Ever picked up a game that wasn't really a game?

[PinkPanzer]

Yea I was super excited years ago for The Bouncer, turned out it was just a movie! Lol

All jokes aside it was a let down, the hype leading up to its release was huge

[Violent By Design]

I remember I wanted The Bouncer so bad. Too bad it ended up being a stinker, I never played it though.

[MrEco]

Sometimes the platform itself dictates whether something is seen as a "game" or not.

If Mario Paint had been released on the Amiga (replace Mario with James Pond or some other terrible 90s European anthropomorphic mascot) it would probably be regarded as simply "software".

Like, something like the Commodore 64 Music Machine would be a "game" on the NES or SMS.

Yeah I mean for something like Proteus or Dear Esther that people call a "not game".

Eh, I'll bite.

I've had more interaction than I care to admit with people who say Dear Esther, Proteus, Gone Home, etc, aren't games. Mostly on the Steam forums. To me it seems like 99% of the time people making such claims start in the state of mind of "I don't like this/this isn't fun" and then try to come up with a justification for their feelings and so they conclude, "Oh, well, it's not fun because it's not really a game." When questioned they seem to come up with (imo) arbitrary reasons and pull criteria out of nowhere that they hold as proof of them not being games.

To me, of course they are games. They are built the same as any other game, with programmers and artists and writers, etc. What you do in the game is irrelevant. To use an analogy, a school English textbook is not as fun to read for most people as Lord of the Rings would be. The textbook does not try to be fun, it doesn't have characters or a plot, but nobody would ever say it's "not a book." It's still words printed on paper, and it serves the purpose that it set out to. Similarly Dear Esther/Gone Home/Proteus might not have much "gameplay" in them, and maybe you spend most/all of your time walking around and looking at the environment and listening to music or narration, but they are still fundamentally video games by design.

[KalessinDB]

Yea I was super excited years ago for The Bouncer, turned out it was just a movie! Lol

Hey, I've had that before! Except it was with Xenosaga 1. I swear, the DVD swag you got for pre-ordering episode 2 was basically as interactive as the actual game was. SO MANY CUTSCENES.

To use an analogy, a school English textbook is not as fun to read for most people as Lord of the Rings would be.

Not as much fun to read as LotR, but certainly as fun to read as the Silmarillion and/or Unfinished Tales.

Ugh. The man was a genius with languages and settings, but he was so very dry as a writer.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Well I don't see why someone mentioned electroplankton...(i've not played it but still) as far as i know I would classify it as a music/rhythm game from what I saw of it in a metal jesus video...anyone know why it doesn't count(at least to them)?

It is fun, but there is no goal (like there is in soccer). You can't "win" Electroplankton, you can only make music, record your voice, and play around with it. (My children love it, BTW.)

[darsparx]

Well I don't see why someone mentioned electroplankton...(i've not played it but still) as far as i know I would classify it as a music/rhythm game from what I saw of it in a metal jesus video...anyone know why it doesn't count(at least to them)?

It is fun, but there is no goal (like there is in soccer). You can't "win" Electroplankton, you can only make music, record your voice, and play around with it. (My children love it, BTW.)

Well I thought that was the same with all music based games in the fax that there's not much of a goal to them XD

[alienjesus]

Well I don't see why someone mentioned electroplankton...(i've not played it but still) as far as i know I would classify it as a music/rhythm game from what I saw of it in a metal jesus video...anyone know why it doesn't count(at least to them)?

It is fun, but there is no goal (like there is in soccer). You can't "win" Electroplankton, you can only make music, record your voice, and play around with it. (My children love it, BTW.)

Well I thought that was the same with all music based games in the fax that there's not much of a goal to them XD

...there are obvious goals to most rhythm games. Get high scores, beat songs.

You can't even make an actual song in electroplankton. You can just play with stuff to make noise. There's not really direct control over the notes, nothing can be saved, there's no multiple music tracks or layers. Everything is temporary.

Electroplankton is a music toy, not a music game.

[prfsnl_gmr]

^ this.

In Guitar Hero, PaRappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5, etc., you win or lose, obtain a high score, etc. In Electroplankton - as with the KORG "games" for the Nintendo DS - you simply create music as you would with any other musical instrument. Calling Electroplankton a "game" is akin to calling a piano a "game".

[alienjesus]

^ this.

In Guitar Hero, PaRappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5, etc., you win or lose, obtain a high score, etc. In Electroplankton - as with the KORG "games" for the Nintendo DS - you simply create music as you would with any other musical instrument. Calling Electroplankton a "game" is akin to calling a piano a "game".

Calling electroplankton an instrument is a stretch too. Most plankton don't really have any sort of direct control, a way to change the notes, or a way to just play exactly what you want to play. It's pretty unique. It's an interactive art piece.

[isiolia]

The textbook does not try to be fun, it doesn't have characters or a plot, but nobody would ever say it's "not a book." It's still words printed on paper, and it serves the purpose that it set out to. Similarly Dear Esther/Gone Home/Proteus might not have much "gameplay" in them, and maybe you spend most/all of your time walking around and looking at the environment and listening to music or narration, but they are still fundamentally video games by design.

Thing is, "video game" is not the most general category to put them in. They're computer programs, in the same way that textbooks and novels are both books.

I've played 2/3 of your named examples, and several visual novels and so on. I do actually enjoy them. However, saying something is a game indicates more that it is, on some level, a contest with a set of rules. It creates expectations.

To me, it's just a matter of classification. Not every computer program used to tell a story is necessarily a game. There's machinima, there are motion comics, and so on. Call something a visual novel, and the expectation turns into one of making a few choices across a few hours of clicking through text and images.

Personally, I'd agree that something like Dear Esther shouldn't be labeled as a game. It isn't one. It's interactive art/storytelling utilizing video game technology and tools. As those tools become more accessible, more creators are going to use them to express something (quite a lot if VR takes off, since what else is prepared to utilize it?).

Why not label software like that as something else?

At some point or another, a 10 part documentary is something different than a blockbuster film, which is different from an installation piece using video. They can all be using similar tools, but the end product is different enough to be called something else. Because they are, audience expectations are managed.