A player is an individual or players are a group of individuals who are put in a position of assuming a role or of
making decisions within a game context. An educational game cannot work without at least one player (Griffiths,
2002) or several players (Gosen et Wabush, 1999). An individual can play against him- or herself (in which case we
would speak of a competition against oneself where the purpose is, for instance, to play the perfect match, or to
improve on one’s score from one match to the next), or one can play with others (which would lend the game a
cooperative character) or one can play against others or against the computer (which would lend the game a
competitive character). Although the number of players may vary from one to infinity, there is usually either a
prescribed number of players or a variable number of players permitted within a given range. Several studies also
describe the characteristics of players and teams and the impact of these on learning.