So how many gems is it to buy a "Thank god for me" at the end? I neeeeeeeed one!
As far as things not being games goes, I think Total Biscuit offered a pretty good view on that:
I would be interested to see what you have to say as well, Jim. I do agree that The Walking Dead and Stanley Parable are games. Hell, I'll even agree that Gone Home is, in fact, a game. A completely shit game that fails miserably at achieving its goal, but the word game was still in there.
Yeah Gone Home, you have to do more character building than "they are your parents" to make me feel any kind of fear for why they aren't around. C&C4 couldn't make me care about the main character's wife by just saying "SHE IS YOUR WIFE", inFamous couldn't make me care about Trish by just saying "SHE IS COLE'S GIRLFRIEND" (and then following it up by having her be a massive ***** to you all game which actually has the effect of making me care LESS about her than I did at the start when you tried the "SHE IS COLE'S GIRLFRIEND" card; maybe Cole cares about her, but I don't and I can't understand WHY Cole cares about her either), and Gone Home, you can't make me care about Katie's parents because "THEY ARE HER PARENTS". I obviously know what kind of horror they were attempting to illicit, but they completely failed to do so correctly and instead veered off to a story so bad that I've replaced "still a better love story than Twilight" with "still a better love story than Gone Home" for when someone tells a crappy love story.
But sure, it's still a game, it has some basic puzzles for you to solve, I guess. It's got more to offer for gameplay than "tap this block and wait 24 hours for it to be mined so you can tap another block and wait another 24 hours".
Also if it wasn't clear already, I wish games would stop substituting actual character development and depth with "THIS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER'S ____ AND YOU HAVE A _____ YOURSELF IN REAL LIFE THAT YOU CARE ABOUT, THEREFORE YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE MAIN CHARACTER'S ______ TOO BECAUSE WHAT IF THIS HAPPENED TO YOUR REAL LIFE _____ HUH HUH HUH?". That's not my real life ____ game, that's a fictional character that exists in your fictional world, and you have to develop them in order to make me give a shit about them.