Sometimes I like to believe that I hate arguing semantics. Well, for the most part, I do hate it, but at the same time, it's unavoidable. The problem is that every now and then, somebody comes up with some little theoretical retort that makes them sound smart but completely avoids the topic at hand.
Look at the conundrum of "role-playing games." The term was used to differentiate table-top dice-rolling games between the D&D style character-driven adventures and the more mainstream notion of board games, including Snakes and Ladders and Monopoly. In the transition to the video game medium, the "RPG" genre has been tackled by such early milestone series as Wizardry and Ultima, evolving all the way to Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect, etc. Somewhere in the middle, a series called Quest for Glory achieved a seamless balance by hybridizing Sierra's signature style of adventure game with customizable character elements in which your abilities develop based on the actions you take, and certain side quests can only be accessed by making decisions specific to your class (fighter, wizard or thief).
Meanwhile, in Japan, the hybridization of adventure gaming with RPG elements was focused less on actual character customization and more on an RPG-inspired reward system in which combat grinding leads to stat boosts (levelling up) and money to buy better weapons, armour, potions, etc. However, as we particularly see in the "J-RPGs" of today, the emphasis on story and character arc takes precedence over the user's input into how we want our character to be. Compare a game like Fallout, in which I determine my character's name class, gender, strengths and weaknesses, and am given a selection of dialogue choices, typically between a good, a bad and a smart-ass response, whereas Final Fantasy VII told me that I'm a frustrated stargazer named Cloud Strife, and yes, that IS my hair, and I have to like it. The more that the two cultures merged in mainstream popularity, the term "RPG" began to fade in its distinction to the point where it was defined mainly by a gameplay system that incorporates statistics and random elements, even as it is taken away from the turn-based combat mechanism and fused with hand-eye coordinated shooters (see: Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Borderlands).
However, in the mainstream view, the actual definition of "RPG" got blurred to the point where players struggled to agree on which aspect was at the definitive core of the term. The distinction between the Western-style RPG and the J-RPG was defined as "linear" and "non-linear," noting that pinnacle WRPGs like Fallout are only concerned with one or two ultimate goals, with the rest of the game being optional missions and paths that eventually lead you to the story's destination. A speed-run video of Fallout 1 showed one player finishing the entire game inside of 10 minutes by only accomplishing two tasks (which, given, would not have been known to players on their first time playing). Everything else is essentially a series of side quests with varying degrees of importance in unravelling the overall story arc. JRPGs, on the other hand, follow a more rigid and "cinematic" storyline, with a few optional side quests.
With the rise of the internet message board, the line was drawn for gamers to declare their loyalties between the two contrasting styles of gameplay, and semantics became involved in the battle for dominance. Recently, posters have attempted to neutralize the term "RPG" altogether by deliberately detaching it from its roots and arguing that "you play a role in every game, so every game is an RPG." This argument is actually quite a bit more destructive than one might consider, once you realize that the term originated from separating D&D table top games and more family-friendly efforts. With the argument that "you play a role in every game," we have retroactively blurred the lines between Heroes Unlimited, where you created a comic-style character and customized his powers and/or abilities, and Monopoly, in which you play the role of a real estate tycoon ("dog" and "race car," etc., are also acceptable). Once you blur those lines, then suddenly the RPG genre has now been attributed to Bioshock, Zelda, and, technically, Pac-Man. Yes, because you play the role of Pac-Man, a ghost-busting roll of cheddar cheese, who wanders a maze, eating pellets. (Also of note is that I am anticipating that people might argue the semantics that Pac-Man is not actually a roll of cheddar cheese.)
With the term "RPG" now completely demolished and bastardized to include every single game under the sun, now it is "linear" and "non-linear" that is about to fall under the axe. With Yahtzee being one of, if not actually the most influential game reviewer/columnist at this point in time, a lot of his observations and quotes have become commonplace in the message boards, which then seep into gaming culture. I have observed that his quip about "the cake is a lie" not being the funniest part of Portal had started a chain-effect that tore down one of the gaming culture's most signature "secret handshakes." I could write a whole other column about why a line doesn't necessarily have to be the funniest thing in the entire game in order to become its signature catch phrase, but I don't really want to inspire the phrase to become overused again.
And so, where does Yahtzee fit into all of this? Well, I can't recall specifically if it was an episode of Zero Punctuation or his often-more-insightful Extra Punctuation, but he noted the semantic fallacy of referring to gaming plots as "linear" or "non-linear." The observation was that every story is linear, no matter what, because every plot has a beginning and an end. I am almost entirely certain that this argument will catch on like a fire in the savannah, and soon enough we will no longer be allowed to make the distinction between Fallout and Dragon's Lair.
I guess the question that is left to be faced is whether or not we even need these terms, anyways. Gaming has advanced to the point where everything is being hybridized away from their pure forms. Games like Call of Duty to Fallout 3 force a distinction between "FPS with RPG elements" to "RPG with FPS elements" so that we have an understanding of their game mechanics. A gamer can easily identify which of the above tags befit their respective game, but the non-gamer that's trying to buy them a birthday gift was lost as soon as you started using abbreviations at all. Even with easily identifiable terms to define each genre, the games themselves are blurring the lines to the point where I don't even know what to call Borderlands. Now that we're even destroying the terms that we've previously used to differentiate them, we are now lumping everything into a single category: "Games." Once we hit that point, then the term "gamer" will encompass everybody. Whether you're a fan of Final Fantasy or Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid or Mario, Call of Duty or Farmville, a gamer is an inclusive term for anybody who spends their time playing either WoW or Barbie. To me, it's a non-issue. I am a gamer, though my devotion cannot be measured by my "credentials." But to the gaming elitists who try to define the ever elusive term of the "True Gamer," their world has become destroyed.
Look at the conundrum of "role-playing games." The term was used to differentiate table-top dice-rolling games between the D&D style character-driven adventures and the more mainstream notion of board games, including Snakes and Ladders and Monopoly. In the transition to the video game medium, the "RPG" genre has been tackled by such early milestone series as Wizardry and Ultima, evolving all the way to Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect, etc. Somewhere in the middle, a series called Quest for Glory achieved a seamless balance by hybridizing Sierra's signature style of adventure game with customizable character elements in which your abilities develop based on the actions you take, and certain side quests can only be accessed by making decisions specific to your class (fighter, wizard or thief).
Meanwhile, in Japan, the hybridization of adventure gaming with RPG elements was focused less on actual character customization and more on an RPG-inspired reward system in which combat grinding leads to stat boosts (levelling up) and money to buy better weapons, armour, potions, etc. However, as we particularly see in the "J-RPGs" of today, the emphasis on story and character arc takes precedence over the user's input into how we want our character to be. Compare a game like Fallout, in which I determine my character's name class, gender, strengths and weaknesses, and am given a selection of dialogue choices, typically between a good, a bad and a smart-ass response, whereas Final Fantasy VII told me that I'm a frustrated stargazer named Cloud Strife, and yes, that IS my hair, and I have to like it. The more that the two cultures merged in mainstream popularity, the term "RPG" began to fade in its distinction to the point where it was defined mainly by a gameplay system that incorporates statistics and random elements, even as it is taken away from the turn-based combat mechanism and fused with hand-eye coordinated shooters (see: Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Borderlands).
However, in the mainstream view, the actual definition of "RPG" got blurred to the point where players struggled to agree on which aspect was at the definitive core of the term. The distinction between the Western-style RPG and the J-RPG was defined as "linear" and "non-linear," noting that pinnacle WRPGs like Fallout are only concerned with one or two ultimate goals, with the rest of the game being optional missions and paths that eventually lead you to the story's destination. A speed-run video of Fallout 1 showed one player finishing the entire game inside of 10 minutes by only accomplishing two tasks (which, given, would not have been known to players on their first time playing). Everything else is essentially a series of side quests with varying degrees of importance in unravelling the overall story arc. JRPGs, on the other hand, follow a more rigid and "cinematic" storyline, with a few optional side quests.
With the rise of the internet message board, the line was drawn for gamers to declare their loyalties between the two contrasting styles of gameplay, and semantics became involved in the battle for dominance. Recently, posters have attempted to neutralize the term "RPG" altogether by deliberately detaching it from its roots and arguing that "you play a role in every game, so every game is an RPG." This argument is actually quite a bit more destructive than one might consider, once you realize that the term originated from separating D&D table top games and more family-friendly efforts. With the argument that "you play a role in every game," we have retroactively blurred the lines between Heroes Unlimited, where you created a comic-style character and customized his powers and/or abilities, and Monopoly, in which you play the role of a real estate tycoon ("dog" and "race car," etc., are also acceptable). Once you blur those lines, then suddenly the RPG genre has now been attributed to Bioshock, Zelda, and, technically, Pac-Man. Yes, because you play the role of Pac-Man, a ghost-busting roll of cheddar cheese, who wanders a maze, eating pellets. (Also of note is that I am anticipating that people might argue the semantics that Pac-Man is not actually a roll of cheddar cheese.)
With the term "RPG" now completely demolished and bastardized to include every single game under the sun, now it is "linear" and "non-linear" that is about to fall under the axe. With Yahtzee being one of, if not actually the most influential game reviewer/columnist at this point in time, a lot of his observations and quotes have become commonplace in the message boards, which then seep into gaming culture. I have observed that his quip about "the cake is a lie" not being the funniest part of Portal had started a chain-effect that tore down one of the gaming culture's most signature "secret handshakes." I could write a whole other column about why a line doesn't necessarily have to be the funniest thing in the entire game in order to become its signature catch phrase, but I don't really want to inspire the phrase to become overused again.
And so, where does Yahtzee fit into all of this? Well, I can't recall specifically if it was an episode of Zero Punctuation or his often-more-insightful Extra Punctuation, but he noted the semantic fallacy of referring to gaming plots as "linear" or "non-linear." The observation was that every story is linear, no matter what, because every plot has a beginning and an end. I am almost entirely certain that this argument will catch on like a fire in the savannah, and soon enough we will no longer be allowed to make the distinction between Fallout and Dragon's Lair.
I guess the question that is left to be faced is whether or not we even need these terms, anyways. Gaming has advanced to the point where everything is being hybridized away from their pure forms. Games like Call of Duty to Fallout 3 force a distinction between "FPS with RPG elements" to "RPG with FPS elements" so that we have an understanding of their game mechanics. A gamer can easily identify which of the above tags befit their respective game, but the non-gamer that's trying to buy them a birthday gift was lost as soon as you started using abbreviations at all. Even with easily identifiable terms to define each genre, the games themselves are blurring the lines to the point where I don't even know what to call Borderlands. Now that we're even destroying the terms that we've previously used to differentiate them, we are now lumping everything into a single category: "Games." Once we hit that point, then the term "gamer" will encompass everybody. Whether you're a fan of Final Fantasy or Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid or Mario, Call of Duty or Farmville, a gamer is an inclusive term for anybody who spends their time playing either WoW or Barbie. To me, it's a non-issue. I am a gamer, though my devotion cannot be measured by my "credentials." But to the gaming elitists who try to define the ever elusive term of the "True Gamer," their world has become destroyed.
