ABSTRACT
Are Poker and Half-Life 2 examples of the same phenomenon? The playing situation could hardly be more different. Poker is inherently multi-player and is governed by abstract rules not justified by any fictive world-a full house beats two pairs, aces are higher than jacks. Meanwhile, Half-Life 2 is a single-player shooter game whose rules mimic those of the physical world (see Figure 3.1). These two games are so different that it might be hard to see how they both belong to the same category.
