<p>This paper argues that video games are neither games – in the sense of containing a set of constitutive rules – nor merely pieces of equipment which we integrate into systems of constitutive rules (such as a bat or chessboard). Rather, they are better understood as <i>agency scaffolds</i>: objects whose coded substratum distinguishes them from traditional game equipment by <i>guiding</i> players toward certain goals and rule structures, without fixing the set of constitutive rules that the player must adopt. I begin by showing why we might initially take video games to be pieces of equipment rather than games. I then examine C. Thi Nguyen’s argument from prescriptive ontology – which suggests that video games are, after all, games – and argue that while this may explain how we engage with video games as <i>works</i>, it cannot prescribe which constitutive rules we layer onto the game. Finally, I argue that video games differ from traditional equipment not by containing a single rule set inherently, but by embedding designer intentions within their virtual physics. These intentions shape, but do not determine, the structure of play, thereby illustrating how digital artefacts differ from material technologies in their capacity to encode designer intentions directly into their coded substratum.</p>