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[Sensei]

I've seen this discussion come up in a few threads before, and I think it's high time we had a thread dedicated to discussing it.

Usually, this comes up in the context of games like Dear Esther or The Stanley Parable, where someone calls those "walking simulators" or "not a game", and another person gets uppity about that. Let me establish a few of the usual arguments, to save everyone's time:
-A "Game" implies challenge, and a failure state (express or implied)
-"Not A Game" does not have to be a pejorative term! Perhaps these are better called "Interactive media", or Interactive Narratives or Galleries or Exhibits.
-A lot of people are irritated when they buy these, because they're sold on Steam to a bunch of games, and look like games.
-It might be good to decide what definitely IS a game (EG Checkers, where two sides compete to determine a winner and a loser) and what is definitely NOT a game (EG a visual novel which doesn't present any character decisions, and is almost the same as reading a book).
-Some more examples which might be useful for consideration: Most people would say that "Candy Land" is a game, but it involves absolutely no decision making whatsoever. "Choose Your Own Adventure" books are not usually called games, but they have decisions with consequences, including explicit success and failure. "Dear Esther" involves virtually walking around a computer environment and observing it without taking part- is this comparable to walking around a real, physical art gallery?

So, that's hopefully enough food for thought to establish a decent discussion. I bet we can establish a useful definition for what is and is not a game that categorizes all the examples in question- I encourage you all to propose what that example might be.

Oh yeah, and lastly, a few RULES:
-READ THE WHOLE THREAD
-Be Civil! An insult towards a game should not be taken personally. By the same token, we're not really discussing whether games are good or bad here, just whether they're games, so the mere fact that a game is not entertaining isn't that relevant.
-Remember: It's okay for something to not be a game! It can be something else, and still good.

Okay, go!

[Cheeetar]

Who said it is a dumb game? Its a pretty good piece of work.

It just isn't a game.

But then I'll ask you then... What is the Game in Dear Esther?

You... Walk from one end, unimpeded, to the other... with nothing of interest between the start and the end. While a completely unrelated narration plays in the background.

To that I respond: What is the game in Calvinball? What is the game in anything? Do you define games by how much freedom of interaction you are given (is every physical activity now a game?) It seems that you have a clearly defined definition of what a game is, and are completely unwilling to share it with other people, instead opting to assert over and over again that there's no way Dear Esther could be a video game.

Would you consider it a game without the narration? Just a walking simulator?".

If it was described by the creator as such, I would.

[Neonivek]

What is the game in Calvinball?

You never seen Calvinball played?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now here is Dear Esther

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Do you define games by how much freedom of interaction you are given

No.

But you have to take the goal of Dear Esther in mind.

Dear Esther is pretty anomalous to me because it is essentially a "Book on tape" except it isn't a tape. The walking aspect is just mood lighting meant to pace out the narration. Similar to how some books on tape add music or sound effects... but aren't Tape Plays.

[Coolnesstod]

I hate the argument of whether or not a Visual Novel is a game. It's not a game, but most Visual Novels aren't just books either. They add the choices in there to help immerse you into the world it takes place in, kind of like how Mass Effect does. One Wrong choice and you have a different route, making different people act different ways.

Visual Novels are essentially Choose your own adventure books, but they have a much nicer feel then that. I have seen countless Visual Novels on steam being rated bad for 'Not being a game'. Steam doesn't do just games, its not just for games, its for art, both good and bad, both interactive and non-interactive. Visual Novels getting criticized is ridiculous in its own right, I mean, if you compare to other VN's, that is fine. But if you compare CoD and a VN, then that's just stupid.

[Neonivek]

Some Visual Novels Coolnesstod I let have the Video game aspect.

Mostly because some actually do include aspects of gameplay usually by being a hybrid.

For example Long Live the Queen.

---

Also Stanley Parable from what LITTLE I know of it... really doesn't really fall under this argument anyhow. Sure you don't do MUCH... But that isn't what makes a game.

There are games where all you do is just read what is around the house. The exploration of the house being the gameplay itself. Some being incredibly linear.

The reason I don't let Dear Esther count by the same point is that the narration and the walking happen in completely separate universes.

[Darkmere]

I'd say it's something like "A system of events with multiple outcomes where at least one participant (the player) has agency to decide the final result."

By that definition, the Stanley Parable is a game, because there are multiple outcomes chosen by the person at the keyboard.

Dear Esther isn't a game, because the only outcome is to look at everything and eventually listen to all the audio logs, apparently. The only other outcome is to turn off the program and end the sequence early.

I consider choose-your-own-adventure books to be single-player games. Utterly random systems like throwing dice or gambling also qualify, but by virtue of player interaction with decisions about risk versus reward.

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.

[nenjin]

Calvinball rules.

[Reelya]

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. I could make a video file of a still patch of grass for 20 hours and call it "my latest movie". Someone might say "but it's just a picture", and then I say "how dare you - it's in the video medium therefore it's a movie".

This is how I see games. Just being "on the computer medium" doesn't make something a game. How do we fix this? Different people have different takes on where to go.  A couple of competing viewpoints are:

Position #1 is that the concept of games is outdated. Therefore do away with "games" completely on the conceptual level, and everything is now a "game" if the creator claims so. These people want to decouple the concepts of "playing" and "games" altogether, to accomodating things that you don't actually play, as games. They tend to be artsy types and many seem to sneer a "playing" as a concept which is beneath them. They advocated for games where there is a detached "experience" and little player choice, i.e. traditional fine arts will dominate the "proper" games by this definition. In other words, devalue the skills of existing game designers, and devalue the field of game design/gameplay mechanics to less than worthless, just a joke.

Position #2 is that interactive media has stretched outside the concept of games. Therefore, a new nomenclature is needed, in which different types of interactive media can be recognized, and not all things that are delivered interactively will neatly fit inside the concept of a game, but there's no need to overturn the basic recognized elements of what a game is, any more than we had to throw away the core concept of a "movie" when TV came around or documentaries get made.

I'm firmly on the side of the latter position. Not all interactive things fit inside the "game" concept. Doing away with the key defining qualities recognized for centuries under the concept of "game" to account for a few outliers isn't any more reasonable than calling everything on a screen a "movie" and saying people who have well-defined boundaries in what they call a "movie" are regressive.

The whole thing smacks of cultural colonialism. The humanities types had zero interest in games until they gained culturally credibility, now, they're trying to inject their arthouse culture into games to appropriate the label because it has cultural value, and they want to do so by redefining "games" as a concept to remove what they see as worthless to their cultural dominance of that space - remove the concept of "playing" games and "goals". The articles they write outright sneer at the concept of a player-driven game experience as culturally worthless in the face of their higher-value of arthouse introspection.

[Orange Wizard]

Posting to watch the, uh, ‼discussion‼.

[Sensei]

So, Coolnesstod, you'd say that Visual Novels which include Choose Your Own Adventure style choices (which is not all of them by definition) are games? Or, at any rate, ambiguous? Since you can go back whenever you want, is it maybe a little more like a branching gallery of stories? It's not like it's ever difficult to cause a particular choice to happen. It might be difficult to choose to choice you find most satisfying, however.

I have seen countless Visual Novels on steam being rated bad for 'Not being a game'.

Yeah, this is one of the things I talked about in the OP. A lot of people expect games when they get one of these things, since they're on steam and supposedly steam is for games. Of course, Steam also sells things like development tools. It's a little like reviewing CoD as "Terrible RTS, complete lack of building and command options." Maybe the problem is with advertising: People are just not clear what they're getting, and get disappointed.

There's another example I'd like you all to consider: Is simply running, in real life, a game? I'd say that running against someone in a race is a game. I further propose that the element that makes the difference there is competition: It's the element of attempting to out-do someone else, or a set target time, that makes it a game.

So, I'd like to propose a definition for "game": A "Game" is an interactive experience in which someone (or a team) attempts to complete a challenge, and Wins, Loses, or fails to progress based on their decisions, for entertainment. By this definition, Checkers is a game, Myst is a game even though you can't "lose", and the same with Hidden Object games, including an actual I Spy book. Candy Land would actually NOT be a game under this definition, Dear Esther is NOT a game because there is no decision making, any challenge you do for work is not a game because it is not for entertainment, and running is a game but only if you set a success or failure state for yourself. Visual Novels could be argued to be a game, if you can argue their different endings to constitute success or failure. Long Live the Queen is a game because you can succeed and fail, while Stanley Parable is not.

[Neonivek]

My opinion on whether or not CYOA type Visual novels are games is... something I have no idea personally. I haven't put enough thought.

The genre that occasionally gets into my "Is this really a game?" sphere are simulations where there is no real goal or implied goal... you just fiddle with it.

Also it is weird that art games are almost universally terrible... because they honestly don't have to be.

The Void I consider to be "the" greatest art game ever created.

And don't worry I know there are good "artsy" games. (and artsy is hard to define but my rule of thumb is an art game is any game where the "Art" is of a higher priority to the gameplay or where the gameplay exists to complement the art.) There are just a lot of people who seem to be making art games who think a single twist is all you need to have to be poignant.

Lets just say "You chase after someone you think needs to be saved, only to find out they wanted to get away from you the whole time" might as well be a genre of art game. Dang it Braid! Why did you have to be good?

Now this rule of thumb doesn't exactly work either... since Braid SORT of gets a between point in my mind... but I usually disqualify it because the story and art is on the side rather then front and center.

---

A "Game" is an interactive experience in which someone (or a team) attempts to complete a challenge, and Wins, Loses, or fails to progress based on their decisions, for entertainment.

Interactive is definitely one... but honestly a game doesn't have to exactly have a challenge or win or lose or rely on progress.

I do think the fact what disqualifies Dear Esther for me is that it isn't interactive. You don't interact with the game sort of.

[Sensei]

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. I could make a video file of a still patch of grass for 20 hours and call it "my latest movie". Someone might say "but it's just a picture", and then I say "how dare you - it's in the video medium therefore it's a movie".

I agree. I think we can come to a definition that is free of authorial intent.

They advocated for games where there is a detached "experience" and little player choice, i.e. traditional fine arts will dominate the "proper" games by this definition. In other words, devalue the skills of existing game designers, and devalue the field of game design/gameplay mechanics to less than worthless, just a joke.

I think we can have Interactive Experiences coexist with games. Their existence does not harm the existence of games, no more than the existence of books and movies does.

Position #2 is that interactive media has stretched outside the concept of games. Therefore, a new nomenclature is needed,

I agree. In fact that's pretty much my goal in making this thread.

The whole thing smacks of cultural colonialism. The humanities types had zero interest in games until they gained culturally credibility, now, they're trying to inject their arthouse culture into games to appropriate the label because it has cultural value, and they want to do so by redefining "games" as a concept to remove what they see as worthless to their cultural dominance of that space - remove the concept of "playing" games and "goals". The articles they write outright sneer at the concept of a player-driven game experience as culturally worthless in the face of their higher-value of arthouse introspection.

I think this is stretching it a little far. I think the problem is more that the artists just aren't sure what to call what they've made- they defer to game because you interact with it and it's on a computer and it's sold on steam. That's the kind of un-useful definition for "game" that has people buying Dear Esther and being disappointed. That said, I don't think it's malicious or something, and it's okay for people to make Interactive Experiences, or whatever, and not like actual games- the same as it's okay for some people to like movies and not like games. Just because those people are on Steam now doesn't mean it's "Cultural Colonialism". It means that you're bumping into those people more. It's fine.

[Neonivek]

I REALLY don't think we are at the point where... for example Sports are where everything is a sport now so long as it is a competition (I had to check, officially everything is a sport now. Also in spite what people might thing E-Sports isn't what done it in... It is Board Games which were officially made into sports in the 1920s)

I still think Videogames are at the point where the "game" aspect is still important.

It will change eventually as games are currently trying HARD to be movies... but I don't think we are there quite yet. Give it another 20 years before Word Processor is qualified as a game.

[Reelya]

I'd knock out the "for entertainment" part of games. Educational games are still games. And competitive sports might be entertaining for the spectators, but not necessarily for the athletes. The "entertainment" concept also feeds into one of the criticisms of gaming culture. Some anti-gamer articles talk about how gamers expect everything to be "fun" and as such any "non-fun" games get attacked by the ignorant/unenlightened gamers. This strongly implies to uniformed readers that gamers are morons and if there aren't clowns jumping around the screen and hapy primary colors and bleep bloop bleep fun sound effects, they just blindly reject it.

But this misses out that "fun" in gaming culture doesn't mean constant happiness or joy, it's shorthand for an interesting/immersive work. A piece of a gaming work can be happy, scary, sad, tense. What they all have in common is immersion through building an emotional connection to the game, and placing you as an active participant.

To put it in movie terms again, saying a game is "no fun" is exactly the same as saying "this movie is boring". Going by the anti-game article logic, we'd then say "well you just need to reject your primitive notion that movies have to be interesting!"

[Neonivek]

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)

Also Reelya just because someone can make something badly on purpose doesn't mean that aspect doesn't exist. Games are "for entertainment purposes" and a game that is made boring and unfulfilling is a bad game whether done so intentionally or not.

Cars are transportation right? Well someone can just take the engine out.