Jimquisition: It's Not A Video Game!

[OldGrover]

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?

The re-releases and the new games all have hint systems. The original releases did not.

Which makes it an interesting question - can the addition of the hint system take something that was a game (the original) and make it not a game (the re-releases)?

 

[Thorn14]

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?

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

"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.

I don't consider fail states to be the requirement for gameplay. And it depends on the QTE. If the QTE is an aspect of the gameplay (Finishing blows in God of War) sure. But a lot of QTE are just cutscenes that force you to press a button at times so you don't die.

The less we see of those the better. At least with exploration I can do it at my own pace. Games like Asura's Wrath I can literally watch on youtube and have the same experience. I don't have a high opinion of most QTE.

 

[emanresu2]

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.

I don't think it requires skill to walk around and try to use every item on every object. You can just mindlessly go click click click click click and eventually you'll beat the game. You surely can't lose so winning is actually the only way for this "game" to end.

 

[Wulfram77]

People who use not a game as a criticism are idiots. Many things in life are not video games, and yet are good.

Jim's "modern definition" of video game is utterly useless. The only part of that definition that this video itself doesn't meet is "game", but the definition of "game" is the whole argument.

And the rest of the arguments are silly. Saying something is not a video game is not equivalent to arguing it should not exist. The medium is not advanced by blurring the definition to include things that are not part of the medium. Some works should be judged on different standards to others - that cookie I just ate is not bad because it lacks good RPG mechanics - if there's a problem there it's simply the silly notion that "art" is above criticism and judgement.

 

[Caostotale]

People whinging about what is and isn't a video game is about as tedious as people whinging about who is and isn't a gamer. More and more, I think that these kinds of discussions are less about the actual topics under discussion and more about the personal ambitions (psychological, social, etc...) of the people arguing. The more I observe the gaming scene, the less I'm convinced that there's any greater good to be gained from all these rigid definitions and territorial posturings.

 

[Entitled]

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.

So diddily-doddily what?

If we say that TV shows aren't movies, then TV show fans aren't movie fans, and TV show creators aren't movie creators.

If we say that webcomics aren't graphic novels, then Alan Moore isn't a webcomic artist and Randall Munroe isn't a graphic novelist.

Yeah, if we consider two mediums separate, then their artists are artists belong to separate mediums. Where is the problem?

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.

Calling them games is exactly what will do that, if people insist that they are bad games because they are not interactive enough, just like Jim did in this very video, complaining that Dear Esther doesn't have enough player agency, a complaint that never would come up against other non-games, such as paintings, or poems.

Let people decide whether they are fans of video games AND interactive art, AND visual Novels, and then let them review and criticize whichever fandoms they consider themselves to be part of, and leave the rest alone.

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.

This reminds me of the similar problem with the comic book industry.

When people ask "Why aren't there women in the comic book industry?", the real answer is "Becasuse you are defining Comic Book Industry as that old traditionalist thing with no women in it. Meanwhile, there are plenty of women in younger, more flexible mediums of comics drawing, such as webcomics [http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/4/8/5/214485_v1.jpg].

But all things considered, yeah, even if it's a bit weird that it turned out that way, I'm too busy bein glad that so many women write diverse comics that I like, to also be concerned about the silly insular perspective of the smaller industry.

The same goes for games. If it turns out that women are more attracted to Visual Novels, walking simulators, and and similar mediums, rather than video games, and I like all of these equally, then whatever, I'm too glad for them to worry about how it reflects on the "video game" label which I have no particular reason to put above all others, and enshrine for the sake of enshrining it.

 

[neverarine]

i love how Jim made a poin to speceficly not mention VN's in the video so that the forum would turn into a bloodbath...

as a side note i love how nobody here is realy bringing up the walking dead, which is basicly a visual novel but is made without any japanese influence and so suddenly nobody questions its legitimacy....

 

[RA92]

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.

But first person games need skill to navigate too. Have you ever seen someone trying to navigate a three dimensional space using M/K or gamepads for the first time? So just navigating through a 'walking simulator' can provide a challenge for someone who isn't used to analog sticks.

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.

It would be called an immersive theatre, which borrows a lot of ideologies from video games [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/20/how-theatre-is-taking-its-cue-from-video-games].

 

[OldGrover]

I don't consider fail states to be the requirement for gameplay.

wat

The fact that a fail state exists explicitly shows that there is player interactivity that can effect the outcome positively or negatively.

However, the lack of a fail state doesn't explicitly show there is not player interactivity.

 

[Darklupus]

I think Jim missed a big opportunity here. Rather than have a discussion on what constitutes a game, what the definition is and how it can be applied across the field, he simply laid down a declarative statement and said "that's it."

For example, I'm not completely sold on the notion that "visual novels" are "video games;" be they a work by Telltale, some other independant studio, or something more Japanese and adult-oriented. I fail to see how an electronic version of the choose-your-own-adventure books I grew up with can be compared to a simulation like Animal Crossing; which may be a game, but not in the same vein as the Sims franchise.

You know, I had a similar problem. My question was: Are books considered as video games if they're distributed online on any tool that uses a video screen? And I came up with....yes. Why? Are books fun? They can be. Are all video games fun? Some can be more than others. How do you play a book? By reading it. Is reading fun? Some books can be fun more than others.

So, since electronic books can be labeled as video games, therefore visual novels must be labeled as video games as well.

 

[Eric the Orange]

You dont have something like gone home competeting with minecraft for example in terms of "best gameplay"

But a lot of games cannot be compared linearly. How do you compare the game play of a fighting game to a strategy game. A flight simulator to a platformer. Ect.

By labeling it a "game" you can simply dismiss them as pieces of entertainment when they could be their own thing

OK, why do you see anything called a game as merely entertainment. Just because it's labeled a game doesn't mean that it cannot have a larger impact than that. In fact I'd say if what you said is true than we should stop calling a lot of games games. I think the people behind The Last of Us would object to saying that what they made was just entertainment.

 

[V4Viewtiful]

Be fair Jim, if Reggie had called it and "Apple TV" he'd 'ave been sued! XD

 

[Thorn14]

I don't consider fail states to be the requirement for gameplay.

wat

The fact that a fail state exists explicitly shows that there is player interactivity that can effect the outcome positively or negatively.

And it depends on the QTE. If the QTE is an aspect of the gameplay (Finishing blows in God of War) sure. But a lot of QTE are just cutscenes that force you to press a button at times so you don't die.

The same could be said of any chase sequence. Nobody would say that this isn't a game though.

I've played games without fail states. Space Engineers for example. Maybe it does have one on certain modes but not the one i played.

And chase sequences really depend on how they're played. If you can do them by just holding forward, its nothing more than a glorified cutscene.

 

[Agayek]

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.

As "gameplay", yes, QTEs are more of a game than walking down a hallway.

As "parts of a game", however, I very much think "walk down a hallway" can have substantially more value than a QTE, because a game doesn't need to be entirely gameplay. Cutscenes are very much part of games and that doesn't diminish them any, it's just a segment of a game that doesn't have any gameplay.

The re-releases and the new games all have hint systems. The original releases did not.

Which makes it an interesting question - can the addition of the hint system take something that was a game (the original) and make it not a game (the re-releases)?

Ah that makes sense. As for your question, I'd say no. A hint system doesn't remove the failure state, it just makes it easier to get out of it.

With the exception of not dying, and completing defined, rewarded quests, those are implicity win states, not explicit. Lets use another narrative-driven game as an example.

Persona 4 has essentially four endings, two good, and two bad. While its quite clear which are which, they both offer the same thing - an end to the narrative. The narrative wraps up in a very upbeat way if its the good endings, and on an extremely sour and sad way if its the bad endings, but each ending, from a gameplay perspective, is equally valid as each other. LA Noire functions a similar way, with cases being able to end negatively or positively. The reward is implicit, through a positive outcome. Nobody in their right mind would say Half-Life 2 isn't a game, but has the same implicit Win state as, say, Gone Home, which so many people say isn't a game.

"Has an ending" is not the same thing as "has a win state".

The point is overcoming challenge (note: I do not mean difficulty), and beating, say, Half-Life 2 challenges the user to employ "video game skills" in order to overcome that challenge. That's what a win state is: overcoming a challenge. I haven't played Gone Home, so I have no opinion on whether or not it's a game, but if there isn't a challenge involved in it, then getting to the end doesn't make it a win state.

Again, games accused of not being games have the same implicit fail states. You miss out on content, or just can't even complete the game. In Gone Home, its completely possible to not finish the game because you can't find all of the necessary notes, or because you can't find where you have to go. That in its own is a sort of challenge presented, like the puzzles in the Portal series. It makes me wonder if people would say that Portal isn't a game if they got rid of the turrets and spikes, where you can still fail to complete a puzzle without any hazards.

There's a lot of latent hypocrisy in what constitutes as a "game". For whatever reason, dislike of the content discussed, lack of through reasoning, etc.

If that's true, then Gone Home would be a game. I couldn't say one way or the other, as I haven't played it. From what I've read, the whole thing is basically "you're dropped off in front of a house, go explore", and you can then wander around and uncover information about the PC's gay sister. There's no real explicit or implicit failure or win states to that, and if that's the case I'd say that it's not a game. I really can't make any definitive statements on it without having seen it in action myself though, so I'm not going to.

And Portal has plenty of puzzles that don't have turrets and spikes, but it still had a failure state of "didn't complete the puzzle" so it's still a game.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Honestly, I think the debate misses the point behind disdain for some "games". Candyland and Go are both games as people define them, but one is an intricate strategy game, and the other is color recognition and pure luck of the draw. One people can spend a lifetime never fully mastering, and the other is rarely enjoyed past a certain age by someone that ate paint chips a lot. Not all "games" are created equal: some exist to challenge, and some exist to teach, and some are dull as dirt, but put some money down on them and watch people go nuts. Other media aren't any different: Sesame street and Lawn and Order are both TV shows, See spot run and War and Peace are both books, and movies run the full gambit.

Video games on the other hand seem to be devoid of an effort to acknowledge the differentiation between the simple and the complex: trying to call everything a game and be done with it. Yet if one game can involve strategy, a plot with moral ambiguity, and a sense of difficulty to accomplish a goal, and another game has you walk from point A to point B and look at the pretty graphics, can they be called truly equal? While the term "not a game" may be used as a form of criticism, the insistence on calling something a game implies it's as much a game (and thus you as much a gamer) as something more complex instead of addressing the root of the criticism, that the game you're playing is simple and you're enjoying it in as sedentary a playstyle as possible, people get upset that those that imply that Dear Esther is more akin to Desert Bus with more interesting scenery, or Gone Home is a simple child's scavenger hunt.

And the thing is, when written well, these things would still have every right to exist. I love a good visual novel (I'm actually quite pissed Zero Escape 3 isn't happening). But I'm smart enough to know when I'm playing a choose your own adventure book, and don't get defensive that a 10 hour "game" is really 10 hours of reading.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

To me there's a difference between 'video game' and 'game'. Walking simulators are not games but they're video games. I know that's a bizarre thing to say, it's just the nomenclature of the term 'video game' is so fuzzy.

I tend to agree with that. "Gone Home" isn't a game per se, but it's a video game by nature of the support it uses. It's a piece of interactive media that asks of the user that he inputs commands using predefined hardware, and those commands alter the game world.

On the other hand, I'm not denigrating "Gone Home" by saying it isn't a game. It's a story that needed to be told using the appropriate medium, and it certainly feels like modern game mechanics provided that adequate medium. I thought it was a bit preachy, sure, but as a tale? As a story? It was exceedingly well told. My only gripe would be the really quick abandonment of the house's potentially gruesome past. Things are mentioned that seem like they could be pretty creepy (Ouija boards, creepy former house owner with a potentially murderous past and the like), but "Gone Home" took a hard turn to the left and figured it would tackle Real Serious Shit instead. I'm all for feminine emancipation and self-discovery; the way in which the game used them just felt a bit abrupt. I got used to it, but there certainly was a moment where I more or less went "Wait, what?" once I realized where the story was going.

As for "Dear Esther", that would have to be a fairly clear non-game to me. Yes, the medium being used is typical of the industry, but the story that's presented to the player is intentionally disjointed, made to foster a thorough walk-through of the island. I would've almost appreciated a written take on the story rather than what we received, seeing as the plodding pace of the avatar didn't really inspire thoughtfulness in me. I get that we had to amble around slowly to really take the atmosphere and setting in, but the pace was so slow it eventually felt like navel-gazing to me.

"The Stanley Parable", on the other hand, is something I'd consider as a video game in its entirety. It's focused around narrative delivery, sure, but it pokes fun at the sacrosanct notions of choice, achievements and of the player's power in a simulated environment. It's more an extremely self-aware game than a non-game, in my opinion. Even bringing up the console and trying to cheat your way past the Narrator's vigilance is accounted for; and I can't think of anything more systemic to video games as a whole than developer commands left in as cheats.