How to play well with others

Many games are essentially social, yet dominant theories of games struggle to accommodate this. This chapter argues that Bernard Suits’s rightly influential theory lacks a plausible explanation of what it is for two or more people to play a game with one another. It then develops an alternative approach which takes a more interpersonal approach, emphasizing the role of commitment in its account of multi-player games. It argues that this approach has several advantages over rival approaches. It concluded by extending this approach to deal with single-player games. The chapter argues that “game” and cognates are, in one useful sense, family resemblance terms, but in a way that can accommodate what is insightful in Suits’s approach, thus getting the best of both worlds.