Jimquisition: It's Not A Video Game!

kael013

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"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

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EyeReaper said:
Thorn14 said:
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.

Madmonk12345 said:
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

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Thorn14 said:
RA92 said:
Agayek said:
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?

Agayek said:
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.

Wisq said:
RA92 said:
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?

Karadalis said:
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

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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

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Agayek said:
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.
 

emanresu2

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Karadalis said:
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?
You just called it a boardgame yourself.

Karadalis said:
Heck "choose your own adventure" books have considerably more gameplay elements then these pieces of barely interactable fiction yet no one calls them games.
Those are books. Books are not games. Books aren't interactive.

You dont "play" gone home... you simply listen to it.
I just started Gone Home and listened to it. But it didn't even move past the first door. Nothing happened.

the silence said:
I don't agree that Mountain counts as a game. It's a screensaver, as far as I can tell.
Shall we now discuss the definition of "Screensaver"? Screensavers start automatically after a certain period of inactivity on the users part. They end once the user does something. Neither of that applies to Mountain. it doesn't start automatically. It doesn't end automatically and you can interact with it.

Screensavers also usually don't have a CPU usage of 40%.

Agayek said:
I disagree, for the most part. I don't think "walking simulators" qualify as games, because games already have a definition. According to Google:

game
noun
1.a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

This definition is fairly clear
Yes, it's fairly clear... that this definition is catered towards physical sport.
What about Monkey Island? It doesn't really require skill or luck. It may require strength in order to push the mouse around. But that's it.
Not a game?

Nion said:
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.
The Steam store is a website. The menus on your phone are menus and a digital clock is just that. A clock. Also DVD menus (it will come up here...) are DVD menus. Those things are already defined. They are not up for debate anymore (and probably never were).

BigTuk said:
The idea of a game is that not only is it interactive ut it also allows a means of expression and changing the state of the world through actions.
So turning all lights on and creating a huge mess by tossing all items around in Gone Home (while also collecting, searching and sicovering stuff) isn't changing the world but blowing a head off is?
What if you added a gun and a Zombie at the beginning of Gone Home? You'd shoot it and then the game proceeds as normal. Is it a game now even though it hasn't changed in any meaningful way at all? Just because of a gun and a zombie which may or may not kill you?
Or what if you'd starve after 5 minutes? Suddenly a game because you can "lose"?
 

Thorn14

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RA92 said:
Thorn14 said:
RA92 said:
Agayek said:
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?
Okay, no, I should have said aspect. As I said, they're cutscenes basically, which I do not consider gameplay.

hydrolythe said:
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.
I don't consider interaction to = gameplay. You aren't playing an A B or C choice.
 

Karadalis

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RA92 said:
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?
Thats actually an interesting question there. Not that on rail shooters have enjoyed alot of attention or are a beloved franchise.

Guess that has to do with the lack of enjoyment you can derive from these games. But atleast they do have an element of "skill" involved... mainly your reaction time. And have win and fail states.

But yeah.. in their basic nature they are nothing then interactive movies you can fail at. They have gameplay elements thought wich brings them much closer to being an actual game then a video novel.
 

Thorn14

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Karadalis said:
RA92 said:
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?
Thats actually an interesting question there. Not that on rail shooters have enjoyed alot of attention or are a beloved franchise.

Guess that has to do with the lack of enjoyment you can derive from these games. But atleast they do have an element of "skill" involved... mainly your reaction time. And have win and fail states.

But yeah.. in their basic nature they are nothing then interactive movies you can fail at. They have gameplay elements thought wich brings them much closer to being an actual game then a video novel.
For rail shooters I would say it depends if your input matters at all. I know there are some rail shooters where you can set the controller down and the game iwll progress regardless.
 

Agayek

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RA92 said:
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.
Where am I hesitating? I'm saying straight up that if the game was nothing but those segments, I wouldn't consider them a game. How is that hesitation at all?

The only equivocating I'm doing is over whether or not I'd call it an extension of the menu screen, and that's only because I'm not sure what the best word to use is. It's not a menu screen, full stop, so I don't want to call it that, and it's not really a game, so it's not really that. Being generous, I might go so far as to call it a "tutorial section", but it doesn't particularly do that either, so it doesn't seem to fit. "Interactive Cutscene" is the closest thing I can think of that accurately describes those portions of the game.
 

Lugardo Sandoval

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Another good ep Jim, but do you think that steam will ever create some method of filtering out this trash, or is the lure of money too much for them to resist?
 

Agayek

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Wisq said:
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.
Believe it or not, this is a problem. People are, in certain situations, unable to properly express themselves because of conflicting definitions, and the ideas and concepts they try to convey get muddied by using less precise or less familiar language.

Now, this isn't an insurmountable problem, and I never meant to imply that it was. It's simply a problem that exists, and in all likelihood is always going to exist as long as there's two or more people alive. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be actively trying to minimize it though.
 

Agayek

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emanresu2 said:
Yes, it's fairly clear... that this definition is catered towards physical sport.
What about Monkey Island? It doesn't really require skill or luck. It may require strength in order to push the mouse around. But that's it.
Not a game?
Monkey Island does require skill though. It requires "adventure-game-logic skills" in order to figure out the puzzles and progress through the game. Depending on your perspective, it may not require a huge amount of skill in order to figure out the puzzles, but it's still fundamentally driven by the player's ability to solve the puzzles.
 

OldGrover

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Agayek said:
emanresu2 said:
Yes, it's fairly clear... that this definition is catered towards physical sport.
What about Monkey Island? It doesn't really require skill or luck. It may require strength in order to push the mouse around. But that's it.
Not a game?
Monkey Island does require skill though. It requires "adventure-game-logic skills" in order to figure out the puzzles and progress through the game. Depending on your perspective, it may not require a huge amount of skill in order to figure out the puzzles, but it's still fundamentally driven by the player's ability to solve the puzzles.
Even with the hint system? It will tell the player the answer if they like - no skill at all required.
 

MrDumpkins

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RA92 said:
MrDumpkins said:
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.
Yeah I kind of got that idea as well from his video, but at the same time I feel like the point he was making has validity. I think Jim's point has validity too, in fact Jim's video has made me rethink my stance on this issue. I still think it comes down to classification like TB said. Perhaps the best of both worlds will be the solution, where we still consider them games, just a different genre like FPS, RTS, etc. Walking simulator is a term I don't like because it has implied negativity to it. The main distinction I see between games like gone home and halo is that Halo one builds its gameplay around it's atmosphere or story, while the other builds its story and atmosphere around gameplay.
 

Schadrach

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Jimothy Sterling said:
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
By your definition, all of my movie DVDs are video games, because there's a menu you pass through to watch the video, and you can pause, rewind, and fast forward. That's interactivity, however slight.
 

Scrustle

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I remember Jim mentioning he was going to do this topic a while ago. I was wondering whether he was ever actually going to get around to doing it. But whether he was or not, I knew that it would mean the first time I would sign in to these forums in a very long time.

Usually I think Jim is right on the money, and I have a huge amount of respect for him and what he does, but I just can't agree on this one at all. It's a topic I've thought about a lot, and I think it's a real shame that when people talk about it, it always seems to be such an unfairly one-sided discussion, because no one seems to even want to listen to the side that says this or that isn't a game, and thus only has very poor justifications for why something is.

From my point of view, a game is defined as a measured test of skill that is created for the purpose of entertainment. There's more to it than that, but that's the general gist of it. It gets at what the essence of games are; that essence of competition. Something which covers games in general, be they digital or otherwise. Jim actually mentions that in the video. Another thing Jim does to define videogames is use the word "game" in the definition. It should be obvious why that's a poor argument.

But what I more want to get across is why I'm making this argument. There seems to be many assumptions about why people want to argue something isn't a game, and they're all tiresome strawman arguments. I'll get to those later, but first I'll describe why I'm actually making this argument.

For one thing, I think saying these non-games are games creates poor expectations for what experience something is offering. When you say something is a game, it is generally understood to have that essence of competition about it. It's fair to be upset that something advertised as a game ends up not having that type of interaction. But that reaction sometimes means that something doesn't get the recognition it deserves for what it actually does achieve. If people went in not expecting something to be a game, then people would be a lot more open-minded towards it.

This leads on to another reason, that I think calling these things games actually limits what they can be, and potentially their audience too. There's a lot of talk about how people who want a stricter definition of games are trying to restrict what game can be, but I'm actually trying to achieve the opposite. If we more widely recognised these non-games as the entirely new medium that they are, then that gives them endless potential to explore what they can do. They aren't limited by what games are, and they can experiment and branch out to see what they can achieve. I think it also potentially opens them up to a whole new audience. A lot more people may be interested in these things if they didn't think they were games. Some people are scared off by that word, but if they weren't burdened with that inappropriate definition, then the medium could be opened up to a whole new group of people.

Also, I think people are kind of hypocritical about what they define as a game when it comes to videogames. People focus on surface-level, superficial similarities, but miss the core of what the experience is. If you took a lot of what these non-games are, and created them in the physical world, people would be a lot less inclined to call them games. Think about if, say, Gone Home was created in a real house, with all the props having audio recordings attached to them. No one would call that a game. People would much more likely say it was some kind of artistic experiment in interactive storytelling. It would fit much better in the halls of a modern art gallery than on the sports channel on TV. People are only inclined to call these things games because they are created using the tools traditionally used to make games, and are controlled in a similar way too. But neither of those things define what a game is either.

Finally, I just thinks words should mean something. I don't expect the definition to be absolutely rigid and 100% flawless. Some things will obviously blur the lines. I just want them to be as accurate as possible. That doesn't limit what games can be. I don't want games to be limited in what they can explore. I also don't want games and these non-games to have no interaction with each other. While I think they are clearly separate, they do have some similarities, and I completely welcome them learning from each other. But I don't like being so lax that the word "game" doesn't mean anything anymore. So many of these experiences are hyped as being something which makes you questions what games really are, and that's simply what I've done. I'm not afraid to ask that question, or to have the discussion. To paraphrase the words of Tim Minchin, if you let your mind be too open, your brain might fall out.

I also want to pre-empt some counterarguments that I hear often, because honestly I'm tired of hearing them.

"You're just saying something isn't a game because you don't like it."

This is one that Jim actually said himself. It's utter nonsense. As should have been made clear by now, when I say something isn't a game, I am absolutely not making a value judgement. This has nothing to do whether something is good or bad. I'm not trying to discriminate against something by saying it's not "good enough" to be a game, nor am I saying something should be excluded from criticism. Saying something is a game is merely a descriptor. Just a useful tool to give you an expectation of what something is like. What the experience is like. Nothing more, nothing less.

"You only say something is a game if it's just about killing/it's hard."

Again, one I made clear is not the case already. Difficulty doesn't come in to the definition at all. A test of skill can be testing any skill level at all. It doesn't matter if it's designed for a baby who can't read, or if it's for a masochist with infinite free time. It also doesn't matter what skill is being tested. It can by anything, as long as it can be measured somehow. And when I say "measured", I'm not just talking about explicit win or lose states. There has to be something along those lines, thus the measuring, but in no way does it have to include the ability to die, fail, or even win.

Also, with this argument, not only is it an ad hominem, the strawman it creates is actually a stronger argument. At least killing is something which can legitimately be made in to a game mechanic. Simply making an accusation of character is not even an argument why something is a game at all.

"You're just afraid of games not being just about killing, etc."

Another one I think I've already covered, but I'll be more explicit about. I don't want games to be limited by anything, and I don't think there's anything they shouldn't be able to do. I'm not afraid of these non-games coming in and "taking over". I know that's not going to happen. But I welcome them for what they are and what they offer, and what they can teach games. None of that actually makes them games though. Welcoming diversity does not mean forgetting what definitions mean. An example of one medium can be about another.

Also, I think this argument can quite easily be flipped around the other way. Why are people are so afraid of these non-games not being called games? Do they think they will go away or they won't be able to talk about them if they don't have that descriptor attached to them? Obviously, this argument is absurd. That's exactly why it's a terrible argument in the opposite context too.

"You're just arguing semantics."

Yes I am. What's wrong with that? Do you really think semantics is a bad thing, or are you just parroting that because that's what people say when they don't want to think about something?

No? You think it's because I'm just drawing lines in the sand? I disagree. There are large, fundamental differences between these types of experiences, and distinguishing between them is only common sense. It's like distinguishing between a dolphin and a shark. Both have some similarities, but very important, essential differences.

Or maybe you think that arguing semantics distracts from what the "real" conversation should be. Again, I totally disagree. As I mentioned, I think these non-games are valid experiences and are totally worth of praise, criticism, analysis, or whatever you want to say about them. That doesn't mean we can't also discuss what they actually are. It is possible, and appropriate, to say two things at once on a certain topic. There's no pre-defined, limited amount of conversation that we're allowed to have on these things. It's just providing a context for something.

"A game is just something that's interactive."

Almost everything is interactive. You are interactive. Your friend is interactive. These forums are interactive. None of that makes them games. Most media is actually unusual in that it isn't interactive. And just because games are unusual amongst media in that they are, that doesn't mean that all interactive media has to be games. This is an example of why I think calling these non-games games is limiting to them.

"A game is just a story."

Another similarly weak argument. Pretty much everything is a story when you stretch it out to include the definition of games. At that point, you've made two words meaningless.

And yes, these are all genuinely arguments I've heard, several times.

I also want to be clear that I don't think my definition is the be-all, end-all. As I said earlier, I'm not afraid to have this discussion. I'm not afraid to be wrong. If you think you have a better definition, then I'll gladly read about it and see if it has any merit. If it does, perhaps I'll change my mind. Make my definition better.
 

Agayek

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OldGrover said:
Even with the hint system? It will tell the player the answer if they like - no skill at all required.
There's a hint system in Monkey Island? Since when?
 

RA92

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Loki_The_Good said:
So all of those games have variations on implicit failure states in fact most games save for Dear Esther, Mountain, arguably Proteus, have some sort of failure state like this.
You can actually trigger a fail state [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Qd_x-S7IpHA&t=845] in Mountain if you play the right notes. Is it a game now?

Thorn14 said:
Okay, no, I should have said aspect. As I said, they're cutscenes basically, which I do not consider gameplay.
Agayek said:
"Interactive Cutscene" is the closest thing I can think of that accurately describes those portions of the game.
Okay, so if I'm getting this right, you would consider QTEs to have more 'gameplay' because they have failure states than the bits of a game where you can freely explore and interact with a world without dying.