ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on games as vehicles of cultural values, arenas of cultural meetings, bearers of cultural memory and tools of cultural hegemony. Various games have functioned for centuries as media of cultural values that were incorporated in them by their producers and/or their players. In addition, they transported cultural trends from generation to generation. In some cases, games have functioned as tickets to enter a cultural circle. They also witness on the cultural development known as civilizing process, a progress from a lower level of culture to a higher one. Furthermore, games have functioned as arenas of cultural meetings. The author proposes that the study of how cultural values related to the rules, the gameplay, or the aesthetics of the material dimension of a game have crossed cultural borders might prove valuable to the cultural historian as well as to the historian of culture. Games might also be used as sources on the transportation of cultural memories over time; these memories might be memories of cultural identity, or memories of cultural values and principles of the past. Finally, games might be studied as tools of cultural hegemony or as weapons of resistance to such hegemony.
