What counts as a video game?

[Stratomsk 15]

Visual Novels I think are interesting to talk about because they can either count as games or not. Some not only have branching paths, but stats or an inventory. Others are completely linear and are just a different way of telling a story using sprites and text.

 

In those cases, being called Visual Novels is misleading because you are applying a genre to some media that doesn't necessarily count as video games. Visual Novels are known as games because you can interact with the story, changing the story as a direct result. Some VN's do this in different ways by giving you an inventory but the basic idea is the same.

 

Really for games that are essentially Virtual Comic Books (or whatever you wish to call them) cannot count as games because of the lack of player interactivity with the games story. Its a shame that many treat them as Visual Novels when it only serves to mislead people.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Well Visual Novels are basically novels that are visual. No one said they have to be games or have player interaction. At least as far as my understanding of some of the fans of this type of thing.

Edited February 19, 2015 by KilloZapit

[Stratomsk 15]

Thats technically true isn't it. Visual Novels can be video games in some cases but in others can't be video games. It really depends on the player interactivity possible.

 

This is really an issue with the genre name itself which allows for this sort of confusion. I think "Interactive Visual Novels" would be enough to differentiate them from regular Visual Novels.

[Emerald 42]

I am currently in my first years bachelor game design with many veterans from the industry (including developers from the Tomb Raider franchise, Magic the Gather and Kick Off) and what I have been taught is a game needs to have at least one Game Loop. A Game Loop is Objective, Challenge, Reward. This can be anything, but must be within its own media. For example the core game loop for Tomb Raider is:

Objective: Explore

Challenge: Puzzles obstructing your path

Reward: Story progress

 

Minecraft:

Objective: Be creative

Challenge: Gathering the resources and building what you want to build

Reward: Intrinsic reward of achievement (in most cases)

 

FNAF:

Objective: Survive till 6AM

Challenge: Don't let the robots come in

Reward: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY (and a measly 102.something bucks)

[Kayzee 4,032]

You know, that is a interesting reward you put for Minecraft. It's kind of more like a meta-reward really (meta in this case referring to something beyond the game rather then the use of meta to mean about it's self). Does that mean you can also include meta-objectives and meta-challenges? Like could you do something like:

A Story:
Objective: Understanding the story
Challenge: Parsing the story's text
Reward: The accomplishment of having understood the story

Of course, you can turn anything into a game if you try hard enough. Maybe a better reward for Minecraft would be having the thing that you built rather then the achievement of building it, or maybe every reward in this case is not defined by in-game reward but by the reward the game gives you as a person, I don't know. I think there is a bit of room to fudge it anyway.

As a side note, I wrote a little rant on game design courses, but decided to move it to my blog, It's here if anyone cares.

[Emerald 42]

I'm not sure on that. What I would say myself is no, because simply the objective must be part of the gameplay. Intrinsic stuff is NOT gameplay, since intrinsic happens inside something and this case it would have to happen in the player. It is however possible as objectives set up by the players themselves, such as Nuzlocke runs in Pokemon games.

 

I suppose that your example would be a game loop for a visual novel? In this case, there are actually multiple things wrong with it. Like the objective, the challenge also should have to do gameplay. However, out of the three aspects in the game loop, challenges can only be part of the gameplay. It does not matter if it is getting past enemies or figuring out how to get somewhere, as long as it has to do with the actual gameplay. Two good ways of checking this are asking yourself: "is it an appropriate challenge for the objective?" (objective: explore, challenge: figure out where to go) or "is it tied in with the mechanics of the game?" (objective: get from a to b, challenge: get past enemies by fighting them)

 

While my last post mostly consisted of things I learned, this post is mostly build on how I interpret it so don't quote me on this. I'll probably ask one of my lecturers and see what they think.

[Kayzee 4,032]

Well I guess it's a matter of asking where the gameplay comes from. I mean anything could have a game made out of it. Imagine for example the idea of the x drinking game, taking a drink every time some pattern or event is noticed in a movie or a TV show (like take a drink in a Michael Bay movie every time you see a ethnic character that does some something lowbrow and/or vaguely racist). Does that mean that the movie or TV show is it's self a game? No not at all. It's a game you play with a movie or TV show. Nuzlocke runs and other challenge runs are more like a game you play with another game.

 

It's pretty easy to invent your own games to play with things. In fact if you think about it, just about all games are sort of invented this way, more about rules being imposed on abstract things that you can play around with. The difference of course is people tend to want games to be more and more codified and implicit as part of the things that are played with. For example, you could play checkers with two sets of different colored rocks if you wanted to. The rules of the game are independent of the implementation of the game. Same with a lot of board games really, but board games changed to have the rules of the game be more and more closely tied with the things used to play it. But there are also things like cards which are good example of where this isn't really the case, there are lots and lots of game you can play with the same set of cards. You can also always try to invent new games or variants that uses things from other board games to play, and there are a lot of chess variants.

 

So what does that mean for video games? Video games are games that are much more codified and implicit, the game is usually much more of a part of the package. But this doesn't mean people don't play other games with video games, or that some video games aren't more like cards. Minecraft for example may ore may not be more like cards in that way, it's a sandbox that can be used to play games in. A better example of that would probably be Garry's Mod or Second Life, virtual environments that can be scripted and used to play games in.

 

On the other hand there are plenty of video games nowadays that eliminate the whole game side of the equation, being more about the things that they present rather then any game you play with them. And maybe rightly so they shouldn't be called games, but they still should be acknowledged as what they are. One of the reasons I like "entertainment software" or even "software art" better then video game, because the basic idea of a game isn't really as relevant as it once was to what is actually being made.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Videogame covers a very very very wide spectrum when you stop and think about it. That's because the word "game" is so broad.

The obvious requirement of a videogame is that it's visual on a screen. The other that at least one person can interact (play) with it.

 

You don't have no have a story or characters or even a "win" or "lose " condition. They don't even have to end. How do you "win" or "lose" in an MMO? You might fail or succeed in a certain quest, but you never see the words "game over". Some puzzle games have no win condition. They just go on into eternity until you lose. All games do have some form of conflict. Whether that conflict is beating a timer or just trying to solve a puzzle or managing resources, or defeating some form of antagonist.

 

So all a video game is something at least on person can see on a screen and interact with and has some form of challenge or conflict. Even that broad of a definition doesn't cover virtual reality. Not sure if that still qualifies as a videogame or is in it's own separate category.

[gunsage 161]

Pretty sure this topic was necro'd, but since it was responded to anyway, I'll throw in my 2 cents.  So what IS a videogame?  What qualifies it?  I mean, a book is a book, right?  A TV show is a TV show, a movie is a movie.  Well, those are pretty easy, but what about videogames?  Well, let's move right to a topic that is very much in the gray area:  visual novels.  Look, when you pop in Contra, you're playing.  You're running to the right and shooting anything that moves.  That's it, simple.

 

With a visual novel, well...there are any one of a number of things that could be happening.  Most of the time the author will claim that "it's a living story"...but is it?  For example, games like Magical Diary and Long Live the Queen are technically visual novels, but they're also RPGs.  No, you don't really deviate from the storyline, but it's kept somewhat open and there are various pitfalls here and there.  Maybe you'll get kicked out of school, or dead, or married, or VERY dead.

 

There are constant checks in both games along with choice that allow for several things to happen and be completely blocked off depending on your choices, how you choose to develop your character in your spare time, and so on.  And yet, at no point does it really deviate from the visual novel motif (okay it SORTA deviates in Magical Diary because the dungeons really are basic first person dungeon crawls).

 

But then you have visual novels where it really is just a story and there aren't really choices for you to make.  It pretends that there are, but there aren't and it doesn't cause the story to branch.  The writers of these stories are so convinced that their story is awesome enough that they don't need any game elements and these people are what I like to call WRONG.  Even if the story is awesome, I could just as easily watch TV, read a book, or read a movie and get the same material.

 

And really, if someone is preferring another form of entertainment over your game, you have failed.  HOWEVER, I also believe that is literally the only time a game is not a game.  Sure, there are easy games, mindless games, and games with way too many cutscenes, but they still have enough game elements in them that you have to stay engaged in order to actually play them.  Very rarely is it true that a game is not a game unless they were clearly trying to make something else and try to pass it off as a game.

[lonequeso 1,921]

If you're in the Matrix and are aware it's a computer program, would that mean you're in a videogame? 

If you're in the Matrix unaware the Matrix is a computer program, are you an NPC?