The progress of machine technology consists in the increasing elimination of play. Play signifies the relation of the elements of a machine to each other. The more primitive the technology, the less attuned the parts of the machine to each other, the greater the degree of play. The more perfected the technology, the less play the individual parts have to each other. (Franz Reuleaux, Theoretische Kinematik: Grundzüge einer Theorie des Maschinewesens, ref Schivelbush p. 169) see playtime
The disengagement of technology from its ordinary-use context is what allows the technology to fall into the various disengaged engagements which constitute such activities as play, art, or sport. (Ihde, Technology and Lifeworld, p. 107)
"playing it safe" and risk analysis.
Michel de Certeau describes the tactics of use, manipulation, and diversion as creatings a "certain play in the machine" through a stratification of different and interfering kinds of functioning. (Practice of Everyday Life, p.30)