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[Reelya]

Unfortunately my definition doesn't encompass something like a puzzle game where a player must simply solve all the puzzles in order to achieve one completion state and there is no failure state or alternative ending along the path. That's a pretty narrow exclusion, though, and the only one that comes immediately to mind.

Puzzle games do qualify if you see them as a sequence of smaller games, as long as each puzzle actually requires you to make decisions. They're no less games by having a linear structure than any game which has a linear selection of levels: it's what you do in each level which counts.

Compare to Sierra's Leisure Suit Larry: it's one big puzzle, you can die etc, by making the wrong move, so there a multiple "endings". In a puzzle game, normally if you make a wrong move you need to restart that level. This is logically equivalent to dying in an adventure game by making the wrong choice and having to reload.

[Quartz_Mace]

Just wondering, what exactly do you think Dwarf Fortress classifies as. I've heard it called a video game and a fantasy simulator. Myself, I think it's more of a "game" because it's interactive entertainment.
It contains challenges, like not dying in adventure mode, or not having all Dwarves die in fortress mode, and you can set your own goals to achieve. Although, it also generates and progresses a simulated world on it's own. Overall, I'd probably say it's still a game because you interact with that world, just food for thought.

Secondly, what would we count simulators as? I've heard a lot of people treating stuff like "Goat Simulator" and "Mountain", 2 Steam titles, as games, although "Mountain" isn't even interactive entertainment because you have no controls or influence.

[WealthyRadish]

I wouldn't tie the definition of a game to the medium, but rather an action. It's deriving entertainment out of something, where it's the player that makes their own fun. You can make games out of reading books, games out of watching movies, games out of staring at a stucco wall, it's all about whether the player is creating or initiating the experience or not. A video game is just a virtual environment that was created specifically for playing games in. If you pay attention to what you're doing when you play any video game, you'll notice that you're actually playing many games, often at the same time. If it were an FPS, I'll often make a game of nagging NPCs over and over for seeing when character voice lines run out, while making a game of jumping on terrain to look for weird spots or secrets, while progressing through the level and killing things, while making a game of scavenging stuff... the list goes on. But enter a cutscene, and how many games am I playing? Usually none, unless I'm taking a drink every time the dialogue makes me cringe.

Other kinds of media like a book or movie are usually not meant to be games, but stories. The entertainment value is from following along and absorbing all the information as it is given to you, not from your own initiative. So what makes a game simply depends on whether the person finds the environment suitable to make some entertainment, and different people may regard the same piece of media differently. If I somehow got my mother to sit down and try to play an RTS, I sure wouldn't have a clue whether she's finding a game in there or just clicking things. Hell, maybe that's the game to her, clicking things and listening to their sounds. But someone familiar with RTS and video games in general would find a very different experience.

[Sensei]

Unfortunately my definition doesn't encompass something like a puzzle game where a player must simply solve all the puzzles in order to achieve one completion state and there is no failure state or alternative ending along the path. That's a pretty narrow exclusion, though, and the only one that comes immediately to mind.

This brings us to an important concept: The Implied Failure State. In a puzzle/adventure/Point n click game, which has no way to die and no screen which says "You lose!" you can still fail. Failure in this case is failure to progress- if you sit stumped at a puzzle, you have failed that puzzle. You can keep trying to succeed, but while you continue to not solve the puzzle, you're not seeing the success state- so you're in the implied failure state.

I'd knock out the "for entertainment" part of games. Educational games are still games

Naw, Edutainment games are meant to teach you in a fun way... they just are usually boring with some interesting exceptions (and I am pretty much the only person who wants a good adult educational game)

I think this is important. Whether or not it succeeds to entertain, educational games all intend to be entertaining- they are "for entertainment". An example of an educational piece of software which does not intend to entertain at all, but has challenge, might be a quiz. You can tell when that sort of thing is meant purely as a study aid. Tangentially, speaking of good adult edutainment games, the very popular Kerbal Space Program fits that category.

Just wondering, what exactly do you think Dwarf Fortress classifies as. I've heard it called a video game and a fantasy simulator. Myself, I think it's more of a "game" because it's interactive entertainment.
It contains challenges, like not dying in adventure mode, or not having all Dwarves die in fortress mode, and you can set your own goals to achieve. Although, it also generates and progresses a simulated world on it's own. Overall, I'd probably say it's still a game because you interact with that world, just food for thought.

I've heard a lot of people treating stuff like "Goat Simulator" and "Mountain", 2 Steam titles, as games, although "Mountain" isn't even interactive entertainment because you have no controls or influence.

Open-ended games like Dwarf Fortress or Minecraft kind of the muddy the waters with my proposed definition of "game" don't they? I'm pretty sure they're games, at least when I play them. I'd say that when you are attempting to achieve a goal, EG "Build a megaproject" or "Just make the fort survive" you are seeking an Implied Success State. That is, by and large, the way you're expected to play the game. I say this because it has systems directed towards making the attempt to achieve those goals entertaining. However, when you seek another goal, is that still a game? Suppose you decide to try to make a perfectly stable fort collapse into chaos- maybe we've all done it but it isn't really what you're intended to do. I'd say that at that point you are Making a game for yourself, just like if you made up rules to a real game that just involves running around outside. For example, if you are playing Goat Simulator with a friend and try to race your friend from one end of the map to the other, you are playing a game- however, it is not strictly a game that you paid for and downloaded on Steam. I would say however, that unless you're seeking out the achievements in Goat Simulator, which is definitely a game, it's more of a toy than a game. Perhaps the same could be said of just going on a rampage in Grand Theft Auto.

Oh yeah, and Mountain is definitely not a game. I think maybe it's an Exhibit.

I wouldn't tie the definition of a game to the medium, but rather an action. It's deriving entertainment out of something, where it's the player that makes their own fun. You can make games out of reading books, games out of watching movies, games out of staring at a stucco wall, it's all about whether the player is creating or initiating the experience or not. A video game is just a virtual environment that was created specifically for playing games in.

This very much hits on what I was just sort of figuring out. However, I think that we are trying to decide mainly whether an actual piece of software you download is a game- at least, I think that discussion is the most useful one to solve the debates we have been having on these forums. Thus, I suggest that in addition to our current two things: Games, such as most games, Interactive Experiences, such as Dear Esther and Stanley Parable, we have Game Playing Tools. This describes the sort of "games" that encourage people to make up their own rules, and it also makes up at least a component but most games that, say, include an open world. It accurately describes Goat Simulator, Minecraft, Garry's Mod, and an actual football, basketball, etc. When you want to play basketball, you don't buy Basketball: You get a ball, a hoop or two, a court, and then decide upon rules (EG half court or full court, or monkey in the middle which is just a game you play with any ball). The basketball may come with the implication that you should play Basketball, like Minecraft comes with the implication that you should build something, but you can play all sorts of games with it.


THUS, my proposed definition of a game has not changed, but I would add some other important definitions:
An Interactive Experience is something which for our purposes we will say is Interactive, meant to entertain or evoke emotion/ideas, and does NOT include competition or a failure state. Thus, Dear Esther would be included in this definition, as would a digital picture gallery which you can scroll through at your own pace, or a real exhibit through which you walk at your own pace. It would NOT include movies or regular books, which are not interactive, and it would not include Checkers, where you are being challenged and can lose. It also would not include Myst or Money Island, where parts of the experience require you to complete a difficult task before you can experience them.
A Game Playing Tool is something which is Interactive and, by design, encourages or enables users to create a goal. This would include things like Goat Simulator, for the most part. Games with an open world section also usually meet this. It also includes Garry's Mod, which people use a literal tool for making maps which could be called games in their own right, and a deck of standard playing cards, which can be used for all sorts of games- but not Magic the Gathering cards, which are only intended to play Magic the Gathering. It would not include, say, playing games specifically against the way they were intended, such are finding place in Call of Duty where you can walk through walls and fall out the map.
Implied Failure State: A situation where you must complete a challenge to succeed, but are not actually stated to fail. You still have a failure state, which is simply not receiving the success state. This would include being stuck in a puzzle game, or not finding Waldo in a Where's Waldo book.
Implied Success State: A success state for which a game playing tool is clearly intended, like making a sculpture in minecraft blocks, or throwing a basketball through a basketball hoop.

[Virtz]

The enviroment itself can't really be called a game, cause then everything's a game, and the word becomes meaningless. It's like all the "what is an RPG" discussions all over again, and how people bring up the "role-playing" part as the sole classifier, making every game with a protagonist a "role-playing game". It's a term that refers to certain things and not others for a reason, and trying to make it overly broad undermines its original purpose.

Personally I find Sensei's definition(s) to be the most agreeable in this thread so far.

Secondly, what would we count simulators as? I've heard a lot of people treating stuff like "Goat Simulator" and "Mountain", 2 Steam titles, as games, although "Mountain" isn't even interactive entertainment because you have no controls or influence.

Those are not simulators. They're called that ironically for comedic purpose. Simulators are supposed to be realistic games (or even just virtual environments) that relatively accurately recreate the aspect of doing something in reality (or what it would be like were it real, like in the case of mech simulators). A game where you press 40 buttons to get a plane off the ground is a simulator. A game where you destroy 40 planes on a single mission is an arcadey action game.

[alway]

http://acko.net/blog/the-cargo-cult-of-game-mechanics/

Or a similar point from a different (and much more winding) perspective:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/11/03/i-did-a-thing-on-a-hill/

[LASD]

To quote Sid "Civ" Meier:

A game is a series of interesting choices.

That is my favorite definition. It also happens to include these "walking simulators". Especially Stanley Parable is quite literally nothing but a series of interesting choices.

Dear Esther also has one point that people have missed this far. It's (almost) unique per player. The paths you choose have an effect on what you hear and the game also randomizes many parts so that very few people have the exact same experience or hear precisely the same story. The choices in that game aren't interesting in a mechanical way because you don't really know you are making them, but they do make the game personal.

Personal unique experiences are something that games excel at that no other medium can really achieve. All the stories about Dwarf Fortress, Crusader Kings, Dungeons & Dragons and the like are a great example of this. This aspect is something that could help determine what is a game.

Mountain is an unique experience too, it just isn't interactive.

What the creator calls something is immaterial. It's not the creator's job to classify his/her creation in the Order of Things. That guy who put the urinal in the New York art competition back 100 years ago, he just plopped the thing down and said "that's art. It's a 'sculpture' ", so yeah the "creator" can call something the greatest art/game/movie etc ever made. But you can claim something is anything, it doesn't make it that "thing" even if you spoof the medium.

But then again, the urinal is something made out of stone, shaped in a way that makes it look as pleasing as the function allows. If you take it away from it's intended function it's still something sculpted out of stone that someone worked hard on to make it look visually pleasing. No one really saw any artistic qualities in the urinal until Marcel Duchamp put it on display in an art gallery.

GeoGuesser comes kind of close to this. "We picked a random location from Google Street View, figure out where you are." Street View isn't a game, but someone made one out of it.

[Neyvn]

Set title...

First thought...

"What is a Man?"

[miauw62]

http://acko.net/blog/the-cargo-cult-of-game-mechanics/

I have nothing to add to this dicussion apart from this:
that was an interesting read.

[alexandertnt]

http://acko.net/blog/the-cargo-cult-of-game-mechanics/

I read that and I think I'm experiencing something of a gaming-related existential crisis.

[Sensei]

I would probably refrain from too much "what is art" discussion while we're still deciding what a game is. I might argue that the purpose of art is to evoke ideas or emotions in the audience, and there must be some intent to do so (we might agree that natural formations are not art). In the Urinal example, the act of putting the urinal on a gallery is the art, not the urinal itself, I think. But that's kind of a separate discussion.

http://acko.net/blog/the-cargo-cult-of-game-mechanics/

I read that and I think I'm experiencing something of a gaming-related existential crisis.

I'm pretty sure I've heard all this stuff before, not that it doesn't bear saying. The crux of the author's argument is that interactivity is not used to evoke ideas and emotions effectively in most games- instead they do that by inserting non-interactive elements. There's also a lot of discussion about what makes for compelling decision making in games, where I agree with the author's points but it's pretty tangential to the discussion we're having in this thread. Like I said though, I wouldn't go too much into all that before we're comfortable saying what a game is, yeah?

To quote Sid "Civ" Meier:

A game is a series of interesting choices.

That is my favorite definition. It also happens to include these "walking simulators". Especially Stanley Parable is quite literally nothing but a series of interesting choices.

Dear Esther also has one point that people have missed this far. It's (almost) unique per player. The paths you choose have an effect on what you hear and the game also randomizes many parts so that very few people have the exact same experience or hear precisely the same story. The choices in that game aren't interesting in a mechanical way because you don't really know you are making them, but they do make the game personal.

I think there's a lot of value in the notion that games are interesting choices (I might not even require a "series" to be a game). I certainly think I judge a game's value as a game by how many interesting choices it presents. I do think that "interesting" has some importance though: my definition of success and failure state might just be a narrower version of that. However I think that Dear Esther lacks the interesting part: If you have no basis for your choice, your decision still doesn't matter. Giving the player a choice like "Do you go left or right?" doesn't make for a game, I think, since you're really just asking the player to input a random value, even if there are consequences. A unique, changing experience could easily still be an art gallery instead of a game.

Personal unique experiences are something that games excel at that no other medium can really achieve. All the stories about Dwarf Fortress, Crusader Kings, Dungeons & Dragons and the like are a great example of this. This aspect is something that could help determine what is a game.

I think that this maybe fits the "Game Playing Tool" definition. Or maybe it's an Artistic Experience Tool? At any rate, they explicitly serve to evoke ideas and emotions, but they don't really plan on which ones, they just let it happen. I don't necessarily think personal experience is unique to games though: If you made a book or movie that changed every time on its own, without audience input, I wouldn't call that a game. By the same token, mere interpretation can cause people to have personal emotional experiences even with a static work: you've probably heard people talk about why a book rang strongly with them in particular.

So, I think maybe we need to talk about what makes a decision interesting and whether failure states are really necessary. Personally, my definition still works: In the Choose Your Own Adventure book example, it is a game if there are success and failure states, but not if the consequences of your actions are just different from eachother. Maybe that's a little arbitrary though, and not very useful to people thinking about buying a CYOA/VN/whatever. Thoughts?

[Reelya]

The idea of games needing an "ultimate goal" which sandbox games are lacking is not so cut and dried though. Space Invaders-type games have no end-game goal. You are given smaller goals - survive the first level, survive the second level, etc, until you die. The choices are inside each level - you have to make quick decisions, take out the aliens in any order you like as long as it works. If Space Invaders didn't have levels, if it was one long survival grind, with wave after wave of enemy, would it be "not a game" anymore?

In Dwarf Fortress, you could conceive of the goals similarly: you are tasked with surviving as long as possible (just like Space Invaders), and you are also left up to your own devices on exactly how you manage to survive.

Both types of games have a "lose condition": it's possible to fail. So I think Dwarf Fortress qualifies under this framework. Goal: Survive as long as possible. Endgame: death. No different to classic arcade games.

[Itnetlolor]

Where would the ability to cheat also be integrated in this debate? Because sometimes I view even cheating as it's own game element. Finding the code, finding the code's ranges, modifying them, exploring them more and finding more interesting results here and there. Losing condition is when the game crashes as a result to your hacking of the code (or digging too deep). Finding pointers and the codes, and lining them up (like a series of values offset little by little from the pointer offset) and such is like a treasure hunt and math game combined.

I found certain aspects rather interesting about my methods of cheating, because not everything can be cheated the same way. Like for example, if you understand how something is applied, or what values are being read (in most cases, binary values or a HEX value, and in few cases, strings), things can get rather interesting. Like for example, if you find some script in a game, like a visual novel, and find the necessary strings relevant to it, you can also see how certain files are associated if also referenced via string variable (if it looks familiar, look to the database like the graphics or sounds/music folders for reference; just know what's associated with what. Not all graphics are compatible with one another. Method does help if you're into sprite ripping in some cases (character frames are used as the background frame, for example).). Now where things get interesting. Script manipulations; now you can pick and choose your scenes and even modify the script overall (excellent for fake screenshooting without needing MSPaint or Photoshop as well). Anyone that does Let's Plays should find this info particularly useful; especially if you have custom characters or scripts you want to integrate that other members wanted to toss in for kicks. Like XCOM for example.

Personally, I just like screwing around with certain values that add a new twist to a game, like playing with ONLY a certain weapon, or beta content not normally available; or modifying projectiles to fire boulders or characters instead of the regular plasma ball or something. Then again, I just find general breaking of reality a fun game element of it's own (includes debug modes that can double as a way to summon enemies and such), regardless of game being played. Additionally, circumventing certain anti-cheat elements (only in single-player games, and non-achievement tracking ones to be fair; or unless achievement is already unlocked legitimately) is it's own game/challenge.

As for ultimate goal, any game's ultimate goal is enjoyment (variable by tastes). If that's not able to be fulfilled, then to me, it's not a game.

EDIT:
Just as well on my cheating, a family rule was applied some time ago I really liked. No cheating until you've at least beaten the game on Normal Difficulty. Earn your right to cheat. Just as well, for certain sandboxes like Minecraft, I only really apply cheating to cut the knot or minimize hassle. Basically, if I know a resource farm has rendered my resources to infinite, might as well just switch to creative mode when building with it, and ignore everything else until I'm done with the relevant material. Or as I would also label this class of cheating as "Fun Mode". Playing for enjoyment, cutting the crap, and doing what you want, but still earning certain cheats that minimize the grind/hassle. Great for speeding up RPGs that are dragging, or sandbox trudges that prevent you from doing what you came in for in the first place (usually building something in your survival mode place, but don't want to spend a week in-game farming an inevitably infinite resource, like wood.). In a sense, my personal argument to myself is "Let's just say we did this enough times to get away with it.". Math helps in an RPG case, take enemy XP values, and multiply how many times you wanted to fight. Penalty for that is no random drops nor gold (unless you tracked that value too). In a sense, it can keep itself relatively fair, even though overall, it kinda is not.

EDIT EDIT:
Another purpose and "gamey" element of cheating is also taking values you find that are otherwise not so easy to find, and using that as a reference HUD of sorts. Usually giving more detail than the UI in-game otherwise provides. Like with Starcon 2 and exact fuel values, relative to the rounded to the nearest whole value you otherwise see. Doesn't seem like much a big deal, unless you want to absolutely maximize your fuel distance and minimize your fuel stops. In other cases, tracking certain specific values can also make things a bit more convenient if you don't want to keep pulling the UI away to keep tabs on certain values, but you still want to keep an eye on them (in a different window). You can also rearrange things so you get your "favorite" values to keep tabs on consistently for certain other purposes (varies depending on game).

[Reelya]

Then you have to start differentiating contexts of the word "game".

Your cheating "game" is an activity / challenge that you could do with any system. e.g. you can make a game of chopping out files from a Windows version until it crashes. Whereas "game" as a product implies that you're getting a platform which is intended to facilitate playing. I think that distinction is a useful one.

The software package is a "game" but the individual session you play is also a "game". But they're clearly different things, semantically. It's just that the language conflates them. "New Game", "Load Game", "Save Game". Clearly you're not getting a new game by clicking on the "New Game" button, so that makes it clear that there are two separate meanings for game at work here.

For e.g. a Word Processor, we have different terms: Software Package you buy, and Document that you're working on. I'd contend that "game" and "game" are basically the equivalent of this dichotomy: you buy the software package (game) and make a new document (new game) in it.

 The third possible meaning as implied by Itnetlolor, is any meta-activity or set of rules you decide to adhere to while playing something.

[Itnetlolor]

Sounds about right. Just as well, I really do like that Sid Meier quote there. It seems relevant to our statements, because

To quote Sid "Civ" Meier:

A game is a series of interesting choices.

I choose to cheat to give myself more (series/variety of) interesting choices. Therefore, I make a game out of messing with games. *Meta-gaming* at it's finest. If that's the proper term/context to use (thus the *'s. Pardon the Orz dialect.).

Pardon me as I explode some former humans and imps with a pistol.