antigame

plural antigames

1. A game which cannot be played in the conventional sense.

   Just like in Arcangel's work, we are confronted with an antigame: all the interactivity and stress in the game are removed, and we experience a calm and meditative atmosphere.

   2014, Mathias Jansson, Everything I Shoot Is Art, Lulu Press, Inc, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Clearly, antigames such as Progress Quest and Achievement Unlocked don't appeal to players through high levels of playability. On the contrary: they are played by parodically minded users who don't mind sacrificing their usual gaming experience for various degrees of humorous self-reflexivity and self-criticism.

   2014, Astrid Ensslin, Literary Gaming, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 92

   As one site explained: 'We were going to refer to Dungeon Keeper as a non-game, but that's not really accurate. It's an antigame. It is purposefully designed not to require thought[.]"

   2015, Colin Cremin, Exploring Videogames with Deleuze and Guattari: Towards an Affective Theory of Form, Routledge, →ISBN, page 50

2. computingA strategy in which a player refuses to participate in a game or replaces it with a game with different rules.

   When capacity to respond to any aggression at a corresponding level of violence does not exist, the strategy of antigame is recommended.

   1966, Y. Harkabi, Nuclear War and Nuclear Peace, Transaction Publishers, →ISBN, page 105

   2 more examples

   The principle is the same as in kicking the provocative boxer or using strategic weapons in response to a tactical nuclear challenge. A strategy designed for refusing to play a game might be called an antigame strategy.

   1962, Klaus Eugen Knorr, Limited strategic war

   Should either side adopt an uncooperative or "antigame" stance and attempt to destroy its opponent's high command, then the strategy defeats itself and the side that attempted to maintain communications and hold the door open for war termination is disadvantaged.

   1988, Stephen J. Cimbala, Rethinking Nuclear Strategy, Scholarly Resources, Incorporated