What is a videogames?

[Alex Steacy]

Apparently I'm just going to keep posting.

It could be that there are two issues going on here.

1. I think people absolutely should think about games and other media and how and where they overlap and what new things we can try because it will foster healthy growth in all of those spheres.

2. I'm sick up to my back teeth with people looking at something and dismissing it as "not a game" when what they mean is "I don't like it". The 'walking simulator' tag on Steam sums up this obnoxious and unhelpful sentiment. It's deliberately negative connotation and it's a drag on what could be a more enriching discussion.

[Lurkon]

I think a large part of the problem is people go into these games with the expectation that they'll be doing more than walking. It isn't necessarily that they don't like it, but that they boot it up in the wrong state of mind and end up disappointed. If they had started up their "walking simulator" in the same state of mind they would watch a film, I don't think they would come away so upset.

Which is not to put any kind of responsibility on the game itself to warn the player that they need to do that. The player should be receptive to that kind of experience. Although, I would imagine that if the game is any good, the player should just kind of fall into that state of mind.

[AdmiralMemo]

See, I think Alex has the point here: simple vs. accurate. If we want to talk about something with someone else, we usually don't want to spend a 5-minute description of what the thing is before we start talking about the content. If I were to talk to someone about Captain Power, I wouldn't want to describe the entire mechanics of it before discussing its content. I'd simply say "It's a TV show with minor video game elements." If I were to talk about Beyond: Two Souls, I'd say it was a "very linear video game." Once I have these basic labels, I'd go from there into specifics.

Conversation itself is about having a common frame of reference to talk about things, so we need labels for things, even if they're not entirely accurate at first. We can start from the inaccurate labels and work from there.

For another linguistic example, think of someone talking about their Mom. Now, who is that? There could be various answers, depending on the situation: biological mother, foster mother, step-mother, adoptive mother, or just a woman who took them in and raised them. That's a wide spectrum that's covered by the term "Mom" there. But if someone refers to their Mom, you get a basic idea of who they're talking about without needing them to go into specifics if it's not relevant to the discussion.

I think "video game" should be the same way: a broad and general term that you can get some sort of vague idea of what they're talking about before they go into specifics.

And Alex's last point nails it: we don't always agree on what the words we made up mean.
Just ask an Englishman what a "boot" is and they'll tell you it's a part of a car that you store things in. Ask an American what a "boot" is and they'll tell you it's a type of shoe and it goes on your feet.

These linguistic issues will always be with us, and while we can calmly debate it, I don't feel that there's any reason for anyone to get upset if someone calls something "a video game" while another person says it isn't. They could both be right under their own definitions.

Edit: Regarding the "walking simulator" issue, I think it's the same mind-set where some people dismiss some movies as "chick flicks" while they watch "real" movies. Objectively, both an action movie and a love drama movie are both movies, but if they're not in the genre that you like, you're more likely to dismiss it.

People are going into the "walking simulator" games with a mind-set that they're going to be running, jumping, shooting, solving puzzles, etc. They're not there for the story. They just want to do something, and if they go into a story-heavy game with that mind-set, they're set up for disappointment.

[romangoro]

I totally agree that mistaking "It's bad" for "I don't like it" ruins the conversation. Probably that's why got a bit salty when (I understood that) Alex and Prospero were dismissing the question altogether

[ch3m1kal]

Also, ch3m1kal, dismissing that whole episode as 'complete trash' really throws a boat anchor on your credibity. Your opposing perspective is welcome, but please don't do that.

Fair enough, though I do hold that that is one of the worst episodes EC have ever done, right up there with the "Religion in games" fiasco. I don't really want to get into it, but quoting Buddhism to make your point should be a kind of bizzaro Godwin's Law. Also the "Mu" thing only means "The question is wrong" in an specific case of Buddhist philosophy. In fact generally the character is used to indicate a negative response.
(This is where I recommend you all go read Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance)

I'll shut up about it now, I just have an enormous amount of respect for the EC team and their work and it really bothers me when they do bad videos.

Apparently I'm just going to keep posting.

It could be that there are two issues going on here.

1. I think people absolutely should think about games and other media and how and where they overlap and what new things we can try because it will foster healthy growth in all of those spheres.

2. I'm sick up to my back teeth with people looking at something and dismissing it as "not a game" when what they mean is "I don't like it". The 'walking simulator' tag on Steam sums up this obnoxious and unhelpful sentiment. It's deliberately negative connotation and it's a drag on what could be a more enriching discussion.

This is precisely how I feel about the issue, but usually get too wordy to actually express.

I think the merit of this entire discussion (and not just the one in here, but in general) is precisely to get us to look at games as a medium and what we're doing with them. I personally feel that the trend towards "cinematic" storytelling is fundamentally wrong.
It's right there in the name "cinematic : of or relating to cinema". Except I'm not in a cinema, I'm at my desk, or on my couch and I'm expecting you to engage me in a different way than a film would. That is the entire reason I sat down to play a game instead of watching a movie.

And while clearly some would just use it as an to dismiss anything they don't like, they are a vocal minority at best. And honestly they generally tend to be... let's say "younger" which should mean that their general attitude should change as time goes by.

I also think it's kind of a bad idea to debate semantics. Using AdmiralMemo's "boot" example, yes the word is used differently by brits and yanks but both of them know which one goes on their feet.

[Alex Steacy]

I just want to know where this need to segregate games like Dear Esther and Gone Home comes from. People say they aren't games as if there isn't any gameplay, but I say to those people "look a little closer". The story, even though it's on rails does not move forward without your direct intervention. You don't just press play and watch it. You will not experience everything there is to see in these titles if you don't pilot the player character into every nook and cranny and find those things. Unless you muse and ponder over the situations and places and objects presented and draw your own conclusions you won't be party to the whole picture. I will grant you that Dear Esther and Gone Home don't have MUCH gameplay, but they most certainly do have it, which is why I call them both games.

So surely these titles are just minimalist variations in the medium we call video games, specific types within a realm. We don't say Madden isn't a game, but a sports simulator. We don't say tetris isn't a game but an interactive block joining application.

So why the hell do we do it for exploration and narrative games? What must these titles do to to earn the title of gamehood from those that would deny it? How many boxes must they tick on an imaginary list to get a pass?

People talk about necessary fail states to define a game, but there's plenty of examples of games where you simply cannot lose. Not really. How come those titles don't have their game status rudely revoked?

Does Dear Esther get to be a game if there's a button you push in it that awards you 10 points? Do we get to call Gone Home a game if we add a pile of books for you to jump over? I frame these questions as though they're bullshit because I think they are bullshit.

Dear Esther and Gone Home and similar titles are all games.
You might not like them.
You might think they have very little gameplay.
But they are still games.
They were designed as games, you interact with them to obtain the experience they have to offer, they are games.

*gently sets mic down to not piss off sound technician*

[AdmiralMemo]

I have an answer for you, Alex. It's the complete BS answer they'd give, and it's not what I think is true, but it's the answer that sheds the most light on the issue: "They aren't fun, so they're not games."

This is the issue right here: the people with this opinion are expecting a game to be "fun" and when it fails to be "fun" then it fails to be a game to them.

This gets right back into one of the other Extra Credits episodes: does a game need to be "fun"?

The answer is clearly "No" and the expanded answer is "Everyone has fun differently, so what's 'fun' for one might not be 'fun' for another." At least, the answer is clear to us, but it may not be to those with that mind-set.

The people dismissing these as "not games" are not having fun playing them. The problem is that the don't realize that a game doesn't have to be fun to be engaging. They also don't realize that "fun" is a subjective concept.

I think this is part of the core problem.

[romangoro]

So, Alex, honest question: what would you call "not a game"? Because if everything is in a spectrum, then yo could go from ovbious gameplay to little gameplay(*) to quicktime events only to press play and enjoy. Would you call all of them games?

I don't have an answer TBH. In fact, I hate the very idea of music and literary genres, and I'm of the opinion that every man-made thing is art, so maybe I'm not the one to put limits on things.


(*) I haven't played the ones you use as examples, but I'm pretty sure I'd call them games.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

...I'm of the opinion that every man-made thing is art

...ah.

This is about to happen.

[romangoro]

Heh. Nah, it isn't, I was just mentioning that to keep myself honest WRT defining boundaries. This isn't the place nor time to have the discussion on what is and/or isn't art. If anyone is interested on that "theory", I can link to the "article" (i.e. a blog post) in spanish, as a curiosity.

[mariomario42]

I don't understand this opposition towards classification. We're humans, we can recognize similarities in a factual sense, there is no emotions or opinions attached to this basic idea. The advantage? If you like one game, you can see what is similar to branch out and try new things that you are likely to enjoy. Individual games are the base unit of this tree (or sporting event, program, show, etc), each with something unique. A spectrum is continuous with infinite possibilities, so I could not call it that. Looking higher up the tree, we can go all the way back to "entertainment". If I don't like sports, I won't waste my time looking at my entertainment choices under that category. This applies to each branch down to video games, FPS, and what not. It may be extremely complex, but look at biological classification.

My definition I provided before needs revision until it can successfully categorize, such as "points for competition purposes" or a mention of minigames.

Either way, categorizing things is not wrong when it's based on facts. There might be problems with people implying things when certain titles are placed on units, but as I said before, whatever your enjoyment may be, go enjoy it and don't care what other people think about it. It's just their opinion that one thing is better than another, wherever that is on the classification tree.

[RedNightmare]

This is something that I've seen pop up again and again and there is always one question I keep coming back to:

Why do we need to make a distinction?

(honest answers people, no snarky answers aimed at other people in the discussion)

[My pseudonym is Ix]

From my perspective, because labels are useful. It's the same reason I get uncomfortable when people talk about the abolition of gender labelling & compartmentalisation of sexuality etc.- I get that it can feel restrictive for many, but for the rest of us it's a handy shorthand that's convenient for everyone.

[ch3m1kal]

This is something that I've seen pop up again and again and there is always one question I keep coming back to:

Why do we need to make a distinction?

(honest answers people, no snarky answers aimed at other people in the discussion)

Why do we need to make a distinction in anything?

Cataloging things for the purpose of sale, discussion or ,more importantly (IMO), review and critique.
All of these require at least some semblance of structure, since things do not exist in a vacuum and referencing previous or similar works is a generally accepted means of assessing value or quality. Obviously this require some system of establishing parity, for example Team Fortress 2 is a great multiplayer shooter, but would make a pretty abysmal puzzle platformer, hence cataloging and labels and genres.

Generes are generally defined by the core mechanic, that is why a first person shooter is centered around firing weapons at things, from a first person perspective, however that does not make every first person game that has weapons in it an FPS (Deus Ex and System Shock 2 are probably my favorite examples of first person games with weapons in them that are definitely not first person shooters). And of course there are also games that are played in first person that aren't shooters at all, such as Portal or Antichamber or something like Myst.

It's entirely possible that what we need to do is create some new genres or expand existing ones, but we can only do that if we can find some basis of definition so we can say "Yes, X thing is a game, it features these particular mechanics so it should probably go into category Y along with the other Y type games."

I personally think it's also a good framing device to explore some adjacent themes, such as how much actual gameplay does your game need... David Cage?

[KartoffelKaiser]

I consider any set of rules a game, for the simple reason that game design principles can be applied in a very useful manner.

My favorite example is US trial law (bear with me on this one). Trial law is a game by a large number of definitions; it has rules and mechanics (law, case law, objections, trial procedure and etiquette, etc), a clear goal (guilty or not guilty verdict), and a very explicit win/lose condition (the other verdict).

So, is trial law a game? The very question indicates that the discussion of what is and isn't a game is very frequently ill framed. Games do not need to be fun, for entertainment, or trivial. Games are a model by which we analyze something. If we know that a thing is a game, we can apply design principles to that thing in order to make it better. US trial law has a lot of improving to do, but for the sake of brevity I won't go into detail.

It suffices to say that the label of "Game" is useful in the same way the labels of "Faraday Cage" or "Friction-less Surface" are useful in physics; it allows us to apply knowledge we already have about that label to other things with that label. If game design principles apply to a thing, it is very useful to call it a game.

[Dumorimasoddaa]

(Fair warning I've yet to dedicate the time to read all the posts here)
Now I think honestly the question of what is a "video-game" isn't needed, the real question is what is a game.

And it comes down to it having rules (there can be very loose but things you can and can't do) and having a means of succeeding or progressing (this again doesn't need to be an ending or even a score but they are good examples) I'd also argue that games need most importantly decision points. If you strip a "game" down to much it becomes a list of things to do or that happen, and if you strip a narrative game down too much you get a book or Graphic Novel. Now these lines get fuzzy in places as every categorisation system does at the outliers.

As for the need to categorise things as a whole and inside one category in a more granulated system, it comes down to easy of comparison, discussion and critique. It's something that is rather new in language but has developed along side the sciences. As the need to unambiguously communicate in critique and discussion of works grew.

Addendum:

I consider any set of rules a game, for the simple reason that game design principles can be applied in a very useful manner.

My favorite example is US trial law (bear with me on this one)... (snip)

The whole existence of Game Theory in Mathematics also comes back to this, and that is the study of strategic decision making. Occasionally also called Decision Theory and while the nitty gritty of the subject isn't needed here it highlights that decision making is often a key part to what mmakes a game a game.

[AdmiralMemo]

So this discussion again... Coming here from Twitch chat...

Since I've never done visual novels, do they have choices or not? That would be my defining characteristic of a game: making choices.

As many people say though, the fact of whether something is a game or not a game should not have any effect on your (or any person's) enjoyment of that thing. Anyone can enjoy a TV show, a movie, a game, a book, etc. What a thing is and whether you enjoy it are entirely separate.

Also, there's the discussion of the distinction between a "game" and a "toy" too. It is rightly possible that some simulation games might be more accurately defined as "toys" rather than games. For instance, Garry's Mod.

[korvys]

Admiral Memo: Visual novels typically have choices, yes. They're basically very large, animated, often voice acted, pick-a-path novels.

[AdmiralMemo]

OK, because people in Twitch chat were saying they didn't and you just clicked through to the end. If that was the case, then I wouldn't consider them to be a game. They'd just be the equivalent of an e-book.

[korvys]

Let's be clear, there's not a lot of interaction. You mostly just click and read, but there is usually branching dialogue.

These games are commonly romantic, or even pornographic, and the goal is usually to convince the other characters to date and/or sleep with you.

[AdmiralMemo]

Well, ANY interaction makes it classify as a game. From the Twitch chat description of "Dear Esther" though... That might not be a game to me if it doesn't have choices to make. That wouldn't mean it's not interactive, nor would that mean it's bad.

I think my problem with many of these discussions is that I'm getting conflicting descriptions from different people about what a thing that I haven't experienced is.

Edit: I found the video of Dear Esther on the first page. I'm going to watch it and come back with a second edit.

[Papperslappen]

A definition is instrumental. What you are trying to do with the definition is usually the question you should ask first rather than what is the actual formal rules of the definition. A game store might find it useful to define it in one way (it is what comes in a box delivered by a video game distributor) and a pretentious journalist might have another. A definition can be used to differentiate kinds of media for example the difference between a painting and a sculpture but there will probably be some edge cases.

The Totalbiscuit definition of video games was specifically designed to exclude Dear Esther which - I guess - is useful if he don't want to talk about similar works of art on his channel (but by stating such definition there he counteracted this goal). These types of definitions tend lack elegance in that they are a bit cumbersome to formulate. For example Totalbiscuit had to use some fuzzy definition of failure state, to make it hold together. Also it breaths a bit of the Blink-182-is-not-punk elitism.

My goto definition of video games is that it is what video game developers develop. This is in analogy with art is what artists make, music is what musicians perform and science is what scientists does (the last one is problematic for several reasons). Usually it is pretty clear to me if what I'm playing on the computer in the evening is a game, but if I'm unsure, I can usually look up if the developer of that piece of media is a game developer.

Is Gone Home a game?
Yes. Fullbright is a game developer according to their web page.

Is the eSignal Trading Platform a game?
No. Though it has a failure state (bankruptcy), interactivity, scores, flashy graphics (mostly graphs), multiplayer etc. The developer consider it a "Trading Platform" and not a game.

[korvys]

I think "Agency over your experience" covers it for me. Sure there's not a lot to do in Dear Esther, but you can go at your own pace, you can look at different things, etc. Good enough for me. I mean, if you want to say it's a terrible video game, that could be valid, but it still *is* a video game, as far as I'm concerned.

[AdmiralMemo]

You have agency over your experience of watching a movie on VHS or DVD. You could talk over it, pause every 5 seconds, let it run while you take a piss, rewind to watch a good part 20 times, etc. Are they games? (This is to contrast with watching it in a theater, which, while you could talk or take a piss, you can't rewind, pause, or fast-forward.)

[phlip]

From my perspective, because labels are useful. It's the same reason I get uncomfortable when people talk about the abolition of gender labelling & compartmentalisation of sexuality etc.- I get that it can feel restrictive for many, but for the rest of us it's a handy shorthand that's convenient for everyone.

Labels can be useful, but they can also cause problems when they are overfit, or when they are used to draw an arbitrary dividing line in a spectrum...

If you're using the labels purely descriptively, as shorthand, then that's ideal. But if you then start focusing on the label itself, rather than the things it's shorthand for, then things start to break down.

For instance: I tend to enjoy movies that have dialogue and situations designed for the purpose of humour. For convenience, I label these as "comedies" to make these movies easier to refer to. But if I use the label too much, I might start to act like I believe the label is important... shift from "this movie is funny, so I like it... and also I'll call it a comedy for convenience" to "this movie is funny, so it's a comedy, so I like it"... to just "this movie is a comedy, so I like it". And then if a movie comes along that I don't find funny, and I don't like, I'll have to rail against it being classed as a "comedy" by people, because I've made the label too important. Rather than focusing on what the label is a shorthand for - whether or not I find the movie funny - I'm focusing on whether it has the label, and giving the label normative power rather than just being descriptive of the movie.

In the same way... it doesn't ultimately matter whether you call Gone Home a game or not. If you call it a game, then it's a game where you walk through a house and hear a bunch of story about the life of the PC's sister. If you call it not-a-game, then it's a non-game where you walk through a house and hear a bunch of story about the life of the PC's sister. The actual program doesn't care whether you call it a game or not, it is what it is, and the experience is the same either way. Either you have a narrow definition of "game" and then Gone Home is an interactive experience which is or is not in your opinion worth experiencing... or you have a wider definition of "game" and Gone Home is a low-interactivity game which is or is not in your opinion worth playing... the only real difference is what you're calling it, and what points of reference you use when you look at it. It doesn't actually change either way.

It only becomes a problem when you make it so the label matters... when defining defining Gone Home as a game or not a game has some functional difference on how you view Gone Home itself, because of whether or not you class it as a "game". Without that, a thing that's hard to classify is still just a thing... maybe a thing that's hard to describe succinctly, but it is what it is. But with that, if something that's "not a real game" is inherently lesser than something that "is a game" just by virtue of getting the label, and not indirectly from what the label means, then something that's hard to classify becomes a problem.

In short: take a look at any argument that is like "Gone Home is X, therefore it's not a game, therefore it's bad"... and remove the part about the "game" label... "Gone Home is X, therefore it's bad"... and see if it still makes sense. If it does, then it's a reasonable argument about Gone Home, and you have no need to invoke the label. If it does not, then it's probably not a good argument in the first place.