What classifies as a game?

[Donte]

 

[DrunkOcelot]

Another day of waiting till level 0s lose the ability to make threads.

Very welcoming attitude for a mod. Why be all uppity over someone making a thread you dislike? I've seen you do this a few times now.

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2025

It starts like that, and ends up in this place being another shitty echo chamber.

 

[Inkingsama]

Spoiler

the game

 

[DrunkOcelot]

Spoiler

the game

I just lost the game

 

[freebie#47]

I laughed at this as there is a literal definition of "game" in both a dictionary and encyclopedia....for future inquiries. You don;t play the game, the game plays you.

 

[starseeker300]

If I can play it, then it is a game.

and to define what playing it is, it would require significant interaction from me that can affect and change the state of the thing that result in different resolutions every time would make it a game. for example chess is a game because you can move the pieces on the board against an opponent. I could win, lose, play to a stalemate, or the game could even end unresolved due to outside factors. In the same way a videogame can be played different ways: I could finish the level/area/section, I could fail and get a game over, I could speedrun the game, I could play with or against other players.

It is different from say a movie or a book that will have the same resolution everytime i watch/read it.

(yes i know about edge cases like choose your own adventure novels or the clue movie, oh and that one time dc held a reader vote to kill off jason todd in 1988, but I would call those exceptions that prove the rule)

Therefore, one could think of games as a sort of collaborative effort between the creator and player, where they are talking to each other, versus other mediums of art where the creator is talking at the viewer/reader.

 

[DaxterDotEXE]

Something that is not bad, because if it is bad, it's neither a game nor it is art, unlike movies and books, which are totally art! (Because they're never bad)

 

[Amag0k1]

Something that is not bad, because if it is bad, it's neither a game nor it is art, unlike movies and books, which are totally art! (Because they're never bad)

But is bad not relative?

 

[lil_thang]

a funny angles to consider

is Myst a visual novel?
are eBooks 'games'?

the author purports here that Pyst, a Myst parody, is not a game but a piece of interactive software.
could Pyst be considered a visual novel?
are interactive softwares not games?
why is TIS-100 https://store.steampowered.com/app/370360/TIS100/ a game, and programming in a terminal interface not?

not putting forward anything substantial, nonthing else to offer, just funny angles