Gaming Cultures:: Spring 2006: LIT 4930:: Card Games
Parlett, David.Oxford Guide to Card Games. New York: Oxford UP, 1990.
Taken alone cards are not games, but are equipment used for playing games (3). As equipment used for playing games, card games operate on their form as cards with one side concealed making them games of imperfect information, as opposed to board games which are generally games of perfect information (18-19). Along with imperfect information, card games also involve a degree of chance. Under this definition of card games, games with imperfect information and chance, Poker cannot be seen as a card game whereas Clue can be seen as a card game (3).
Because card games rely on chance and imperfect information, many were played for money. Thus, making the term 'gaming' "synonymous with 'gambling'" (13). The negative views of gambling and gaming have continued in other games, with the negative associations between pinball and bars, and with video games and addiction as well as violence. While card games have been depicted negatively for the gambling potential and chance element, card games also generally operate within social settings that define their play and use. Rather than utilizing preset rules from game books or defined externally, card games generally draw on the social setting to establish the local rules of the game in relation to the players at that moment.
Points to Consider
15 "What you play with governs what you play..."
This is true for pick-up sports and active games, make-believe
games and play, and for other social games like drinking games.
17-18 chance alone does not negate skill. Choice must be significant choice in order to be more than chance (Snakes and LAdders is not significant in this sense). "The defining feature of a game of skill is not the absence of chance but the presence of significant skill."
Perfect information and games: fog of war?
48 "Preventive laws often come under the heading 'etiquette' because they seem to deal 'only' with matters of polite behaviour. But they may be based on practical considerations. For example, it is not merely bad manners to start picking up your cards before the deal is over, for in doing so you may put your hand in the way of the next card dealt, thereby causing it to fall face up and necessitating another deal."
Other Random Notes
3 cards are not a game, but equipment used for playing different types of game and are therfore widely popular because they appeal to different types of players
9 board games can visualize outcome and plan moves clue a card game more than board game
14 card games - ritual governed by conventions - rules agreed from within rather than imposed from without community
17 board games - rules and opening positions known to all - being 1st is an advantage
17 significant choice required
18-19 board games with perfect information
46 "most card games do not actually have offical rules"
46 rule books
48 official and associate (how it should be) rules
47-8 on rules - paper on arcade style, shared
61 trouble with classification b/c more games examined = more games that cross the borders wolf and genre of the video game
61-2 elements of games