How Should We Classify Interactive Media?

[SomethingGiant]

Voice your opinion, please. This is going to be about semantics, and it is important. Classification and knowing what in the name of f* we're talking about when we describe something as a "game," "puzzle," "toy," or "simulation" is important.

Why? To allow for scientific study, establishment of standards, clarity in game-related discussions, and more.

The problem I perceive is that the popular media is classifying almost all interactive media as games and we are enabling that classification by using their definitions. Should we really use the same term to describe an interactive movie like Heavy Rain and an abstract puzzle like Tetris? The creativity-driven Minecraft and a goal-driven racing sim? Chess and Snakes & Ladders?

What are some concrete definitions that we can use to separate games, puzzles, toys, and sims?

Are there any other interactive media that deserve separate classification?

 

[Palademon]

Start calling all video games IMs or IEs, for Interactive Media or Interactive Experience.

 

[SomethingGiant]

Good start, but we need to move past that point. Biologists don't classify all living things into "living things" and then immediately follow with the common name.

Why should we show that sort of disrespect to games? Not that I'm suggesting a nomenclature as complex as this, but that's only because we don't have that many interactive media.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Clearly, some things barely qualify as games and making games is pretty low on the priority lists of the creators.

Interactive is too wishy washy a term for me as it is far too broad and could be used to describe all sorts of other things. If it's purpose is to be entertainment software then call it that instead.

 

[SomethingGiant]

Games:
1. Goal-orientation
2. Engaging interaction
3. Unpredictability

Toys:
2. Engaging interaction

Puzzles:
1. Goal-orientation
2. Engaging interaction

Simulators:
2. Engaging interaction
3. Unpredictability

Interactive movies:
1. Goal-orientation

Game goals can be reached with strategies, puzzle goals with solutions.

Chess, Go, CoD campaigns, and tic-tac-toe are puzzles that give the illusion of being games to players who do not know their perfect solutions. Chess/Go will always be games to human players because of their complexity, but not to perfect computers.

Minecraft is a game / simulator. The game is beaten easily by digging straight down 3 blocks into dirt and creating one block above you. The rest of the experience is a simulator until the player introduces his own goals, at which point it becomes a game again.

Lego is a toy until the player introduces his own goals, at which point it becomes a puzzle.

Risk, Poker, Warcraft 3, and multiplayer Halo are games.

Do not confuse these labels with measures of quality. They are useful not as a rating system, but a means to partition, describe, and analyze. More opinions?

 

[SomethingGiant]

interactive movie like Heavy Rain

Haha, I Lolled.

What makes Heavy Rain a game?

 

[SomethingGiant]

interactive movie like Heavy Rain

Haha, I Lolled.

What makes Heavy Rain a game?

What makes you think Im saying its a game?

But I suppose If I were to argue that Heavy Rain is a game I'd just redirect you here>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game

But a movie is a story or sequence conveyed through moving images.

So why isnt Minecraft an interactive movie by your definition? It tells the desperate struggle of the last Human alive as he wakes up in a mysterious place and must fight & mine to survive for as long as possible?

You Lolled. I assumed. Was I wrong?

I accept Wiki as authority in many cases, and I went there first, but I found their definition lacking. See "However, the distinction is not clear-cut" in the first paragraph; and (from Wiktionary) "A pursuit or activity with rules performed either alone or with others, for the purpose of entertainment" is too general.

Minecraft isn't an interactive movie because you have total freedom to create your own narrative instead of having to choose between prefabricated paths. Your own narrative here is evidence of this. Nobody railroaded your experience, no developer-made plot constricted your imagination, and you made a story for yourself (one that is dramatically different from mine, I might add).

 

[Geekosaurus]

What's wrong with the term video game?

 

[SomethingGiant]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

 

[Geekosaurus]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

 

[SomethingGiant]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

"Video game" has a clear definition right now. I don't disagree with that, but the definition is too broad. What are we doing classifying Tetris and Halo as the same thing? Policy makers have tried to introduce laws to restrict the sale of video games, we have definitions THIS vague, and you think there's no problem?

 

[Ossian]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

"Video game" has a clear definition right now. I don't disagree with that, but the definition is too broad. What are we doing classifying Tetris and Halo as the same thing? Policy makers have tried to introduce laws to restrict the sale of video games, we have definitions THIS vague, and you think there's no problem?

I'd remove the definition simply because there is such a bad stigma with video games.

 

[Geekosaurus]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

"Video game" has a clear definition right now. I don't disagree with that, but the definition is too broad. What are we doing classifying Tetris and Halo as the same thing? Policy makers have tried to introduce laws to restrict the sale of video games, we have definitions THIS vague, and you think there's no problem?

You can classify both Finding Nemo and The Exorcist as films. That's doesn't mean they're both suitable for children. That's why we have genres like Children's Animation and Horror. If only we had a similar system for video games...

 

[Anarchemitis]

Start calling all video games IMs or IEs, for Interactive Media or Interactive Experience.

Makes sense.

Simulators would be a matter of debate to fit in one or the other, though.

 

[SomethingGiant]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

"Video game" has a clear definition right now. I don't disagree with that, but the definition is too broad. What are we doing classifying Tetris and Halo as the same thing? Policy makers have tried to introduce laws to restrict the sale of video games, we have definitions THIS vague, and you think there's no problem?

You can classify both Finding Nemo and The Exorcist as films. That's doesn't mean they're both suitable for children. That's why we have genres like Children's Animation and Horror. If only we had a similar system for video games...

Finding Nemo and The Exorcist have almost no differences compared to Tetris and Halo. Each has a linear story, characters, the exact same viewpoint for each viewer, and the same interface. They differ in their art style, story, and pretty much nothing else.

Tetris doesn't even HAVE a story or characters, the POV is a 2-dimensional abstraction versus a first person shooter, only one allows interaction with other players, they have completely different controls, goals, required skill-sets, and we haven't even touched on "games" like Hockey and Risk. My point is that there are too many dissimilar things being lumped together.

 

[twistedheat15]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

When that happens I just assume cheese, I'm usually right. :3

I also don't see what's wrong just calling them video games, esp since we already classify them in different genres. Making a whole new name will just start the ***** fest of what games belong to that new title, like the endless debates of why games are or aren't art.

 

[Geekosaurus]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

"Video game" has a clear definition right now. I don't disagree with that, but the definition is too broad. What are we doing classifying Tetris and Halo as the same thing? Policy makers have tried to introduce laws to restrict the sale of video games, we have definitions THIS vague, and you think there's no problem?

You can classify both Finding Nemo and The Exorcist as films. That's doesn't mean they're both suitable for children. That's why we have genres like Children's Animation and Horror. If only we had a similar system for video games...

Finding Nemo and The Exorcist have almost no differences compared to Tetris and Halo. Each has a linear story, characters, the exact same viewpoint for each viewer, and the same interface. They differ in their art style, story, and pretty much nothing else.

Tetris doesn't even HAVE a story or characters, the POV is a 2-dimensional abstraction versus a first person shooter, only one allows interaction with other players, they have completely different controls, goals, required skill-sets, and we haven't even touched on "games" like Hockey and Risk. My point is that there are too many dissimilar things being lumped together.

There you go. You just answered your own question.

 

[Geekosaurus]

What's wrong with the term video game?

Too general. If we want to discuss games seriously, we need to classify them seriously, so that we can defend, attack or study a particular segment without bringing in the kitchen sink. We need to classify them so that we can take them apart to learn what makes them tick, how they evolved into their current forms, where they might go, and where we want them to go in the future.

You're right - when I hear the phrase 'video game' I often wonder if people mean an interactive experience played on a console of some kind, or if they're talking about cheese.

When that happens I just assume cheese, I'm usually right. :3

I find that's usually the safest option!

 

[Bobic]

Start calling all video games IMs or IEs, for Interactive Media or Interactive Experience.

Isn't that just being hilariously pretentious?

 

[badgersprite]

Audio-Visual Novels. We have to steal that name before movies and TV can!

RPGs and sandboxes can be called Audio-Visual "Choose Your Own Adventure" Novels.