Jimquisition: It's Not A Video Game!

[Abnaxis]

And heres the problem i have with your definition of modern games: all a game needs to be to be considered to be a game... is to be a game.

The very first sentence you explain to us what you think a game is you say "The modern definition of a game is simply an electronic game..."

Seconded. Jim completely glossed over the part of the definition that is actually what people argue about. Yes, clearly to be a "video game" there needs to be some sort of user interface and video feedback, but people don't think The Walking Dead is a video game because of the "game" part, which went completely un-addressed.

For my part, I personally don't consider TWD a video game. It's an awesome work of art, that I very much adore and enjoy, but I don't consider it a "game." To me, the definition of game (video or otherwise) is "a set of interactive rules obeyed for the sake of obeying an interactive set of rules." Basketball is a game, because from a pragmatic standpoint it serves zero purpose to anyone involved, they're just trying to put the ball into the basket for the hell of it because it is fun. OTOH, driving to work is not a game, because you only follow all the rules of traffic so you can get from point A to point B quickly and without dying.

TWD isn't a game, because the mechanics are entirely secondary to the story. They exist (and do a damn good job) to help you feel empathy for the main character, hitting you with panicked QTEs when fighting for your life, clumsy shooting when fighting for someone else's life, and slow dialog or puzzle sequences when the narrative is supposed to be slow and contemplative. If someone tried to sell me a game, that was nothing but the mechanics from TWD with no narrative to contextualize the implementation of those mechanics, I would never buy it. I don't interact with TWD because the rules it sets out are fun to interact with, I interact because it tells a compelling story and the mechanics serve that purpose.

Now, I hope I made it clear that I don't mean it in a derisive way, but I think there is a compelling argument for saying "these are not video games" about Dear Esther or TWD or Gone Home. Of course, that's not how most people say it when they say something is "not a game," usually they prefer to sneer and deride as if those interactive experiences somehow lessen the hobby because they are sold on the same storefront as Battlefied. If those people could just be collectively stricken with a special strain of mass amnesia that causes them to forget how to communicate on the internet, I won't be sad.

 

[Karadalis]

And heres the problem i have with your definition of modern games: all a game needs to be to be considered to be a game... is to be a game.

The very first sentence you explain to us what you think a game is you say "The modern definition of a game is simply an electronic game..."

But wheres the "game" in pieces like gone home? How do you game in something like dear esther?

Would you honestly call a bordgame where no one can loose and the only things you do is move your playpiece forward field by field and then have to draw a correspondant card for each field with story exposition on it a game?

Heck "choose your own adventure" books have considerably more gameplay elements then these pieces of barely interactable fiction yet no one calls them games.

You could actually call your boardgame example for a rudimentary roleplaying game. So yes it is a game, it might require more imagination than monopoly but still a game (just like the choose your own adventure books are a game).

Errr no... because there is no game to be had. You could also simply read the cards one after another and have the same effect. The board and your piece are quite redundant and are only there to make the whole experience seem interactive.

Now ofcourse this is a gross simplication of what dear esther and co try to convey. After all the visuals are far better then a piece of cardboard and a monopoly piece and some cards.

But both are not games, also i dont see any roleplay elements in my example.. i mean reading games of thrones while at the same time moving a pin over a map of its world is also not a roleplaying experience. Its just a rather unnecesary visual remainder where the protagonists currently are in the world.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Here's a computer monitor, that looks like a pear!

Seriously, that was just lovely for laughing at a soundbite!!!
The rest... meh, I'd have liked just what games not to get on STEAM a better use of the time.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Kirby's Epic Yarn is absolutely groundbreaking in its "no fail" method of play. It completely blows away inaccessibility so that you can give the controller to ANYONE regardless of their gaming resume and they can play and enjoy it.

Yet there is still enough to it that experienced gamers can find gamplay substance to latch on to. The newer Lego games use the same technique of "you can't fail, but you get less lewt if you die" and they are just as much fun.

 

[Wisq]

I'm amused that people have been using "not a game" as a means to criticise games they don't like, and now here's Jim saying they are games ... as a means to allow him to criticise games he doesn't like.

More seriously: Where do you draw the line when the lines are so blurry?

What's the difference between a simplistic interactive fiction "game" that requires you press a button to progress, versus a TV series on DVD that requires you press a button to view the next episode? How is stop/slow/medium/fast in a train simulator different than pause/slow-mo/play/fast-forward for a movie?

And more importantly, why do we need to strictly define things at all?

Is it for buyer awareness? Well, if they want to be aware, they should be reading reviews, which will tell them exactly what the game is anyway.

Is it for criticism, i.e. the ability to judge them on game standards and compare them to other games? This seems to be one of Jim's points, but I don't think it's that simple. If you're taking one of these "non-games" ("walking simulator", "interactive experience", etc.) and trying to judge it based on standard expectations of gameplay, you're going to run into the same issue as if you try to judge (say) a MOBA based on MMORPG standards. "WASD controls don't work; no open world hub; long queues to get into instances, only 10 players per instance, and my skills and inventory reset every time I enter one; needs a PvE mode because I'm trying to farm mobs and level up, but people keep sneaking up and killing me; 2/10, not a good MMO." At best, this sort of criticism is irrelevant; at worst, it stifles new forms of media by demanding they conform to existing ones.

As far as I can tell, the main reason for defining and labelling things is just as a sort of intellectual shortcut, as a way to say "here are the things I'm interested in and here are the ones I'm not". That's fine, that's useful. There are certainly genres I generally avoid unless a particularly stand-out title comes along.

What I wish people would stop doing is pretending these definitions are anything more than vague categories to suggest who might be interested in them. Instead, people keep trying to come up with strict definitions -- definitions they've usually cherry-picked to exclude things they don't like.

Yes, it's true, definitions can be diluted to the point of being useless as a label. "Roguelike" is a recent example of this, where any game that involves any sort of procedural generation and/or permadeath now gets billed as being one. But what if, instead of trying to argue whether a game is or is not a "roguelike", you just treat it as a keyword to maybe pique your interest, and then read the feature list and see what parts of "roguelike" they've chosen to use? At worst, you've wasted a couple minutes looking a list of features for what might be an interesting game -- certainly far less time than you would spend trying to convince the dev they should drop the "roguelike" label.

 

[Agayek]

"A game needs a win state"

Half-Life 2 doesn't have an overarching win state. Halo: Combat Evolved doesn't have an overarching win state. None of the Fallout games have overarching win states. Skyrim doesn't have a overarching win state. One could say that you're rewarded with story content and more diverse gameplay by proceeding, but sitting at the first point in the game that you can stick around in for ten hours is just as valid as proceeding through the story. How about all that exploration everybody did in Fallout 3 and New Vegas? Is exploring not gameplay, even though it rarely gives you a win state? Everybody jizzed their pants over No Man's Sky, but as far as I can tell, there's no certainty that there's any sort of score counter or win state. What about the ending of a linear game? Is that not sort of a punishment, since you can no longer play the game?

All of those games you listed have win states. To use HL2 as an example, the Win state is when you explode Breen's tower. On a smaller scale, the Win state is when you emerge alive from a firefight and all the Combine are dead. This same logic applies to pretty much every one of the games you listed. Skyrim has a win state for completing quests, killing Alduin, etc. Halo's is killing the Covenant, riding the Warthog through the exploding Pillar of Autumn, etc. Fallout is getting to where you're trying to go, seeing what's going on over in that other portion of the map, killing bloatflies, turning the GECKO on, conquering New Vegas, etc.

None of your examples actually hold up under the slightest examination.

"A game needs a fail state"

Kirby's Epic Yarn? Its impossible to die in it. The Sims? Sure, a family might die, but thats not quite game over, because you can just keep proceeding in the neighborhood. How about open-world gameplay? In GTA, you can be doing random shenanigans in the open world, but even if you die, your progress isn't reverted. You just pop up at a police station or hospital with a few dollars less, and if you have no money, that still happens. Nobody would call fooling around in an open world as not being gameplay. In the Borderlands series, you can die, but you just get revived. You can die fifty times in an hour, but the game never comes to a screeching halt. Borderlands has no end-of-the-line, no "Game Over", no point in which you can no longer access content.

"Failure State" != "Game Over". It can be, but it most certainly doesn't need to be. For example, dying in GTA is a failure state. You are prevented from doing whatever it was you were trying to do, lost some money, and were dumped somewhere else in the city and have to find your way back to wherever you were. It's not excessively punishing, but it's very much a failure state (and the same applies to Borderlands). I can't speak for the other two examples you listed because I haven't played them (Epic Yarn does look kinda awesome though, so hopefully I can cross that off my list soonish), but what you describe for the Sims seems an awful lot like a failure state, and in Epic Yarn, being unable to beat a boss or whatever, and therefore be unable to progress, is very much a failure state.

"A game needs to be fun"

So every moment you're not having fun in a game isn't gameplay? What if one person has fun playing a game and another person doesn't? Somebody may have through that Spec Ops: The Line was fun, but it wasn't "fun" for me. Who opinion is right? After all, "fun" is subjective. And can't be both a game and not a game.

This one I very much agree with you on. A game doesn't have to be fun in order to be a game. In fact, some of the best games aren't "fun" in the obvious/conventional sense.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think that words can have multiple meanings, and that one trap we fall into is by rigidly insisting our own definitions are the only ones. This is why it's good to hash out definitions beforehand. I'm fine with Jim's version. I'm fine with a version that includes "failure states." I think a lot of the debate comes from one party arguing one definition and another arguing another, possibly without even ever explicitly stating it.

Personally, I'm okay with the more inclusive definitions, even if walking simulators aren't necessarily my thing. I wonder if "video games" hasn't become a bad term because of them, though.

Saying Gone Home is a game AND using the ever-dreaded S word (subjective)? I can already hear certain "movement" hashtag frothing with rage...

Man, #Iamtrayvon will never live that down....

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Totally agree. We don't need to universally define what makes something a game. What matters is our individual interpretations. I would call Dear Esther a game because there is a set goal to reach. I would not call Proteus a game because there is no goal.

 

[Pogilrup]

Many puzzle games don't really have a fail state.

But they do have a "not-win" state that the player usually starts from and usually dwells in before figuring out the right way to arrange the pieces.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

It's Not A Video Game!

Addressing a common criticism leveled at certain types of video games, and explaining why they are, contrary to the criticism, still video games.

Watch Video

Good episode. After listening to TB's in defense of definition I kind of found some merit in the "not a game" claims, even if it was often abused. Now I'm a little more muddled on the subject. You covered it a little bit but any specific thoughts on TB's view on the matter, since it seems to be the strongest counter opinion to yours on the matter?

These videos really do go hand in hand, but the authors are both going at it from opposing directions. Jim Sterling talks from an industry/creative standpoint, whereas TotalBiscuit talks from a consumer standpoint. His #1 statement is that he's there to protect and serve the consumer. A large majority of consumers have a common set of expectations when it comes to games, so it could be said that TB's definition exists more to inform the consumer - if he calls it a game his viewers know to expect some form of challenge, one way or another. In the linked vid he even points out that the 'not-games' can still be very good and people shouldn't necessarily stop making them, but he would place them into a different category of interactive media other than "game." Sterling's carte blanche "anything that is interactive is a game" statement primarily addresses criticisms that these types of interactive media do have a right to exist, but the creators at the same time should be distinctly aware they choose to share space on dedicated "gaming" hardware. They will thus be judged with comparisons.

IMO the whole debacle really is about the perception that ALL GAMES have to fit a particular mold. I do agree mostly with TB though, that in the end the most important part is just that people are informed about the content they might choose to consume. If On a game box right under the "T For Teen" ESRB rating, where "Graphic Violence" is written there was also a tag for "Cannot Lose" or "No Failure State" this debate would still exist, but be much less severe. The movie industry can give critical acclaim to both Pride and Prejudice and Taken without a giant piss match even though they're very different, so why can't the games industry? I guess that just asks too much of the internet.

 

[TessaraVejgan]

I find this "but its not a game" and "failure state" BS arguments very annoying and it pisses me of. You know, what stupid people call a "walking simulator" is actually called ADVENTURE GAME and they have been around FOREVER in various forms. Are people really this stupid. Whats next you're gonna tell me that J.U.L.I.A. Among the Stars that I played recently is actually not a game as well. What about all those text adventures that were popular a few decades ago? What about Myst for example or VN?

 

[hydrolythe]

The whole "This is/is not" a game argument has been a long and hard battle I've fought for years. It's really gotten to the point where I dislike telling people about VN's because I'm so sick of being told "Katawa/Hatoful/Fate Stay Night/Clannad/Magical Diary/Ace Attorney isn't a real game! It's just sprites and text!"

The worst part is, most Dating Sims do have failure states. There are game overs and Bad endings. I mean, obviously. I don't even know why they keep being brought up here
Walking simulators, on the otherhand, I can't speak for. I've never played one, and I don't plan on it. I won't debate their credibility as games, but they just don't look entertaining.

Thank God for a tv that look like an apple

Whats wrong with Visual Novels not actually being games? (Ace Attorney is a game though because of puzzle solving and such)

That doesn't diminish them in anyway.

Just wonder though, would you consider Mystery House to be a video game?

 

[Abnaxis]

Is it just me, or does anyone else want to go through an snipe every single "game" definition in threads like these, pointing out entire genres they are leaving out that they themselves probably consider "games"?

 

[Nion]

By the definition in this video, the Steam store, the menus on my phone, and the digital clock on the dashboard of my car are all video games.

I am pretty sure that you are missing the point: Jim is talking about forms of digital entertainment, and whether they can be defined as "video games": "game" in this case referring either to a competitive activity or an activity engaged in for leisure. None of those things that you list are designed as entertainment. To put this in perspective: Google is not a video game, but a particular interactive doodle might be.

Dear Ester is not a "video game": "game" in this case referring to a mammal living underwater. Discussions sure do get easier if you redefine words to back up your argument.

Do I really need to point out all the holes in defining every activity done for leisure as a game? I'd rather spend my time playing a game of read a book, before heading out to a game of hang out with some friends.

 

[Entitled]

We limit our imaginations and our medium if we start laying down unyielding immutable definitions, and demand conformity from games.

Jim, this comes off as extremely hypocritical, right after you just said this:

The modern definition of a video game is simply an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Basically, you do things to it. If the interaction is compelling it to act and unfold it's a video game.

And this:

I do not believe Gone Home to be the second Coming of Christ, though better than Dear Esther, since it at least gives players some agency in the world...

That mentality exactly why the very fans of these works are trying to break away from the "game" label, that gets forced on to them in the name of inclusivity and openness, yet shackles them to the stereotypical expectations of the medium. In the same video, you are both telling us that definitions and labels shouldn't be used restrict artistic creativity, AND complain that Dear Esther is not interactive enough, we are forevver forced to judge it by the expectation that it has to be interactive, because of the unyielding immutable definition that it's "a game".

You wouldn't judge a painting based on how much viewer agency it gives, you wouldn't judge a song based on how much listener agency it has, but Dear esther's creator chose to make it as a virtual 3D space to be navigated from the inside, which is by definition makes it "interactive", so here come the expectations of exactly how interactive it has to be to be called a good video game.

If you care so much about artistic freedom, then you shouldn't just worry about sounding like Ebert and limiting the medium. The medium itself is just a label. Let the label's reach be limited. As long as diverse creative works actually get MADE, that's a lot more important than making sure that they all do it for the glory of your favorite medium.

 

[Lightknight]

Hmm, while I agree that a lot of people who say some titles aren't video games, I'm not so sure we shouldn't have another term for games that aren't decided by skill/luck/intellect.

I don't think the only defining term should be digital and interaction. That would be like claiming that all TV shows are Movies because they use the video/film format. No, we have terms to define differences.

So whether we create terms for things that use video/interaction but aren't games or if we create terms for a genre of games that indicate the trivializing of human interaction as important then maybe we can get closer to accurately categorizing them.

I think what people are saying is that it isn't a game. It's not a form of "play" to a lot of people. They're not wrong in some cases. There are quite a few definitions of the word game and depending on which one you adhere to, some of these new titles certainly don't fit.

 

[Thorn14]

The whole "This is/is not" a game argument has been a long and hard battle I've fought for years. It's really gotten to the point where I dislike telling people about VN's because I'm so sick of being told "Katawa/Hatoful/Fate Stay Night/Clannad/Magical Diary/Ace Attorney isn't a real game! It's just sprites and text!"

The worst part is, most Dating Sims do have failure states. There are game overs and Bad endings. I mean, obviously. I don't even know why they keep being brought up here
Walking simulators, on the otherhand, I can't speak for. I've never played one, and I don't plan on it. I won't debate their credibility as games, but they just don't look entertaining.

Thank God for a tv that look like an apple

Whats wrong with Visual Novels not actually being games? (Ace Attorney is a game though because of puzzle solving and such)

That doesn't diminish them in anyway.

Just wonder though, would you consider Mystery House to be a video game?

Thats one of the very first graphic based games ever right? Well to be fair it was a very very different time. And I don't know much about it. Are there puzzles or interaction with the environment?

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

DAMN YOU UBISOOOOOOOOOFT AND EAAAAAA! We could have gotten more fun videos, but your evil shenanigans RUINED IT! >: (

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Like all games there is a goal. Whether to win by killing most people, completing it or just being the best team. Or it can be about finishing the story and learning something on that journey. Sometimes its just about the journey.