Play often has goals, but the goals are experienced as an intrinsic part of the game, not as the sole reason for engaging in the game’s actions. Goals in play are subordinate to the means for achieving them. For example, constructive play (the playful building of something) is always directed toward the goal of creating the object that the player has in mind. But notice that the primary objective in such play is the creation of the object, not the having of the object. Children making a sandcastle would not be happy if an adult came along and said, "You can stop all your effort now. I'll make the castle for you." That would spoil their fun. The process, not the product, motivates them. Similarly, children or adults playing a competitive game have the goal of scoring points and winning, but, if they are truly playing, it is the process of scoring and trying to win that motivates them, not the points themselves or the status of having won. If someone would just as soon win by cheating as by following the rules, or get the trophy and praise through some shortcut that bypasses the game process, then that person is not playing.

Adults can test the degree to which their work is play by asking themselves this: “If I could receive the same pay, the same prospects for future pay, the same amount of approval from other people, and the same sense of doing good for the world for not doing this job as I am receiving for doing it, would I quit?”  If the person would eagerly quit, the job is not play. To the degree that the person would quit reluctantly, or not quit, the job is play. It is something that the person enjoys independently of the extrinsic rewards received for doing it.

One reason why play is such an ideal state of mind for creativity and learning is because the mind is focused on means. Since the ends are understood as secondary, fear of failure is absent and players feel free to incorporate new sources of information and to experiment with new ways of doing things.

3. Play is guided by mental rules.

Play is freely chosen activity, but it is not freeform activity. Play always has structure, and that structure derives from rules in the player’s mind. This point is really an extension of the point just made about the importance of means in play. The rules of play are the means. To play is to behave in accordance with self-chosen rules. The rules are not like rules of physics, nor like biological instincts, which are automatically followed. Rather, they are mental concepts that often require conscious effort to keep in mind and follow.

A basic rule of constructive play, for example, is that you must work with the chosen medium in a manner aimed at producing or depicting some specific object or design. You don’t just pile up blocks randomly; you arrange them deliberately in accordance with your mental image of what you are trying to make. Even rough and tumble play (playful fighting and chasing), which may look wild from the outside, is constrained by rules. An always-present rule in play fighting, for example, is that you mimic some of the actions of real fighting, but you don’t really hurt the other person. You don’t hit with all your force (at least not if you are the stronger of the two); you don’t kick, bite, or scratch. Play fighting is much more controlled than real fighting; it is always an exercise in restraint.

Among the most complex forms of play, in terms of rules, is what play researchers call sociodramatic play—the playful acting out of roles or scenes, as when children are playing “house,” or acting out a marriage, or pretending to be superheroes. The fundamental rule here is that you must abide by your and the other players’ shared understanding of the role that you are playing. If you are the pet dog in a game of “house,” you must walk around on all fours and bark rather than talk. If you are Wonder Woman, and you and your playmates believe that Wonder Woman never cries, then you refrain from crying, even when you fall down and hurt yourself.

To illustrate the rule-based nature of sociodramatic play, the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky wrote about two actual sisters—ages seven and five—who sometimes played that they were sisters.[1] As actual sisters, they rarely thought about their sisterhood and had no consistent way of behaving toward one another. Sometimes they enjoyed one another, sometimes they argued, and sometimes they ignored one another. But, when they were playing sisters, they always behaved according to their shared stereotype of how sisters should behave. They dressed alike, talked alike, always loved one another, talked about the differences between themselves and everyone else, and so on. Much more self-control, mental effort, and rule following was involved in playing sisters than in being sisters.

The category of play with the most explicit rules is that called formal games. These are games, like checkers and baseball, with rules that are specified, verbally, in ways designed to minimize ambiguity in interpretation. The rules of these games are commonly passed along from one generation of players to the next. Many formal games in our society are competitive, and one purpose of the formal rules is to make sure that the same restrictions apply equally to all competitors. Players of formal games, if they are true players, must adopt these rules as their own for the period of the game and be willing to stick to them. Of course, except in “official” versions of such games, players commonly modify the rules to fit their own needs, but each modification must be agreed upon by all the players.

The main point I want to make here is that every form of play involves a good deal of self-control. When not playing, children (and adults too) may act according to their immediate biological needs, emotions, and whims; but in play they must act in ways that they and their playmates deem appropriate to the game. Play draws and fascinates the player precisely because it is structured by rules that the player herself or himself has invented or accepted.

The student of play who most strongly emphasized play’s rule-based nature was Lev Vygotsky, whose example of sisters playing sisters I just mentioned. In an essay on the role of play in development, originally published in 1933, Vygotsky commented, as follows, on the apparent paradox between the idea that play is spontaneous and free and the idea that players must follow rules:

“The … paradox is that in play [the child] adopts the line of least resistance—she does what she most feels like doing because play is connected with pleasure—and at the same time she learns to follow the line of greatest resistance by subordinating herself to rules and thereby renouncing what she wants, since subjection to rules and renunciation of impulsive action constitute the path to maximum pleasure in play. Play continually creates demands on the child to act against immediate impulse. At every step the child is faced with a conflict between the rules of the game and what she would do if she could suddenly act spontaneously. … Thus, the essential attribute of play is a rule that has become a desire. …. The rule wins because it is the strongest impulse. Such a rule is an internal rule, a rule of self-restraint and self-determination …. In this way a child’s greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that tomorrow will become her basic level of real action and morality.”[1]

Vygotsky's point, of course, is that the child's desire to play is so strong that it becomes a motivating force for learning self-control. The child resists impulses and temptations that would run counter to the rules because the child seeks the larger pleasure of remaining in the game. To Vygotsky's analysis, I would add that the child accepts and desires the rules of play only because he or she is always free to quit if the rules become too burdensome. With that in mind, the paradox can be seen to be superficial. The child's real-life freedom is not restricted by the rules of the game, because the child can at any moment choose to leave the game. That is another reason why the freedom to quit is such a crucial aspect of the definition of play. Without that freedom, rules of play would be intolerable. To be required to act like Wonder Woman in real life would be terrifying, but to act like that in play––a realm you are always free to leave––is great fun.