But what is a game in this case? How does a game differ from life itself? First of all, in a game, we know the rules, which means that the game has a boundary. Life, on the other hand, is an open-ended, unlimited duration, which means that the rules are constantly changing or being updated. That is why we must learn to adapt to new rules every time. But there is one more difference between life and a game, namely that you cannot win in life, while in a game you can. Winning a game is also a way out of the game, while leaving life is its final end. But in the game, as in life, there is inherent uncertainty. This uncertainty provides the opportunity to individualise what is happening for the player. The game is always my game, my way.

When we play a game, we interact with the possibility that is limited by the rules. By exerting effort, intellectual and/or physical, we direct the activity towards achieving the goal of winning. But we can also play for fun, enjoying the very possibility and surprise of what is happening in the game. In this case, we are not interested in winning, because winning is an exit from the game. We want to continue playing, we want to stay in the game. Maybe we even want to live as a game. When life becomes a game, when what is possible is limited by rules, then what we call culture emerges. After all, culture is an environment that is limited by cultivation, by the rules of selection. Nature, on the other hand, is an open environment, and uncertainty in it transcends even its own boundaries. In a sense, playing life means being in culture. Or to put it another way: culture is both the result of the game and the environment for playing life. But enough about that.

We already know something about images. We know that an image can be immanent, but also transcendent, i.e. objective. This means that an image can be given directly, through memory or fantasy, or indirectly, through perception, for example, when we look at a photograph or a painting. Furthermore, we remember that an image can be complex, meaning that its elements can interact in such a way that an internal movement within the image itself can result. We showed this by analysing a photograph by Henri-Cartier Bresson. Next, we remember that images can relate to themselves externally, forming a series of images. A series of images represents movement, similar to the movement we perceive when we observe the movement of external objects. Now we are dealing with images that move or remain static "depending" on who is looking, or more precisely, depending on where they are looking from. An image and a series of images have turned into an imaginative environment. An environment because images are distinguished and are transformed in this case, not only according to their own dynamics, but according to the dynamics of interaction.

We can say that the photo image attracts, the video image fascinates, and the game (the environment of images) stuns. Looking at a photo, we are active and discerning, watching a video, we are passive and engrossed, playing a game, we are interactive. Interactivity indicates that the activity of images and the activity of directed attention are not parallel to each other (as it happens during photos and videos), but intersect: they are perpendicular to each other. If we said that during cinema we find ourselves in an objective imaginary world where images dominate us, then during a video game, images form an autonomous environment, their own world, which not only encompasses and captivates us, but also interferes with our very life. The imaginative environment transforms the experience, shifting consciousness from the interaction of things to the interaction with the image. Looking ahead, we can say that the spatial, external, has exhausted itself through technology and is turning into the temporal, internal. This is how the emphasis of human culture itself is shifting. The virtual as a synthetic imaginative environment is an objectification of the temporary, where the real is switched off or overcome. This is how the very mechanics of culture creation are changing, and the basic element of this transition is the game, the video game.