvantages that are equally strong. The second situation allows for a more interesting and dynamic game, where the good player can make use of his advantages and his opponent's disadvantages, but this type of game is much harder to make balanced. For example, if the players get to pick their strengths and weaknesses, it may be that one set is inherently better than the others, making the game unbalanced. Balance by identicality is much easier to achieve, but makes the game less interesting. Part of the reason Starcraft was such a popular game was due to its very good balance. While there were three very different races to choose from, no one race was ever considered to be generally better than the others. True balance is very difficult to achieve.

What are some games that you have played that were well balanced or very unbalanced? How did you feel after winning?