This paper seeks to understand, classify, and give historical context to the dramaturgy of different kinds of computer games according to the differing interactive possibilities they provide. This results in three basic types of games: action games, adventure games, and strategy games. This conclusion is reached and accounted for on the basis of the science of labor (time-and-motion studies), theatrical and narrative theory, and cybernetics. Time is critical in the interaction in the present in action games: they require attentiveness in the production of a temporally optimized series of choices taken from a repertoire of norm-governed actions. Decisions are critical in the navigation of that which is at hand in adventure games: they require optimal judgments in the traversing of the decision-making nodes of a flowchart. Configuration is critical in the organization of the possible in strategy games: they require patience in the optimal regulation of interdependent values.