Jimquisition: It's Not A Video Game!

[WhiteTigerShiro]

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.

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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?

While I generally like his reviews (yes, I'm calling them that), I really didn't like his "in defense of definitions" video. You have your definitions, I have mine, but at the end of the day it's all semantics. TB might consider a "review" to specifically be a formal work, but a review is a review is a review. I looked the word up on dictionary.com, and yeah, TB's strict definition of the word IS listed, as the fifth definition. You have to make your way through four definitions before even getting to any mention of formality, and even that definition isn't referring to something like video game or movie reviews.

But I digress, the point I was gonna make is that I agree more with Jim than with TB. While I certainly can see how fail states are important to some games, they should be no means be part of the primary definition. In fact, the definition for video games that I've always used is basically how Jim said it in this episode (clearly he stole it from me); an interactive medium that requires on-going input from the user in order to progress. Gone Home and Dear Ester will stop "playing" if you don't move the mouse around and press on the keyboard, hence they are video games.

 

[Thorn14]

I think I'm more in line with what total biscuit said about the issue. I like using the term interactive experience to talk about these kinds of games, but I don't mean it in a derogatory way.

Not talking about you, but TB was clearly disingenuous when he was saying that he doesn't use the term in a 'derogatory' manner. What he's doing is excluding these games from the conversation because to him clearly they are something 'less' than his mechanics-heavy games of choice.

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.

Do you consider the opening bits of HL and HL2 - where you just can just explore environment and not be killed - to be not gameplay and an extension of the menu screen?

Those were glorified cutscenes really, albit somewhat explorable and interactive, which was neat. But not nearly the core gameplay.

 

[Doom972]

I'm not sure if calling Dear Esther a video game is justified when there's no discernible difference between playing it yourself and watching it on YouTube.

A walking simulator is technically a video game, but Dear Esther is so bare-bones that I'm not sure if it can be even called that. You don't have any interactions with the environment, so you may as well just be a floating camera and not a person in the game world, and you are always walking on the same linear path.

EDIT:

I just realized something. By his definition The Jimquisition is a video game. I can view it on my screen and interact with it using my mouse and keyboard (play, pause, jump to a certain point). So, is The Jimquisition a game? If so, it's more awful than Dear Esther. Even less interactivity.

 

[Agayek]

Do you consider the opening bits of HL and HL2 - where you just can just explore environment and not be killed - to be not gameplay and an extension of the menu screen?

I wouldn't call those segments an extension of the menu screen, but the sentiment is more or less accurate. Or to be more accurate, if the games were only those opening bits, I'd consider them as "walking simulators" or whatever the preferred term is instead of "games".

 

[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?

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 their puzzles or interaction with the environment?

All of it is mainly interaction with the environment. Though through interaction you would get clues for a certain puzzle to solve. It is all in a similar vein to cluedo.

Then I'd call it a very basic adventure game.

I hope you realize that the game was released in Japan and that every single early Japanese visual novel took direct inspiration from this game, right down to using a Western art style instead of an Asian one (and thus have similar gameplay as well).

So why would visual novels be somehow different from video games when the very first recorded cases of a visual novel took directly their inspiration from something that you described as a video game and not as something that should be considered as a non-game but as something else?

 

[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 their puzzles or interaction with the environment?

All of it is mainly interaction with the environment. Though through interaction you would get clues for a certain puzzle to solve. It is all in a similar vein to cluedo.

Then I'd call it a very basic adventure game.

I hope you realize that the game was released in Japan and that every single early Japanese visual novel took direct inspiration from this game, right down to using a Western art style instead of an Asian one (and thus have similar gameplay as well).

So why would visual novels be somehow different from video games when the very first recorded cases of a visual novel took directly their inspiration from something that you described as a video game and not as something that should be considered as a non-game but as something else?

I've never played the game and my only knowledge of it is a wikipedia search. I assumed it had puzzles and item hunts like your average early LucasArts adventure game. But I do know that visual novels rarely involve anything beyond making an A B or C choice at a certain time.

Thats not gameplay, because if it was, those "Choose your own adventure books" would be video games.

Phoenix Wright IS a game however because you have to find the right objects, present evidence at the right time, and all the other tricks it adds in.

 

[Barciad]

I didn't like Dear Esther; far too pretentious for my liking. 'Gone Home' was good. I would have preferred it to have more puzzles in it (or any puzzles at all), but I fear that this was entirely the point. The Parable of Stanley felt like a nine day wonder. A highly amusing nine day wonder, but a nine day wonder nonetheless.
The only significant game that feels missing here is 'To the Moon'. Magnificent story, great characters, very funny dialogue, but zero game play element. That poor squirrel.

 

[CaitSeith]

So where would something like depression quest fall?

A very linear text adventure game. It plays like when you select the conversation options in Mass Effect.

Spoiler: This is the closest thing that I have played that can be compared to it (just make it linear, practically no graphics and depressing)

 

[Wisq]

Not talking about you, but TB was clearly disingenuous when he was saying that he doesn't use the term in a 'derogatory' manner. What he's doing is excluding these games from the conversation because to him clearly they are something 'less' than his mechanics-heavy games of choice.

Are you sure he's saying "less" and not just "other"? As in "outside my chosen field of review", same as a movie reviewer might not review games and vice versa?

 

[Karadalis]

Do you consider the opening bits of HL and HL2 - where you just can just explore environment and not be killed - to be not gameplay and an extension of the menu screen?

I wouldn't call those segments an extension of the menu screen, but the sentiment is more or less accurate. Or to be more accurate, if the games were only those opening bits, I'd consider them as "walking simulators" or whatever the preferred term is instead of "games".

Didnt they also served as movement tutorials and teach you how to interact with your world? Like picking up stuff, opening lockers, moving objects etc?


I have a new criteria if something is a game or not for you guys to think about:

If there is a youtube video of someone experiencing the game... will there be any enjoyment left for you yourselfe if you go through it? Or is the story the only thing of interest and the whole thing will be rendered redundand by watching a youtube video of it?

If a game can be completly "ruined" by a youtube video of it... there is no reason to call it a game. Thats why lets plays dont really kill the enjoyment of games because everyone experiences games differently. But if the experience is allways the same for everyone... then where is the game?

 

[TheLastFeeder]

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?

What I think is that TB doesn't realize is that languages are evolving, ever-changing things and the first things that tend to change with the times. If you try learning a 1000 year old dialect of you own language you will find that many words are the same but have changed meanings or even have the opposite definitions.

The dictionary is not set in stone and definitions widen and pronunciation change as the decades roll by.

 

[Agayek]

You have your definitions, I have mine, but at the end of the day it's all semantics.

I'm gonna cut right in here and say that I find this sentence to be extremely dangerous, intellectually speaking.

To borrow a phrase, "Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth". Words, and by extension semantics, are the cornerstone of rational thought. They define and shape how you think, what you believe, and how your mind works. And in that, it's perfectly fine for everyone to have their own personal definitions. After all, it's their own minds, people can think however they please.

The problem is when those definitions are put forward as a means of communication. Words are the only means by which we can convey ideas, the only vehicle through which people can connect with and share their perspectives with others. But if the word has wildly different meanings to each individual, meaning is lost. Conversation withers and dies. Shared, collaborated, and improved ideas are driven out. It becomes impossible to hold rational discourse because both parties are using the same words to say completely different things.

That's why definitions are important. The entirety of human society is based on them. It is never acceptable for the same word to mean completely different things to any two people, because that undermines the very foundation of human interaction.

 

[EyeReaper]

snip

For the sake of clarity, I will assume that a game requires two things: A. Interactivity, and B. A failure state. Which, outside of kinetic novels, pretty much every visual novel has. I will use Katawa Shoujo as an example, for it is a very base VN, and most others expand on it's mechanics by adding things like puzzles, mini games, trainable stats and more.

In Katawa Shoujo, at certain points in the game, you will choose what to do, where to go, and what to say to several characters. Doing this garners points in a hidden system. Spending time at the track field gives you points with one girl, spending time at the library helps with another, and so on. This is the interactivity. If you fail to gain enough favor with a girl in the first chapter, you get a game over, likewise, in each of the girl's routes there are several times where you can choose to do something wrong (like cheat on your girlfriend with her best friend) that will also give you a failure state.

and finally, if there's no harm in them not being called games, then there certainly isn't any harm in them being called games, right?

 

[Madmonk12345]

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.

Actually, thinking about it, it's not just about the diminishment of the games.

The definition of gamer is defined as people who play games. If we say certain genres of games(experiences, whatever) aren't games, we can say certain people aren't gamers and their makers aren't game developers. If you like visual novels and walking simulators and play them more than other games and play other games only occasionally, why should you be considered a nongamer, and therefore not worthy of attention or consideration when discussing development of games, when you likely dedicate as much time to or more to these sort of experiences? If you take the time to actually make these games(experiences, whatever), why shouldn't you be considered a game developer as much as anyone else who put their time to these issues?

Also, such distinctions between the two potentially leads to adding elements to these non-games that ultimately wouldn't improve them to be considered valid by these people who claim these genres aren't games. The Stanley Parable wouldn't have been improved (and I argue it would have been harmed) by adding failure states, but it would have become a game, making people who play it gamers and the people who made it game developers.

Finally, as much as I hate to bring it up and bring bile upon myself, I'm not going to censor myself on this because I feel this is an important point. This idea has the (intentional or unintentional) consequence of labeling some women-dominated genres among both buyers and developers as not part of the larger gaming scene. Gone Home was primarily developed by women, for example, and while I don't have statistics on me, I'd hazard a guess that the visual novel market has many female buyers and developers as well.

If people are going to ask why women supposedly don't make games and instead just complain about them (a discussion this forum went through pre-gamergate), why when women are actually making experiences that at the very require all the work of games if they aren't games themselves do we seek to define those games as non-games? When people ask "Why aren't women making games instead of complaining about them?" or "Why should we cater to women? they aren't important in the current market" do they really just mean "Why aren't women making games to match my standards?" or "Why should we cater to women? Women don't play right kinds of games to matter to me"? If so, then both arguments are completely bunk courtesy of the definitional goalpost moving hidden beneath them, and there really is little reason to justify the current state of gaming and the industry for women.

 

[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?

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 their puzzles or interaction with the environment?

All of it is mainly interaction with the environment. Though through interaction you would get clues for a certain puzzle to solve. It is all in a similar vein to cluedo.

Then I'd call it a very basic adventure game.

I hope you realize that the game was released in Japan and that every single early Japanese visual novel took direct inspiration from this game, right down to using a Western art style instead of an Asian one (and thus have similar gameplay as well).

So why would visual novels be somehow different from video games when the very first recorded cases of a visual novel took directly their inspiration from something that you described as a video game and not as something that should be considered as a non-game but as something else?

I've never played the game and my only knowledge of it is a wikipedia search. I assumed it had puzzles and item hunts like your average early LucasArts adventure game. But I do know that visual novels rarely involve anything beyond making an A B or C choice at a certain time.

Thats not gameplay, because if it was, those "Choose your own adventure books" would be video games.

Phoenix Wright IS a game however because you have to find the right objects, present evidence at the right time, and all the other tricks it adds in.

I think there is a problem with your statement, since "Choose Your Own Adventure Books" are not on a video device. Which cancels them out of the definition entirely.

They actually require interaction through video motion in order to continue, which is why I consider them to be video games.

 

[kael013]

"The modern definition of a videogame is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device."

I'm sorry, but that is BS. Cutting out all the stuff about tech, all you said was a game is a game. That's a circular definition.

I look at these walking simulators and interactive fiction and think "Why is this a game? Why not a novel or a film?" I contribute nothing to the story, I only turn the page. Oh, sure, you could say the same of other games like CoD, but even in corridor shooters I contribute to the story, even if it only matters outside of the game. How I tackle a firefight may well be different to how you do it. Maybe you hold back and snipe while I run around sprayin'-n'-prayin'. Same scenario, different stories. Dear Esther? "I walked around an island and was talked to about... something." There's no player involvement.

I mean, what makes a videogame different from other forms of media? Books have stories, but the visuals are all in your imagination. Then film came along and suddenly the visuals were no longer in your head, but before your eyes. In both cases, however, the audience wasn't involved. They were some nebulous group that watched the story unfold. Now with videogames, that's not the case. The audience is no longer just watching, they are contributing. Yet some walking simulators and interactive fiction seem to want to cut that away. And [i/]that's[/i] when they stop being games. Defying some omnipotent Narrator while walking through endless office rooms and corridors? Cool. Digitally walking along an island while listening to snippets of a story? Piece it all together into an audiobook and I'll listen to it during my morning jog thank you very much.

Does this mean all walking simulators and interactive fiction don't qualify as games? No. David Cage's stuff is interactive fiction, yet are also games since they use mechanics like combat, puzzles, and QTEs. The Path and The Stanley Parable are also games since player interaction determines the story and ending.

EDIT: as for failure states, that's personal preference. I like my games like I like my stories: with an end. However, some people prefer to play a game until they are bored with it and cast it aside, with goals incomplete and the game world either stuck in limbo or slowly turning into some hellish landscape. And I say more power to 'em; games are an artform and just like other artforms should have something for everyone. Why should we exclude?

 

[Thorn14]

snip

For the sake of clarity, I will assume that a game requires two things: A. Interactivity, and B. A failure state. Which, outside of kinetic novels, pretty much every visual novel has. I will use Katawa Shoujo as an example, for it is a very base VN, and most others expand on it's mechanics by adding things like puzzles, mini games, trainable stats and more.

In Katawa Shoujo, at certain points in the game, you will choose what to do, where to go, and what to say to several characters. Doing this garners points in a hidden system. Spending time at the track field gives you points with one girl, spending time at the library helps with another, and so on. This is the interactivity. If you fail to gain enough favor with a girl in the first chapter, you get a game over, likewise, in each of the girl's routes there are several times where you can choose to do something wrong (like cheat on your girlfriend with her best friend) that will also give you a failure state.

and finally, if there's no harm in them not being called games, then there certainly isn't any harm in them being called games, right?

Well first of all, I don't believe in the whole "Needs a failure state" to be considered games. And Interactivity does not equal a game. I mean what if you can pick the ending of a movie. Does that make it a game? You build up flags and route points, sure, but you aren't interacting with the story in any way beyond picking 2 premade paths. Your own input is nothing beyond which page you want the book to go towards. I do not consider that gameplay.

Snip

Would you consider the makers of hentai games video game developers? Whats your opinion of CROWD? And I'm not going to go into the whole "Women make games for me" I have no idea who the devs of Gone Home were and I care not one bit what their gender is.

What I do care is it and Dear Esther were painfully boring and not worth their price tag at all. Gone Home MIGHT be a game if it had puzzles (I forget) but Dear Esther had noooothing going for it.

 

[RA92]

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.

Do you consider the opening bits of HL and HL2 - where you just can just explore environment and not be killed - to be not gameplay and an extension of the menu screen?

Those were glorified cutscenes really, albit somewhat explorable and interactive, which was neat. But not nearly the core gameplay.

Not the core gameplay, but gameplay none the less, yes?

I wouldn't call those segments an extension of the menu screen, but the sentiment is more or less accurate. Or to be more accurate, if the games were only those opening bits, I'd consider them as "walking simulators" or whatever the preferred term is instead of "games".

Seeing as how you're hesitating to define whether the non-violent exploratory bits in mechanics-heavy games count as gameplay or not, I think your views are basically the same as TB's - you're less interested in semantics and more interested in being able to identify something from a quick glance to make an educated purchasing decisions. Nothing wrong with that, but I would say that's what we have genres and sub-genres for.

Not talking about you, but TB was clearly disingenuous when he was saying that he doesn't use the term in a 'derogatory' manner. What he's doing is excluding these games from the conversation because to him clearly they are something 'less' than his mechanics-heavy games of choice.

Are you sure he's saying "less" and not just "other"? As in "outside my chosen field of review", same as a movie reviewer might not review games and vice versa?

C'mon. Has the term 'walking simulator' ever been used in anything but a derogatory manner?

If there is a youtube video of someone experiencing the game... will there be any enjoyment left for you yourselfe if you go through it? Or is the story the only thing of interest and the whole thing will be rendered redundand by watching a youtube video of it?

Do rail shooters count as games then? Movement is restricted in a predefined manner and the enemies appear on the screen in exactly the same sequence every time - do LPs of them 'ruin' them?

By the way, what the fuck is up with these illegible captchas?

 

[Miles Maldonado]

Something that gets me on this is that you could make the argument that documentaries are not movies because they intend to inform, not entertain. It's the same sort of idea even if I've never seen someone say a documentary isn't a movie, because ultimately it's using the same toolset in a different way. March of the Penguins is as much of a movie as Tora Tora Tora, and by the same measure Dear Esther, the Stanley Parable, and so on are video games - I guess "narrative centered" instead of "mechanically centered", but games none the less, as they are effectively the digital counterpart of reading a book or even a Choose Your Own Adventure book if anyone remembers those from the classroom.

Saying "It's not a game" is more dismissal than anything; there's more ways to entertain than "It's Fun" after all.

Also, you should have called the steam group the Jimquisitors.

 

[Wisq]

That's why definitions are important. The entirety of human society is based on them. It is never acceptable for the same word to mean completely different things to any two people, because that undermines the very foundation of human interaction.

You're familiar with the word "spastic" or "spaz", right? Depending on which side of the Atlantic you hail from, it's either a completely inoffensive term for a mix of hyperactivity and clumsiness, or a medical term denoting cerebral palsy (and highly offensive to palsy sufferers if applied in the former sense). The contrast is enough that "spaz" makes it into several brand names in the States, yet provokes outrage in the UK if any high-profile person (even an American one) happens to use it.

Despite this, nobody's moving to unify the two definitions, nor has interaction between the US and UK broken down. In fact, last I checked, they were military and political allies. So I think it may be more acceptable and less undermining than you think.

Sure, it's an unfortunate situation that can lead to egg on faces at times, and also leads to general avoidance of the word in international contexts. But the truth of the matter is, we generally have several different words for all but the most obscure things in the world -- and so there are plenty of words we can fall back on even if the most obvious ones fail us.