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[Krelos]

Any designed activity that is fun and does not serve any productive purpose is a game.
All games that take place on computerized machines and are displayed on image screens are simulations. Even Solitaire. It's simulating a card game.

Therefore DF is both a Game and a Simulation. The two are not incompatible in any way.
The only way DF could possibly not be a simulation is if it took place in the real world with actual dwarves, which would also cause it to not be a game.
The only way DF could possibly not be a game is if it was intended to do productive work in some way.

[Enkara]

I go with the definition of toy from the Doctor Steel New World Dictionary.

Toy: Noun.  An object that makes you happy.

[ApatheticZealot]

Every game is a simulation of something, at least on some level. The differences between a game and a simulation is the intent of the developers (or singular for DF) and how the players perceive the product.  Personally I view simulators as educational endeavors, flight simulators strike me as the form here.  While games are meant for entertainment, and while it is undeniable that DF is heavy on the fantasy world simulator aspect, it is in it's core a game. 

And I'd cast my vote against any feature that took away from the fun factor of DF for the simple sake of being a better simulator.  One such matter that I'm not sure about is feces (don't argue about it in here, I'm using it because it's topical but there are other topics dedicated to such talk) and my view on the subject depends on how it could possibly be handled.  If included at all, DF would be a better simulator of a fort, and some possibilities would make it a better game as well.  However I've seen suggestions on the subject that would ruin DF for the sake of being a simulation and not a game.

(Short version) Games are fun, while simulations are generally a chore to play, while DF is a simulation in many ways, it's a game, keep it fun.

[ungulateman]

No, it's the Matrix.

Of course it's a game. It's a lot of other things, but first and foremost, it's a game.

[EvilCartyen]

For me, it's first and foremost a simulation. I would enjoy DF even if I could only watch the AI play on it's own.

That said, it's also neat to be able to do things within the simulation. To affect things. But for me it's mainly a simulation.

[LordSlowpoke]

Dwarf Fortress is a game that simulates a simulation.

[Shades]

Dwarf Fortress is a single-player fantasy game. You can control a dwarven outpost or an adventurer in a randomly generated, persistent world.

The keyword there is game. As he is the guy making it it's up to him really.

[Jimmy]

Oh, MOO3 is a painful memory... it hurts!  The betrayal... THE BETRAYAL!!

This. A thousand times this.

Copypasted direct from wikipedia:

A game is a structured activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool.

I think dwarf fortress qualifies on all three counts.
1. Structured within a fantasy world with rules, physics, challenges etc.
2. Enjoyed by hundreds, if not thousands of players.
3. Quite educational, especially regarding geology.

[zwei]

MMOs, for example, do not have win condition either. And unlike DF, they kind of lack loose condition too. I am sure they are considered games.

[Jimmy]

I tend to think you win an MMO when you stop playing it.

[G-Flex]

More like skinner boxes than games, really.

[Satarus]

DF = sandbox simulation game.  Much like many of the old SimX games. No real win conditions save your arbitrary goals (Get a king, conquer the HFS, finish megaproject).  The only loose condition is all your dwarves die.  Just like in most of the SimX games, you only loose if your city runs in a deficit and has negative assets.

[Mfbrew]

The only loose condition is all your dwarves die. 

I think you guys have a good point about DF being similar to a lot of the sim games.

But even if all of your dwarves in a fortress die, the world persists.  You can always go back and reclaim your fort, start a new one, explore it as an adventurer, etc.

I guess in the Sims you can do the same thing if all of your sims die.  The ghosts are kind of cool.

But in DF, your world is enriched by your losses. Historical figs you meet 50 years after the fall of a fortress will brag about killing ur mans.  Future fortresses will have engravings of their ancestors (who you controlled) being burned and tormented by the things they encountered in the deep.

At the risk of sounding sentimental,  I honestly think new ground is being broken here in this little corner of the Internet that will forever change the way people look at games and game worlds.

[axus]

It's a game like Global Thermonuclear War, except that losing is Fun

[Exponent]

It seems to me that the issue is not literally, "Is DF a game?", but more one of "What would DF's status as a game/simulation/something else mean for development direction and priorities?"  Tarn of course has his own conception of this, but I know if I were in his shoes, these types of discussions would remain fascinating because our conceptions of our own projects is always changing.

So given that, here is an attempt at summarizing the patterns I think I'm noticing in this thread.  It seems to mostly be a matter of where our priorities are between a high quality interactive experience, and the creation of a rich and fascinating environment.  Great games typically excel first and foremost in the category of interactive experience.  The game could be simple or complex, but what it primarily does correctly is it gets the interactive portion tuned just right.  In contrast, great simulations (at least the type that are relevant when considering DF) typically excel first and foremost in the category of creating a rich environment, full of interesting details and elements that interact with each other in fascinating ways; it may include some form of interaction with the user, the user interface may be complex, elegant, painful, whatever, but the rich environment is what makes the simulation shine.

I personally find myself attracted to both of these categories.  I am nearly obsessive about the quality of user interaction, but I love a rich environment as well.  What I really want from games like DF is to have an interesting world with which I can meaningfully interact.  Both elements must be high quality for me rate the overall experience highly.  A high quality game in a simplistic world might be great for some people, but I get bored easily.  Similarly, a rich environment with limited user interaction tends to be a novelty that loses that novelty quickly, and a rich environment with difficult user interaction becomes frustrating.  This last is the most annoying to me because I'm so tantalizingly close to a high quality experience, but I have this roadblock in the way.  At least with simple games, they were designed to be simple, and at least with simulations with limited interaction, they were designed to have limited interaction.  But when it is designed to have a lot of interaction, but that interaction is low quality, ugh.  I can put up with it for a while, but eventually it just becomes too much.  I spend more time thinking about how it could be fixed than I do actually using and enjoying it.

My opinion about DF's current state is that it is doing pretty well on the simulation side, but is far behind with the interactive experience.  Thus, it's no surprise that I prioritize the interactive parts of the game.  I have no problem with the addition of more simulation components, other than the fact that doing so takes time away from the interactive components.  Other people might share my opinion about what they want out of a game like DF in general, but disagree about the current balance between interaction and simulation for DF specifically.  Others of course will straight-up disagree about the importance of one or the other component in general.  I'd like to imagine that Tarn shares my roughly equal concern for both, and that it will effect future development in a way that I appreciate, but that's obviously up to him.  But for now, I definitely spend more time thinking about how to fix DF than I do playing it.  (I haven't actually played DF at all for nearly two years, and I don't see that changing any time soon.)