Let's discuss what a video game is

[Mangela Lansbury]

Back on topic: your definition of structured play also seems to encompass activities like "going hiking", "reading a book" and "socialising". Sure, if you want to use a definition that wide for "play" in particular, then Dear Esther is a game. But I don't think that's what most people expect when using those words.

Have you considered that maybe you disliked Dear Esther so much because you were categorising it as a game (which it is certainly bad at being), and you might have enjoyed it more casting your interaction with it in a different sense and context?

 

Edit: also, as a data point, because I'm interested: would you consider Kinetic Novels to be games or not? Dear Esther also feels like one of them, too, from my exceptionally limited experience of the genre.

 

I don't see why you want to restrict forms of play to exclude activities like "going hiking," "reading a book," or "socializing." I think most people do consider those things types of play, even if they don't regularly and explicitly refer to them as play.

[aoanla]

For the purposes of regular communication, though, I suspect that if you told someone you were "playing" then they'd probably not assume that you were reading a book. So there's a kind of default set of "things people do for enjoyment which are play" as a subset of "things that people might admit were forms of play, possibly with some reservations or heming or hawing if pressed". And, yes, I agree that some of this is about legitimised activities and the "stigma" of play.

[aoanla]

The reason I don't really like Dear Esther is that it relies mostly on the writing and I don't think the writing is very good, and I find that gameplay to be, while a necessary part of the game, to be not particularly well thought-out either. Calling it a videopoem doesn't fix the bad writing, nor does calling it an experience or whatever change how the interactive systems feed into the narrative whole. I think it's just not very good--period. I think it's a petty and simplistic thing who only likes something if it is called something else.

But as you yourself note, names are important, and they contextualise how we interact with a thing. (To pick up Mangela's point from just now and also a bit ago: I can certainly think of "reading a book" in terms of a kind of "game playing", but that will colour my interaction with it and probably change the way I actually engage in reading.)  

 

Again, for me, the most important thing about if something is a game or not is whether or not it is called a game. That's it. Pinchbeck wants to call Dear Esther a game? Well, it has many qualities thereof, so, yeah. I suppose if someone released a novel and called it a game I wouldn't call it a game--though I would be interested in WHY they said that. As for Kinetic Novels, I literally have never engaged with them, but aren't they literally just videos?My understanding is that there are no systems, just words, pictures and sounds, and that the people that put them out don't call them games. So, no, if it has no systems and no one calls it a game, then I would not consider it a game. I'll go further. Do I think that most interactive fiction, or choose your own adventure stories are games? Nope. Do I, however, think that things like Depression Quest are games? Yep. How do I justify that? You guessed it. In one, people are saying this is a game, and the game has systems to play. In the other, people are saying: this is just a story/novel that you are able to make choices in. Because who the fuck cares if I think it's a game or not? I have my own opinions, but so what? I'd rather spend my time thinking about how something that is called a game is succeeding or not in its own way than getting into a pedantic argument with the creator over their genre conventions.

 

I actually think this is really interesting, especially that you don't think "interactive fiction" is generally a game. I know some IF writers, and I think all of them think of IF as being games (as well a narrative fiction)!

[Ben X]

I don't see why you want to restrict forms of play to exclude activities like "going hiking," "reading a book," or "socializing." I think most people do consider those things types of play, even if they don't regularly and explicitly refer to them as play.

 

I did a quick survey of myself and my girlfriend and neither of us would consider these things "play" unless the person in question was under ten years old or being super-camp/ironic.

 

I was not going to post in this thread, but I found this statement particularly at odds with my life experience and I suspect many others would also.

[sucks2Bme]

so what does it mean when someone says "is this all just a game to you?"

[Wooben]

so what does it mean when someone says "is this all just a game to you?"

quit playing around

[aoanla]

It turns out we did the Wittgenstein thing a few pages back

[clyde]

I think I've come around on this one. I've been suffering because I've been thinking that the majority of my interests revolve around computer-games for a while now. I've been feeling claustrophobic.

My plan is to stop using the word "game". By providing myself with this voluntary and arbitrary limitation, I may trick my perception into more fully conceptualizing the breadth of scope in what it is I think about all day, everyday.

Goodbye "game".