"gamer logic" nonsense that annoys you

[alienjesus]

When kids are playing cops and robbers or mums and dads or whatever, that is a game. It does not have a lose condition.

Perhaps, but if you stuck a box of GI Joes and Barbies in a box and called it a board game you'd probably have some folks disagree with the label too.

It's likely, in part, a product of how many other video game have developed. Role playing in general (as playing cops and robbers might be) doesn't have to involve stats and combat, but the origins of computer role playing games focus on that a lot. The focus may eventually shift, similar to how fewer and fewer games seem to make high scores a thing, but even then the stat-centric games will likely still persist under some label.

Text Adventures have been around since the 80s and typically offer similar or less interaction than your average modern day visual novel or 'walking simulator'. No-one ever denied they were video games back in the day.

It seems to me that people definitions are much more restrictive about what counts now than they were when I was a kid. Mario Paint was considered a video game by everyone I knew then. That doesn't have a lose condition either.

[BogusMeatFactory]

If you can play with it, it can be a game.

[Sarge]

Dante in DMC3 is more like a Ninja Turtle, though. The game doesn't take itself nearly as seriously, and is better for it.

I thought the gameplay in DmC was fine, but the tone was terrible. You want to talk about games "trying too hard" or being "edgy" for no good reason, DmC was it.

[isiolia]

It seems to me that people definitions are much more restrictive about what counts now than they were when I was a kid. Mario Paint was considered a video game by everyone I knew then. That doesn't have a lose condition either.

So did MS just kill off one of the longest running Windows games the other day when they discontinued MS Paint?

You can literally "play" with almost anything, so it's perhaps not the best metric to go by.

[alienjesus]

By my own definitions nowadays, then no, they didnt. Paint wasn't a game.

It was a toy.

Toy: An object you use to play with.
Game: A form of play which uses a defined ruleset.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Why have a metric in the first place? What good does it have to have a panel look at this and say, "This is a game, but this very similar thing is not because if these arbitrary criteria that we created." It serves no good to be exclusive of things when everyone is just out there have fun playing games.

[marurun]

"Game" is not a strictly defined word. Game is more like vegetable than fruit. Fruit is a biological, botanical term. Something is either a fruit or it isn't. Vegetable is much more loose, because it's grounded more in both nutrition and cultural convention. A potato is a vegetable, kind of, but also a starch. Grains aren't vegetables, though in many ways they resemble them. A tomato is a vegetable, though it is also a fruit. A tomato is nothing like a head of bibb lettuce which is nothing like a carrot, but they are all vegetables.

Games are like vegetables. Games are about interaction and play, but that definition is very loose. Games are not necessarily about high scores or win/lose states or player competition, though they certainly can be. There are DVD games that are really based around using that basic menu programming and they use the DVD remote to control them. You can make a game around mundane activities. I really think whether something is a game is more about the intent of the players, and to a lesser extend, the intent of the creators, than any particular mechanical conventions, other than simply that it is interactive in some capacity. Are you interacting with it? Are you having fun? Are you at play? It's a game. Maybe it's not inherently a game because the creator of that didn't intend it to be a game, but if you're making a game of it, it's now a game. Likewise, in the case of visual novels and more story-based games (walking simulators), they are being sold as games, the creators often intend them to be considered games, and many of the players interact with them in a way that they feel is playing a game. That makes them a game.

Some of you seem to really want there to be more solid definitional lines as to what is or isn't a game, but not everything in the universe has those strict lines. Game is an inclusive term, not an exclusive one. Gaming is not a vast walled garden.

[PartridgeSenpai]

It seems to me that people definitions are much more restrictive about what counts now than they were when I was a kid. Mario Paint was considered a video game by everyone I knew then. That doesn't have a lose condition either.

So did MS just kill off one of the longest running Windows games the other day when they discontinued MS Paint?

You can literally "play" with almost anything, so it's perhaps not the best metric to go by.

I absolutely agree with Isiolia here. You can "play" with absolutely anything, but that does not make what you are doing a "game" in the empirical sense.

Some of you seem to really want there to be more solid definitional lines as to what is or isn't a game, but not everything in the universe has those strict lines. Game is an inclusive term, not an exclusive one. Gaming is not a vast walled garden.

This seems to come down to a general disagreement between us. Is anything you can "play" automatically considered a "game?" Isiolia and I clearly disagree with that, while BMF and Marurun clearly agree. This has been really fantastically fun discourse though. This is why linguistics can be so fun

[isiolia]

Why have a metric in the first place? What good does it have to have a panel look at this and say, "This is a game, but this very similar thing is not because if these arbitrary criteria that we created." It serves no good to be exclusive of things when everyone is just out there have fun playing games.

Same rationale that has been mentioned over and over in the thread. Labeling things appropriately helps people navigate the vast amount of content out there to find things they like, or avoid things they don't. What seems silly is turning that into some sort of assessment of value, like if something isn't considered a game that it means it's something less or that people don't like it.

Are you interacting with it? Are you having fun? Are you at play? It's a game. Maybe it's not inherently a game because the creator of that didn't intend it to be a game, but if you're making a game of it, it's now a game. Likewise, in the case of visual novels and more story-based games (walking simulators), they are being sold as games, the creators often intend them to be considered games, and many of the players interact with them in a way that they feel is playing a game. That makes them a game.

Perhaps, though I think a good bit may also come down to retail. Entertainment software in general has tended to get lumped together - whether multimedia CD-ROM experiences in the 90s or VR spaces to wander around today, they tend to share shelf space (virtual or otherwise) with games. Maybe because of the hardware they run on, or audience, or whatever.

Even then, I think most of us are really just saying to put things in a genre/subgenre that's appropriate. Same as, say, having games that are entirely online multiplayer games next to ones with single player campaigns - nothing wrong with either, just be sure to label it so people know what to expect.

[BogusMeatFactory]

It is hard not to imagine all the game excluders walking around telling kids that what they are doing is not playing a game, because that seems to be the only goal to this debate.