Social games are society played as a self-contained form.

Evidence

The more profound, double sense of “social game” is that not only the game is played in a society (as its external medium) but that, with its help, people actually “play” “society.” — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2209

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the double meaning of ‘social game’ — society as medium and as the object being played.
• XREF: The claim that interactional forms can be played apart from their content anticipates game-theoretic treatments of social life and themes in Huizinga’s Homo Ludens.
• CANDY: A crisp aphoristic line worth quoting in conversation about dinner parties or social rituals.