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[PATV] Wednesday, November 27, 2013 - Extra Credits Season 7, Ep. 12: What Is a Game?
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If you want to be more philosophical about what games are, however, then there is a great quote dating back to the Roman occupation of now-Paris in the crypt under Notre Dame that says games are a part of a meaningful life.
I've really had it up to my eyeballs with game snobs trying to limit the genre by placing their own completely arbitrary restraints on the word. I would submit to you that even EC slipped up and offered an entirely unnecessary and arbitrary definition at the end there. Choice is not even necessary to a game. In many children's games, casino games, or party games the only choice you make is to play. That's enough.
What is a game? Mu.
That's PERFECT. I say leave it at that.
You are being hypocritical. In order to have a genre for the snobs to try to limit, you must have DEFINED (and thus LIMITED) the genre is some way. So really all you're complaining about is that someone else's definition is more limited than yours and you feel personally dismissed that something you like is cut out by that definition. Which is a completely emotional, irrelevant, and unconstructive complaint.
What if e.g. there is eye tracking software that aeffects what happens in the experience in non-obvious ways?
Or what if your heartbeat aeffects it?
Are these "interactive"? They could certainly be interesting, and possibly could be integrated with other more traditional gameplay elements.
what about 4'33 (named after the song) from klooniegames? I would probably argue that it is interactive in that you can open it, and close it, and you might do that multiple times while "playing" it, but between when opening and closing it, you don't really give it any input. I personally wouuld classify it as both a game and an interactive experience (what other players do might be aeffected by what you do, which might aeffect you), but whether it is interactive isn't totally straightforward.
Of course, arguing whether something is an interactive experience probably isn't super useful either, I just wanted to say that I didn't think it was totally "this is definitely interactive" or "this definitely isn't".
eh.
Merriam Webster:
a physical or mental activity or contest that has rules and that people do for pleasure
I have no problem with words being defined. I have a problem with the legions of self appointed game police who feel the need to supplement it with arbitrary overlays of their own creation.
Look it's simple, different people want different things. It's much easier to find what you want if they have limited definition. It's much easier to market it. It's much easier to make it, teach it and so on.
But he spent a good amount of time on this very thing. Getting us to understand that we didn't have to spend the term just making any old Mario clone. He wanted us to make something weird and new. My team made a top down game where you are the alien being hunted. Not super clever or new, but give us a break, we did it in 4 months :P
The problem with the Webster dictionary definition of "game" - assuming that is what you posted - is that it's both wrong, because we don't all engage with games for pleasure, and insufficient, because it fails to capture the element of voluntary engagement.
And that point segues to a good way to think about games as a function of necessary and sufficient conditions rather than an immutable definition. That said, definitions are really helpful, and to some degree necessary to speak and write about games.
As much as we can generally recognize a game when we see one, there are infinite forms games might take that have not yet been discovered or expressed yet, and in that regard a game is a variable. The process of defining games in academic works is intended to clarify how that academic is operationalizing the use of the word so that that we don't need to muddy the water with the question, "Well what is a game?" (because the author has given a frame and a context for what they are regarding as a game, and what it means to be a game), and can instead focus on the arguments that derive from those basic definitions. That gives me the academic freedom to apply those arguments to myriad definitions of game.
So definitions are useful, but they should be interpreted within their appropriate context. They should be lines in the sand that can shift and be redrawn as our own understanding of games matures.
Here's a question to help you think about it. Are the Hunger Games really games? If so, to who, and why?
But enough talk. Have at you!
Seriously, though, to jump into the conversation I see developing around me, I think you're missing the point that @speedplay and @indycomo are trying to make, @urknighterrant. In the discussion and appreciation of art, there need to be terms to describe the subject. If the terms available are insufficient, either the existing terms evolve, or new terms are created -- such as the "interactive experience" posited in the video. English is not a constructed language, but a living one; words are not defined by experts, but by the people who use them and mutually agree on their meaning.
I don't see defining a medium or genre as limiting, as there will always be an avant-garde pushing the boundaries and blurring the lines, forcing the discussion to evolve, as well. As was discussed in a past episode, genre lines within the medium have been crossed time and again, but the genre definitions still provide a useful frame of reference for describing games, even if more and more games require additional qualifiers to adequately describe them. "First-Person Shooter" sets a baseline expectation, but can develop into games as wildly different as Call of Duty and Bioshock; yet, for its imprecision, it is still a useful term to have, and, as just demonstrated, does little to stifle creativity through pigeonholing. (At least, the definition itself doesn't do that; publishers are another story.)
As it exists now, "game" as a generic descriptor is somewhat loaded. It evokes a meaning of enjoyment and of struggle, as the competitive sports and tabletop amusements the word (or its synonyms in other languages) has described for millennia. Not all of what we call video games are experienced for enjoyment (see Loneliness, or Spec Ops: The Line), nor is competition or struggle core to the experience for all of them (see Minecraft, The Sims). Now, in order to discuss such a thing clearly, something has to give. Do we expand the definition of "game," even with its lexical baggage? Do we define terms for things that don't fall into the existing definition of "game," at risk of alienating those experiences from others? Do we eschew the word "game" entirely, abandoning a familiar term for another whose meaning is not well-grounded, and thus may not be immediately apparent to those newly entering the discussion? All the options are imperfect, but it's still an issue that must be addressed for the accurate analysis of the medium.
"Interactive experience" is apt for everything we might discuss, but certainly doesn't roll off the tongue, and might be too broad a term to be that useful -- as noted in the video, life itself is an interactive experience, and few would confuse life for a video game.
My own inclination is to create new terms for new things. Doing so doesn't disrupt the existing framework of discussion; it simply adds to its vocabulary. Of course, this can be a difficult task, as well. For example, calling The Sims a "digital toy," as it's something to be played with that doesn't have a built-in struggle or goal, is apt. It's like playing with dolls that have some degree of autonomy -- you can create your own conflicts, make a game out of play, but it's not core to the experience. But "toy" is possibly more loaded than "game;" many people consider both toys and games to be diversions for children (though the rise of nerd culture has made headway against this social stigma).
Regardless, using definitions to denigrate something different is totally disingenuous, and anyone who would do so is clearly less interested in analytic discussion than in making themselves feel better about what they do or don't like.
It is also a distraction.
This episode of EC is not about the technical definition of games. Again... there is nothing subjective about that.
This is about the philosophical argument that you and yours are so heavily invested in, and the conclusion that the EC team has come to is one I heartily agree with. It's not just pointless and irrelevant, it's actually counterproductive (perhaps even destructive) to the creative process.
I believe (not very strongly, but still believe) that it is possible to take the necessary precautions necessary to avoid it being counterproductive (or at least from being as counterproductive as sitting in a white room and not thinking about anything interesting)
As such, and because it could be vaguely amusing, I think there could be some justification for talking about what it means to call something a game, despite it being geneally "pointless"?
I mean, some people probably like to get together and be pointlessly pedantic, with full knowledge that they both understand this (and this).
I would think?
Full disclosure, most of my resources come from the Madison pedigree (Gee, Squire, Halverson, Steinkuehl, Shaffer), but it's worth checking out what the other major schools of thought have to say, too (feel free to PM me if you want the full list). Also, the focus of many of these are on games and learning, but each begins with an operationalization of what a game is - and for the most part a really good one.
Squire, K. (2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed
experience. Educational Researcher, 35(8), 19-29.
Shaffer, D. W., Squire, K. R., Halverson, R., & Gee, J. P. (2005). Video games and the
future of learning. Informally published manuscript, Wisconsin Center for
Education Research, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison, WI. ,
Available from WCER. (2005-4)
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and
literacy. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 1(1). doi:
10.1145/950566.950595
It frankly should not matter. For all the points on 'that side' of the discussion, I'm still waiting for any kind of response which justifies this part of their argument. No one has taken my challenge, and yes I see that as a lack of an valid answer.
Without definition everything would literally lose meaning. Rules don't need to be tight or specific, but at least try to make it "fun."
If things were not meant to be defined we wouldn't have games to begin with. Or much of anything, for that matter.
From a strictly legal perspective it is CRUCIAL to define what a game is or is not for many purposes. The most important purpose I can think of is patent and copyright law. In any legal language where every word and phrasing is scrutinized to the nth degree, we have to have very specific definitions to fall back on in order for our legal documents/arguments to hold up in any court. 'Game' must have a specific meaning in this case.
That brings us to the nature of defining words. We commonly can point to some high academic authority and say with great emphasis that "This is what the experts tell us". The outcome of relying on that authority is largely irrelevant in our everyday lives, however. There is a very clear reason for that irrelevance: authority is only useful if it can be enforced. You don't see a bunch of turtle-necked glasses-wearing Harvard PhD's standing outside your front door with a warrant every time you mispronounce a word or use it incorrectly, because that would be outrageous. However, we DO have those who INSIST on badgering up for misuse of language. What these people don't realize is that the only reason academics has the meaning it has is because it is useful for clarity of communication, and the only way it is enforced naturally is the NEED for that clarity. When it becomes unnecessary to have a clear and unwavering definition of a word in common speech, that word will always be 'misused' to some degree. Often the meaning of that word is expanded in this way. The grand result of such expansions is that somewhere down the line society begins to universally accept the new meanings. The dictionary, so often featured as a concrete and unchanging codex of perfect linguistic usage and meaning, has changed by leaps and bounds since the turn of the 20th century as a direct result of this process and many more.
Truly, we use words to mean what we need them to mean when we need them to mean it. the evidence is everywhere. Even those who swear by specific meanings of dozens of particular words eventually succumb to this phenomena(With the occasional exception of savants, people with pronounced OCD and some lawyers).
So, legally we need the word 'game' to be defined, because in that context it is not only useful but necessary that we define it. We should not, however, require it to have a hard-edged concrete definition for everyday discussion nor in most cases for intellectual debate.
You know what? I actually think that "game" can be defined. I think a game like Starcraft is really just a complicated computer version of games like chess, and Mario is an elaborate version of games like hopscotch or stick-and-ball. Competitions of skill, competitions of strategy, all within the guidelines of specific rules, while some "games" are merely interactive experiences and narratives, like games where you just talk to people, or the Stanley Parable. HOWEVER, the point should be that these "interactive experiences" are equally valid pursuits, and that drawing a line in the sand between "game" and "not game" sets up a pointless hierarchy and encourages people to pick teams, whether they say they are or not. Your CD player can play an opera, a pop song, or an atonal noise collage. Your Xbox can play Halo, Minecraft, and who knows what else. Let's not discourage those possibilities.
If someone does go there a little, well, give them their five minutes and try to have an open mind. Don't screw yourself out of a fresh new experience by writing off what you previously may have excluded from your 'safe zone' of what a game has to be to be called a game.
terms like "game" should be used for simple classification purposes. i am approaching this much like a sort of taxonomy for the entertainment world. i think we can all agree that TV shows that are predefined from beginning to end are not games, so if we are going to define some things as not being games and some as being games we should have a definition of some kind. much like categories used to define FPS or RTS games.
kerbal space program is not a game
dwarf fortress is not a game
both of these are programs that i greatly enjoy AND can create my own games around. i have known people to play drinking games based around the movie "Big Trouble in Little China", but that does not make the movie itself a game.
a sandbox by itself is not a game, but it can be enjoyable and it can be a medium through which games are played. kerbal and DF are both mediums through which games or personal challenges can develop, but they are themselves not games.
i will reiterate the most important points i made in my first post: if anyone abuses the term or idea of a game for the purpose of discrimination then we should call them out on it. hiding from discussions like this only serves to sustain ignorance.
@Talshere
all FPS do involve choices. you choose where to aim the gun and when to pull the trigger. it is a very basic choice, but the player is interacting and making decisions.
Maybe what would solve this dispute would be to coin a term that captures the element of functional win-lose gameplay that separates a traditional game from an open-ended game. We need to learn how to express ourselves better and use language that expresses the art properly. People are entitled to their preferences of Megaman over The Stanley Parable or vice-versa, and easy categories are convenient, but these arguments of legitimacy, what "is" a game or an interactive experience, inevitably translate to people being afraid of their favorite works being dismissed and dismissing other games.
We CAN, and probably should, put some work into establishing criteria for games, since it would only help us appreciate each type of gaming experience more, since we wouldn't be holding each other to the same standards. However, the biggest threat are conservative gamers who are afraid of losing their old favorites, inhibiting the support for experimentation and expansion of the medium (on the other hand, I seriously doubt the new radicals will ever accomplish more than adding a few drops of diversity into the ocean of conventional gameplay experiences).
I am really glad to see someone who makes games for a living, agreeing that the question 'what is a game?' isn't the question. Though James we need a catchier phrase than interactive experience.
Unrelated: You guys are in a cat mood this week, aren't you?
That said, you're absolutely right that the best solution is to use a new, clearly defined, neutral term like 'interactive experience' and for go any conversation about 'games' at all. If I may suggest, perhaps the term 'artistic interactive experience' would be better. 'Interactive experience' is too broad; it includes going for a walk, and dying of hunger. 'Artistic' is a bit of a hazy term, but it helps to narrow it down to created experiences.
Seriously, though, everything you presented here is good, but I think you're ignoring the psychological heart of the issue: the irrational belief that if Game-I-Don't-Like gets popular, they'll stop making Game-I-Like. Or coming at it from the pro-indie-arthouse perspective, BECAUSE Game-I-Don't-Like already IS popular, Game-I-Like will never have a fighting chance.
If you really want to help prevent or reduce this bickering over labels, you need to resolve the ingrained fears underlying it.
He obviously wasn't trying to denigrate them, and I don't think he was trying to put down other games either. I think he was trying to reassure people that you can play without deciding whether you're winning or losing.
On topic: That said, I have to find both views a little silly. This is as silly as the question, "Is it art?"
That question reifies the term art as if it were objective, like measuring a physical trait. It's a frozen term fallacy. So does asking if it's a "game" or not. It tries to make a pure construct into something objective.
But "interactive experiences" sounds like the first step on the euphemism treadmill by people who aren't happy to work on "mere games." And there is something less game-like, less fitting the concept of a "game," in some of the projects mentioned. Setting down a hard line between game and non-game is silly, but so is pretending there isn't a gradual march from something decidedly non-game to something that is clearly one.
We as people, regardless of interests or creeds like to associate and derive parts of our personalities from our hobbies. We enjoy, therefore we are.
So, a person might look at a thing and say: 'I am a film buff, or I am a baseball fan, or I am a gamer.' And, knowingly or unknowingly exclaim 'This is me and I am this. The subjects, themes, and experiences of this hobby define me."
Subsequently, when we then find some part of our chosen hobby that is undesirable to us, we then ignore it, quash it, rationalize it, or rarely, incorporate it somehow.
Thus, discussions about "What is a game?" aren't actually about their supposed subject. What people actually engage arguing over is entirely something else. And, is thus subject to a lot of misunderstandings or heated argument because all sides of the argument weren't actually talking about the same thing.
When someone decries that X isn't a Y, it's not because of the perceived merits of the thing in question, it's about a person that doesn't want to include X as apart of their self-defined persona.
So finally, the question "What is a game?" is thus answered by Mu because in most, if not all cases, the question lacks the definition of what is actually the desired subject of discussion.
It would probably be better if we realized what we might actually want to say is "I like/dislike X, because of these features..."
And it's important to understand what is and isn't a game because games are a consumer-driven media, and it's important to have to vocabulary to adequately describe products.
A game is defined by having a win/lose state. That's all it needs. I've enjoyed plenty of "interactive experiences," but I probably would have hated a great deal of them had they been presented to me as "games."
It is the height of folly to use a single term, be it "game" or "interactive experience," to define a medium as diverse as interactive digital media.
As for the question at hand, I came up with a very simple definition for "video game" back when Dear Esther was released and the whole thing even started to become a question. Simply put, a video game is a virtual medium which requires continuous player feedback in order to continue. Dear Esther is a video game because the character will just stand on the dock until you push buttons to make him go somewhere. Super Mario Bros is a video game because Mario will just stand in place until the timer runs out, and then just sit on the Game Over screen until a player pushes a button to have a different outcome. That spacebar RPG on Newgrounds is a video game because, despite only requiring one button from start to finish, still requires player feedback in order to continue. I can't think of a single game that doesn't boil down to the fact that if you don't push buttons, waggle a joystick, move a mouse, or interact with it in some other way, will just sit and do nothing. If you really wanted, you could expand the definition to say that the player feedback can result in different outcomes, but I think that adds needless complication to an already adequate definition.
Edit 5:16 later: OK, watched it. A surprisingly light episode considering the subject matter. I was almost expecting a 2 parter! It's Thanksgiving tomorrow for me in the US, so I'll let you off this time, even the parts of you from Canada.
There really is a lot of lively discussion going on in your forum, YouTube, and here on PA. I would like to hear more on the matter if you guys have the time and inclination. There's so much that hasn't been touched: All the "Game Theory" field of mathematics (and economics, biology, etc); goal-less games; the division of what separates "toys" from "games" from "storytelling" from "reality," as well as what connects them; and so on. I understand your desire to just say, "there's a je ne sais quoi involved, we all know what a game is to us, and this mental masturbation at large is getting boring." I agree.
But it *is* fun to discuss the different unique things about games that make them games, even if they share no aspects of other games. That you can have games that don't overlap any circles of "game definition" in a Venn diagram, but would still overlap with the "Game circle."
It's a road to nowhere, for sure, I will not deny that. The final answer is Mu. Scott McCloud's definition of "Art" also suits me fine, and can be easily modified for games (ultimately your conclusion here).
But I still think you crazy kids at EC have some unique perspectives to present us. Even if they're ones you all are sick of, I'm sure there are a lot of people in your audience to whom those perspectives would be new and exciting ideas.
As for consumer protection this is also an empty argument. The word "game" IS defined. You may not like it, but the word is defined adequate to the law. What do you want? You want to be protected from buying BAD games? Do you want it to be illegal to sell you a game you don't like? There is no law saying I can't sell a bad game, and I for one wouldn't want there to be any such protection.
If you don't want to buy bad games, be an informed consumer and just don't buy them. Don't try to limit MY access to "World Builder" just because you don't like it.
Dear Esther is about as interactive as walking around an art gallery or reading a book is, which is to say, not very. It lacks challenge or a goal, though, which are both I think fairly defining criteria of games, and are what other things lack. Excluding visual novels from the definition of games is not only perfectly acceptable, but correct - most visual novels aren't games. Creating something like Dear Esther or a visual novel is much more like drawing a comic book than it is like making a game, and if you are designing something like that, it is vitally important to know this.
Games are fundamentally distinct from such things. You can't just accidentally end up with a visual novel when you start designing a game, though you might realize that you are better off doing what you're doing as one.
See, if you think that visual novels and games are designed the same way, then you're incompetent at designing at least one of them, and very probably both. Visual novels are much closer to just ordinary old novels than they are to games.
@urknighterrant: A bad game is still a game. But Dear Esther is not a game at all. If it isn't a game, it shouldn't be marketed as a game; that's illegal. You aren't allowed to market something which is one thing as another thing; that violates consumer protection laws in the US.
@MinuteWait: It is actually pretty easy to define what a game is, given that Wikipedia does so in two sentences. People who act like it is some sort of great mystery are, universally, liars and charlatans. A game is structured playing with goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. If it lacks any of those four components, it isn't a game.
This is not difficult to understand. Games themselves can be broken up into a few subsets - puzzles, games of skill, and games of chance - each of which have their own design criteria and methodologies and goals.
Something which is not a game is not designed in the same way.
It is that simple. Anyone who was actually competent at design would know this.
Just because a game doesn't meet your arbitrarily declared qualifications for a game doesn't mean it isn't one. You may not LIKE it, but what you define as "interactivity" is NOT required to qualify something as a game.
Nobody gives a rats bottom what YOU consider a "unique criteria for defining what a game is", or what YOU consider a "fairly defining criteria of games". You are not judge bloody dread and you are not the game police. You don't get to define what a game is or isn't.
If you don't like "Dear Esther" my recommendation would be, don't buy it. But to try to make it illegal for me market it as "a physical or mental activity or contest that has rules and that people do for pleasure"?
There's no nice word for stupid, Titanium. That's just stupid.
Beyond that, though, it's morally wrong. In a free market society I have the right to market any kind of game I damn well please, and you have NO business trying to get me fined or pulled from the shelves just because it doesn't meet your small-minded and completely arbitrary criteria for what constitutes a "game".
"What is a game" has to be defined to answer things like "What should game reviewers review?"
I like things like Loneliness. I find them fascinating. If I want to review games, though, I realize that to analyze Loneliness, I need to use a whole different set of tools.
To me, the difference between a 'Game' and 'Interactive Experience' is like the difference between 'TV Show' and 'Movie.'
If I describe Breaking Bad as "More a serialized movie than a TV show" you'll know what I mean by that. I'm not saying that TV shows are bad. Similarly, the recent Doctor Who 50th Anniversary was shown simultaneously in theatres and on TV. It was described as a "Feature Length Episode." Even though you saw it in theatres and it took an hour and a half or so to watch, you still knew that this was a really, really good episode of a TV show... Not "Doctor Who: The Movie"
I see a lot of reviewers who seem to be willing to praise anything that seems 'artsy' as good art, and I often feel that they would do better if they weren't trying to review those things, because they don't seem to have the vocabulary and experience to use them. If I want to review games, and I /DO/, I want to define what a 'game' is and keep to that.
I like paintings, movies, and TV shows. None of those things are games, and I don't think that that's a bad thing.
I don't like "interactive experiences" for video games either, as do many others. However, I do like it for games in general, but only as an academic talking point, not as marketing.
And I also like "interactive experiences" for other things in general. Like playing sports. Or driving a car. Sex is definitely in there. You can, without a doubt, say that sex is an interactive experience (unless your doing it wrong. Also, marketing is tricky).
I used to try to call video games "interactive electronic entertainment." It broadens the definition to include what I passionately believed video games would become: an expansive and broad medium to tell stories, from the epic to miniscule, from the weird to mundane, in such a way that (if it was done well) would leave you with more catharsis than you knew what to do with.
That was 30 years ago. I gave up 15 years ago when it looked like it was really happening, and no one needed a champion any more. "Video" is only used with "games" when one wants to differentiate they want to play an electronic game, as opposed to say, cards, or ladder golf in the yard.
In fact, it gets confusing sometimes: "You wana watcha tv show?" "No, let's play a game." "Battleblock Theatre!" "Um... no, I just meant my new pool table in the garage."
So "games" and "video games" it is. But what about "toys?"
Ze Frank has a lot of really cool little things on his old website (http://www.zefrank.com/). These days, we might call them "apps," but they're really "toys." Little things you can use to make cool things, like music or drawings. Sometimes they would be used in "games," like contributing "scribbles" to the Frailty poem. But a lot of the things would be virtual toys.
There are quite a few games out there that would fit the definition of "toy" better than "game." There are quite a few apps that would also fit.
When does a tool that is simply fun to use loose the sense of "tool," and become a "toy." Where is the line between "toy" and "game?" Between "game" and "story?" Between your "story" and your "reality?" Between your "reality," and, well... your "tools?"
Interactive experiences.