Vela wrote:

What defines a game? I keep it simple. The Duck test is enough for me. Chess, Journey, Walking Dead, Heavy Rain, Halo, Street Fighter, Wii Fit, Electroplankton, Farmville, etc are all games to me.

I agree with this.

Surely the differentiation between something like Dear Esther and Halo would come in the discussion between the two or in the sub-genre description. Not that I'm very keen on genres.
I mean, the same can be said with comparing death metal to ambient music for example. They're both music but I think many people would argue that some ambient stuff pushes the boundaries of what you classify as music in terms of rhythms and melodies etc.

Without being dismissive, I think it's a difficult debate to frame. It weighs heavily on arbitrary definitions. An end goal for marking improvement in Halo might be clocking it on legendary. A mark of achievement in electroplankton conversely, might be just making a personally pleasing sample with rec rec.

I think games can be very broadly defined. But thats just an opinion, certainly not an academically framed one at that.

Well said.

Heh. I just thought some more about it and, more importantly, looked up "game" in the dictionary. I now no longer have a problem with calling any of the things mentioned by that term.

So, this, which is what originally caused me to post about the subject is, aside from the fact that we're all free to decide our own definitions for language, categorically wrong:

adkm1979 wrote:

I don't think that 'style' of game is a game at all, and it depresses me that drivel like Journey and The Walking Dead are being mentioned.  These things make the mistake of removing anything that makes the game a game

You need a PC. The indie scene there has them popping up more frequently than anywhere else.

Electroplankton is a musical instrument/workstation if we're being super generous, else it's a toy.

Every strict definition of "game" I'm encountered front and centers competition or at least challenge. If a product shouldn't be judged on those terms, don't call it a game. Or if you do, expect to find people calling your ass on it.

Also with ref Andy's earlier post, there's a reason to get uppity to about this. Stakes exist, particularly in an industry whose constituents are superprone to wholesale biting of others shit in search of profit, critical acclaim. I have absolutely no interest in endorsing projects which, due to sloppiness of categorisation at the store front or other promotion levels, risk contaminating future products via misguided attempts to stay relevant.

What about high res asset tours like most modern blockbuster games? They pretty much revolve around going where you're told to, and hiding behind a waist high rock/wall/hedge before shooting/stabbing a pirate/zombie/nazi/criminal. Interspersed with linear hold-up-and-press-A-when-I-tell-you-to platform jumping.

To me, those types of games are far less fluid than say Chess, which has possible outcomes, a contest of wits and many routes to get there. The only challenge in blockbuster/traditional games is perseverance with arbitrary difficulty spikes. Or contrast with Electroplankton where the challenge is highly variable and will vary from one person to another as to whether it is about the end product or tinkering and discovery. Or perhaps another example might be Art Academy.

Vela wrote:

What about high res asset tours like most modern blockbuster games? They pretty much revolve around going where you're told to, and hiding behind a waist high rock/wall/hedge before shooting/stabbing a pirate/zombie/nazi/criminal. Interspersed with linear hold-up-and-press-A-when-I-tell-you-to platform jumping. To me, those types of games are far less fluid than say Chess, which has possible outcomes, a contest of wits and many routes to get there. The only challenge in blockbuster/traditional games is perseverance with arbitrary difficulty spikes. Or contrast with Electroplankton where the challenge is highly variable and will vary from one person to another as to whether it is about the end product or tinkering and discovery. Or perhaps another example might be Art Academy.

Well, yes. Those also pretty shite. I'd say they were boring games. The provision of some kind of challenge-as-friction means they qualify but I'm not going to pretend they're terribly laudable either.

Brooks wrote:

Games aren't music. Applying "game" to something that fundamentally doesn't subscribe to any of the understood connotations of the term is to muddy the term to no worthy end but, again, one of ease of sale. It certainly doesn't enrich it.

No shit, but it's the same argument. You're saying that something that, to you, seems lacking in some of the core areas that may define a thing aren't that thing. It was an analogy.

I'd say if there was one thing that defined a game it'd be interactivity. Making choices and being involved makes the thing you're doing a game even if the choice is simply to go over there instead of over here with no challenge.
But I also think it's a pretty stupid argument because games (like so many other things) are so multifaceted and constantly evolving, there's no point in trying to pin it down.

I was more emotionally affected by Proteus than Heavy Rain. A "game" in which you do almost exactly nothing.

I've just wanked over the OP.

AJ wrote:

Heh. I just thought some more about it and, more importantly, looked up "game" in the dictionary. I now no longer have a problem with calling any of the things mentioned by that term. So, this, which is what originally caused me to post about the subject is, aside from the fact that we're all free to decide our own definitions for language, categorically wrong.

AJ wrote:

OED, among others, says you can call it a game. But let's not get into that discussion, it's silly; we should all know what we mean when we use the term in context.

No, no, let us get into that discussion, since you're the one who brought it up. The Oxford Dictionary defines a game as a "(form of) contest played according to rules and decided by skill, strength or luck". Off the back of that, you can't declare me as categorically wrong. Thanks for trying, though.

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

I'd say if there was one thing that defined a game it'd be interactivity.

It may well be one thing that defines a game, but you've made the mistake of reversing it and saying that if it is then interactive, it is a game. This is incorrect. A pop-up book is not a game. A microwave is not a game. A Christmas pantomime is not a game. Device 6 presents itself as more of an interactive story than a game, but has puzzles which the player possibly might not work out, and then cannot continue. It is more of a game than some of the defended titles here.

I'd say "activity" was the sticking point for this discussion.

And "engage", whilst we're at it.

Go fuck yourself.

monkey wrote:

I think we can all agree that, by any definition, Journey is shit.

It looked really, really nice. Thatgamefuck certainly know their way around their rendering tools. Shame it was in the service of pretty unremarkable fiction.