Antigame
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A game which cannot be played in the conventional sense.
"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."
- 2 A strategy in which a player refuses to participate in a game or replaces it with a game with different rules.
"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."
Example
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."
Etymology
From anti- + game.
More for "antigame"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.