At 7:00 you describe certain games as not fulfilling the criteria of the traditional game, based in part of the lack of failure state in titles such as "Her Story". I would argue that this would involve a very strict definition of what a "failure state" actually is. Her Story has both an implied failure state and a challenge. The challenge of the game is to uncover the truth. One does so by searching keywords, however these keywords are picked up through the analysis and investigation of the different videos in the game. The "failure state" is a failure to progress, to find the truth. The game is an exercise in paying attention and comprehension, picking up on details in order to further provide you with the keywords necessary to unlock all of the videos, which will eventually lead you to the truth. A failure to progress is still a failure state. It is not a "game over" screen, but it is an implied failure state due to your failure to progress through all of the content the game has to offer. It's important not to strictly define a failure state simply because you then run the risk of starting to apply the lack of failure state argument to games that don't let you die. It's worth noting that one cannot simply claim a failure to progress and as such a failure state if the player simply decided to stop playing for no reason. That decision to stop playing must be built on a failure to progress in some form which directly resulted from a challenge presented by the game. Games are in essence a contest against the games programming. Your failure state can consist of surrendering to that challenge. As a result, the definition of what is and is not a game is deliberately very restrictive so as to include almost everything, while excluding any product that does not provide any sort of challenge or failure state at all. Dear Esther for instance can only be failed by refusing to move forward. There are no puzzles to overcome, no challenges or investigation to be done. The narrative is fed to you without you having to achieve anything in order to do it. It's at that extreme point that we can start to say 'maybe this isnt a videogame, maybe this is some sort of narrative experience, a virtual installation of sorts'. I'd use the term visual novel but that's already in use for another more established genre, as I might add is interactive fiction (though one has to question how interactive things like Dear Esther really are, when you can argue that they can be experienced in just the same way when watched on a video). As regards to passage. I would argue that your definition of videogame may be a little too restrictive in and of itself, because Passage clearly does have goals and mechanics, not to mention a challenge. The game allows you to earn points by picking up treasure chests. As you are joined by a "wife" character, it becomes more difficult to acquire said chests due to the navigational challenges put in front of you. Your inability to die is irrelevant to the concept of failure state. The failure state is that of failing to play the game optimally, by not collecting as many of these treasure chests before you inevitably die of old age and the game ends. Whether or not there is any real purpose to the collection of said chests is not the issue at all, the fact that they exist at all and you can fail to collect them, means there is a challenge and there is an implied failure state. The best way to describe the implied failure state is that it is an expression of the ability for a player to make decisions that will have positive or negative results. Anything that allows you to do that, has an implied failure state and is as such, a game. Anything that allows you to make a choice that the player can then interpret as an optimal or suboptimal outcome, fulfils the definition of a videogame, regardless of whether or not there is any form of traditional difficulty associated with said choice. This is why Stanley Parable can easily be considered a game, since you can make choices that lead to different outcomes that are, in the eyes of the player, more or less desirable. Using that as the measuring stick, I think its quite easy to determine what is and is not a videogame. That definition is deliberately inclusive and excludes very little, while avoiding the "I think its boring so its not a game" fallacy. As to the dismissal of "non-games", there's no doubt it happens, but similarly, expecting regular players to engage in deep debate about that sort of thing is perhaps an idealistic and unrealistic expectation. Most people buy games to be entertained. That's all they really want from it. Negative reactions to "non-games" are an expression of consumer frustration that their money went into something they didnt fully understand or enjoy in some way. Games dont have to be fun, but they must be compelling in some way, they must be interesting. Some of these narrative-only experiences fail to do that and that is the source I believe of the backlash, rather than some sort of exclusionary manning of the walls and closing of the portcullis to keep out the invaders to our believed hobby. Anyway, your video was great and I'm glad that other people are providing a nuanced discussion on this topic.
Well first I have to say I'm surprised and kinda' honored to have such a prominent figure of gaming's RUclips scene notice my channel. I'm glad you liked the video. ^_^ I agree with you on Her Story, partially through discussion generated earlier in these comments. I used it as an example primarily because it was a recent, well-received game that got plenty of "not a game" pushback, and I perhaps could have placed that reference better so as not to imply it didn't fit as a "game." As for Passage, I agree it has those elements, but I find it hard to claim the status of "game" based on them since, as you mentioned, their presence doesn't really affect any explicit win or fail states. If anything that sounds more like simple play, rather than the structured rules of the game, but since those gameplay elements grant meaning to the narrative that wouldn't be appropriate either. But I definitely understand where you're coming from there, and now I kind of want to take a few minutes to play through it again and see.
I think a lot of it comes down to the difference between what the average consumer wants out of the medium and what more academic criticism is looking for. The "not a game" pushback on Her Story doesn't really come from a place of common sense. What most of it was really saying was "well this doesn't appear to be a traditional game experience that I'd be willing to pay for, so I'm going to make this broadstroke argument". I think there's also an element of knee-jerk reaction to anything like Her Story that's a non-traditional gaming experience that is heavily pushed by the gaming press, a natural suspicion amongst certain subsets of gamers that probably started with Gone Home getting such a massive press spotlight and ending up not being the game that some people were necessarily hoping for. There's a feeling of distrust between some gamers and the media that is fueling a lot of what you've described as difficulty discussing this topic. To bring up the dreaded boogieman "Gamergate", anything that seems even slightly connected to it has a tendency to poison good discussion. The "non-game" thing is related to that somewhat and that's made discussing it very difficult outside of small circles of trusted, sensible people. To explain my definition more clearly, it comes from a very utilitarian place. The purpose of the failure state to me is not relevant. In Passage, the implied failure state may have no narrative purpose at all, or it may exist to make an abstract point about life (that would seem to be the case, if after adding a spouse into the mix it becomes more difficult to acquire these treasure boxes, although that seems a little too on the nose so perhaps my interpretation is completely off). The purpose of the definition is to provide accurate information to people, to categorize things in a useful manner. I'm a stickler for sub-genres in metal for instance. People ask me why, why cant' everything just be "metal". Well, it is, but there are very specific things within that kind of music that I like and I want an easy way to find them. Games are similar, but the medium is still in the process of evolving and there may be some products that don't really qualify as games. Maybe they need a separate label. What's important I think is to not look down upon "non-games". They're not lepers, they're not inferior, they're just different. As much as I've looked for a better definition than the failure state argument, I've yet to find one. However for that definition to work you have to believe as I do that a game is inherently a competition against something. Some people don't believe that and as such that definition isn't going to work for them. It's a fascinating discussion, I've enjoyed having some of it with you. Thanks for your video and your time. Keep trying to encourage discussion in difficult areas, its important.
A thing to note with fail and win-states is that they aren't necessarily "absolute". For example: you technically can't "win" at Pac-Man so much as "lose less". The inverse would be LucasArts adventure games, were you "win less" by not being able to solve puzzles. Passage, I'd argue is a game in the sense of challenge. You "win" by getting points, and "lose" by not getting points.
Interactive experiences should not be measured on how much they are like "games", but on how engaging the content is that it presents to the player. I see the argument that some people put forth that "walking simulators" aren't fun, but the real problem with some of them is that they aren't engaging. The Stanley Parable could absolutely be called a walking simulator because that's just about all you do in it. However, the engagement level in participating with that game and playing through it is so high that people are able to see it for what it actually is -- an enjoyable experience that makes you think about games as a whole. Great video!
One thing that's been on my mind lately: if a game has checkpoints or a save system, does it really have a fail state? Most of the time it's merely a setback, whereas with games before video games (from chess to sports to D&D) failure meant you had to start completely from scratch again. Where's the line between a failure state and a state of non-progress? I also wonder if other art forms ever had a similar discussion; was there ever a group of traditionalist sculptors that claimed sculptures made from clay “aren't really sculptures because you don’t carve the material”?
I'd say that a fail state would have to be a penalty given to punish a certain behavior (ie dying, running off the map, failing a task), no matter how negligible the consequence. In some faster paced games non-progress itself feels like a punishment, so that line could be a distinction without a difference.
I would say that's probably not a very good definition because it would classify bad strategies as fail states as they may eventually lead to loss or cost the player unnecessary time or resource. I would say games that have checkpoints or ones that you can try again entirely without the emotional acknowledgement that you 'lost', don't have fail states. If the setbacks are significant enough that a player feels like he or she loses when experiencing them, it would make sense to call them fail states. Of course, this is for game theory purposes, and with this solution one would likely view each section separated by checkpoints from other sections as separate games in this regard.
Rens de Jonge I'd think in cases were the setback is negligible, the loss or strategy failure itself is more disappointing than the penalty. In super meat boy you respawn really quickly, but failing is still disappointing. I don't know many games where you can lose without any emotional response at all.
I would say that challenges and fail states are looking too narrow at a broader topic. I think that games have Creative Restrictions. Meaning that they have restrictions put in place by the game maker for no other reason than the game maker put them there. For example, the only reason you use a club in golf is to make it more interesting than walking up to the green with the ball in your hand. Fail states and challenges are simply a type of restriction.
To your first question, yes. Anything that indicates a failure to achieve the goal, regardless of the penalty, would be considered a fail state. That's not to say that idea of a "fail state" isn't grey area in principle anyway, but the presence of "save" mechanisms or checkpoints definitely does not contradict the existence of a fail state. Fail states deal more with the rules of gameplay, whereas checkpoints and "saving" deal more with the penalties of poor gameplay, so the two concepts operate on individually unrelated design elements. Not holistically unrelated; nothing in a "design" of any medium is unrelated on the whole, but different decisions can primarily affect different elements without interfering with each other. They each operate on their own axis, so to speak. To address your question about non-progress, I would say that there isn't a true line between failure and non-progress in the first place. There are many game genres (puzzle games, for example) that generally operate on the idea that the player has either finished the puzzle, or hasn't. You could say the only "failure state" in such games is the scenario where the player decides to give up and quit the game rather than continue attempting to succeed, but I think that's broadening the scope to an impractical degree. This is one of the reasons that a "fail state" isn't always considered a core constituent of a game: it excludes far too many things that are traditionally considered games. I tweak the term to say "failure condition," and include the idea that a "failure condition" could be considered any condition that does not contribute to the player attaining the goal. That means that the "failure condition" is, in the least-forgiving interpretation, equivalent to a state of non-progress. Basically, that would then mean that when playing a game of "blocked stone," the failure condition is constantly satisfied except when the player moves a stone that gets them closer to the solution--there is simply no penalty for that failure. If you're good with math, I think a good way to visualize the idea of "goals" and "fail states" when there are games that only ambiguously have either (such as goal-less sandbox games) is with interval notation. Games with definite fail states or definite goals (where the game explicitly notifies the player of either) are like inclusive intervals (i.e., with brackets). However, indefinite fail states and indefinite goal states are non-inclusive (i.e., with parenthesis), as if those states can be approached but never truly achieved (since the game itself has no such coded condition(s)). In more direct terms, my best answer is that there's only a definite line between a "fail state" and a "non-progress state" if there is a given condition in the game that results in losing progress, such as losing all health or failing a time trial. More generally applicable: if the game has a condition that notifies the player "you lose!" "you died!" "game over!" etc., that is the fail state--regardless of the severity of the penalty incurred. If that state is not triggered, then it is not the fail state, even if progress is negative (such as falling from a large height in a climbing section but not "dying"). If there exists no such condition that triggers a "you lose!" (etc) notification, then there is no fail state, and a non-progress state can be considered the design equivalent. This theory is still flawed, for it would definitely include many things that either *aren't* games or are hotly contested as such. So, I would tentatively say that if "non-progress" is considered equivalent to "failure" if no true "fail state" exists, then the game would also have to include some manner of obstacles that attempt to force that non-progress state. I think that clears things up somewhat while leaving some things open, but I'll try to focus my theory more if it raises more questions. I wonder similar things about other artistic media as well, and I know for sure that academic art has had at least one huge reform considering what was "good art." See: the impressionist movement. That was when people started deciding that art (specifically, painting) didn't need to strive for photorealism to be "good," and could aim instead to express the thoughts and feelings of the artist. It also happened to be the era when cameras were first becoming a thing, so painters were being displaced as the primary method for recreating reality. Some felt the need to search for a deeper purpose than simply recreating what was in front of them, and joined in on the impressionist movement. So in a way, this type of cultural movement in regards to artistic media has *definitely* happened before, but I think the heart of the discussion is a little different, even if the emotion behind the naysayers is largely the same. Some lovers and creators of a medium dislike a group of works for focusing on something they don't care much for, and are angered when those works are classified in the same way--and so reject that classification, with their anger coming to a point. I don't agree with those motivations, but I do agree with a more traditionally-focused definition to "video games." I think there is technical merit to drawing a distinction, primarily in identifying and analyzing different core elements in genres, but also in marketing. If works that aren't technically "games" aren't marketed as such, then they won't build expectations that they have no intention of fulfilling, which I think is the main trigger for the anger that often sparks this debate. If games are marketed with this distinction in mind (and probably a couple other sister classifications to "video game") then products can be more efficiently matched with consumers who are most likely to appreciate and enjoy them. There's definitely a market for un-game-like "games," and attempting to squeeze into an oversaturated market that's not well-understood to begin with seems like a huge missed opportunity for a somewhat misguided sense of semantic pride. It is indeed sad that this issue seems to be driven by stubbornness and misguided pride on both sides, rather than primarily viewed either a pragmatic or critical perspective. I don't think "video games" have much to gain critically by adopting a more inclusive definition, and I definitely think the market for both sides has a lot to gain pragmatically by adopting a more *strict* definition--and the issue never should've been so emotionally driven in the first place.
What's frustrating about the "not a game" critique is, as you eloquently point out in this video, it's not really a constructive criticism. Instead of discussing why a certain experimental game succeeded where another failed, it's a constant argument over whether these games have a right to exist. And of course they should. Video games have a unique characteristic, setting them apart from any other medium, of being able to create believable, tangible worlds the player can explore at their own pace. It's only natural we were inevitably going to get games that focus solely on that attribute.
I doubt it's about whether they should exist. It's whether they should be lumped in with video games. Whether video game critics should review them. Whether gaming sites should mention them. Whether Wikipedia should put them under the category of video games (or even just "games"). As opposed to categorizing them as interactive media or something.
Why not let them be placed together though? However diverse they are in genre they are part of the same medium, and creators in one genre in that medium influence and are influenced by others, the same as it works within film which also has a huge diversity of works. Gaming sites should mention whatever they fancy, some sites will cover more mechanic centred games where others will have more of an interest in art titles, others in narratives, and others focussing on AAA. This is pretty much how it works for cinema now. Not every film review publication or site covers the same movies, they each have a slightly different leaning and are tailored to a slightly different audience, be it people who thought Marvel's The Avengers was the best movie of 2012, or people who thought it was Holy Motors, or both!
Amy Procrastinating But I'm not sure they are the same medium, any more than movies and TV shows, or paintings and photos, or books (w/ illustrations) and comics.
That's an impasse then, because I can't see two audiovisual works made (if we take Dear Esther and HL2 as our examples) using the exact same tools and interacted with using the exact same inputs as not being in the same medium.
I personally have always contended that a definition for "video games" must include the traditional definition for a game: that is, a goal, obstructions to that goal (or "challenges"), and a failure condition (a "fail state"). However, I have also always contended that considering a piece of interactive media "not a game" doesn't necessarily devalue it, and I'm really glad that this was your main point. No one really seems to bring up the idea that the semantics of a work's categorization doesn't really matter in terms of critiquing the work itself. At worst, it simply means the work isn't what it claims to be, which is of little consequence (except in marketing, which is probably the only good argument in-favor of making the distinction). Claiming "not a game" as a meaningful critical statement says more about the critic than the work they're critiquing. I don't personally find the issue quite as important as you say it is, but I do agree it's important on some level. I think it matters the most, as I parenthetically mentioned, in the context of marketing for a game. I think "non-games" meet the biggest contention when their marketing and advertising doesn't adequately set up expectations for what they are. I can hardly imagine the contempt that could be felt when expecting some kind of adventure RPG or at least "adventure" with implied puzzles, only to walk around, find bits of dialogue, and see the credits roll. Had I encountered such a thing before being aware of the current trend, I probably would've been part of the crowd to angrily proclaim "not a game!" The anger comes from unmet expectations, not true critique. While one solution is to culturally alter our concept of "video game" in the first place, I think the most practical solution is for all interactive media to not set up expectations they have no intentions of fulfilling. Though "video game" certainly implies much more than the general term "game," especially in terms of artistic and literary elements, I think it still evokes thoughts of those basic elements that comprise a game in the traditional sense. Thus, marketing a work as a "video game" is setting up expectations that it isn't aiming to fulfill (and likely isn't deliberately defying in avant garde style) and will only serve to disappoint the player and harm the work's reputation. I think it's useful to make a distinction between "video games" and the wider umbrella of "interactive media" for the pragmatic benefit of accurately pairing up products with consumers most likely to appreciate and enjoy them. In my college program, the branch of studies informally called "video games" is formally referred to as "interactive design," and legitimately includes design projects that fall well outside of what is traditionally considered "video games." So, at least in some higher-education programs not aimed specifically at the video game industry, there already IS a formal distinction between "interactive media" and its smaller subset of "video games." That's not to say such institutions alone drive our convention and conclusions as a global community, but it means that some groups devoted to analyzing these things are perfectly okay with making the distinction and not letting that interfere with the analysis and critique. They're models that show it's possible to draw lines and still make meaningful analyses, if nothing else. I feel that categories are descriptive, not prescriptive, so categorizing a work as "game" or "not game" should be an afterthought anyway. The semantics regarding a work's classification is secondary to my enjoyment and critique of it, so I think the controversy is more important on a cultural level than a personal one. On the other hand, perhaps some others see games as rigidly conforming to a set of classifications, in which case this discussion is *definitely* important for their personal perception and understanding of the media they interact with. Perhaps then, for me, that's motivation to participate in the discussion and attempt to at least contribute to a cultural shift to viewing media categories as descriptive and largely unnecessary considerations for the enjoyment of the work. Then, at least we could use "not a game" as a jab at the marketing decisions for a work, not a statement about the work itself. Incidentally, I *do* consider visual novels to be video games. At least, the ones with branching paths. The goal is to get the (or one of the) "good endings," the fail condition is any of the "bad endings," and the challenge is selecting the appropriate dialogue choices based on your knowledge of the plot and characters to achieve one of those "good endings." The very presence of "good ending" and "bad ending" in many visual novels (especially the ones that explicitly use those terms) should be an indication that they indeed follow the basic structure of a game. Non-branching visual novels, however (so-called "kinetic novels) are *not* video games, and are rather much close to novels on kindle than they are to conventional video games. Not that that in any way degrades or invalidates the experience (including the artistic decision to make the work digital), but such works shouldn't be marketed as video games since such a category carries implications that it doesn't mean to imply. And again, I think the pragmatic marketing benefit of making a conventional distinction outweighs the critical/analytical benefit of changing our cultural semantics of the term "video game." (Though while we're talking semantics, I think "visual novel" is a horrible name for a media category in the first place. It's incredibly close to "graphic novel," and if I didn't know any better, I would assume the terms are interchangeable. Calling it a "digital novel" would be less ambiguous, even when that risks being confused with a "novel in digital format." It would at least convey the digital nature of the medium, which "visual novel" definitely does not do. The point is kind of moot since the term seems already rooted in convention, but I thought I'd bring it up since we were discussing semantic interpretation of media category names anyway)
I TOTALLY agree with you when you said that the discussion on whether or not a game is a game is often just used as a way to dismiss/lessen a "game." It's the exact same thing with the "cheerleading/swimming/gymnastics isn't a sport." By the definition of a sport, they aren't; they're competitions because you cannot interfere with your opponent. Everyone will get up in arms when you say that something isn't a sport with the defense of "It's really difficult! People get injured! People train harder than your sport for it!" Just because something isn't a sport does not mean that it's any less difficult or respectable, just like how something isn't less of an art or crappier if it's not a game. People get so caught up on labels. It's truly annoying.
I just found your channel thanks to the Errant Signal Video, and I'm really glad I did it. On a couple of days I'm becoming a game design professor in a private school for the first time in my life and your videos are going to become one of my teaching tools. Actually this one in particular gaves me a lot of ideas for my very first class. Thanks a lot!
Glad to hear it! I taught game design and games as literature at a couple charter schools before I started this series, and it's a really interesting experience. Glad I can provide some helpful tools for others looking to do the same!
wow i wasn't too sure if i even wanted to watch this video since this topic has been discussed so much that i didn't think anything could be added to the discussion at this point, but i gotta say, the clear distinction of 'video games' and just 'games' is brilliant. I'm glad i watched this.
An equivalent analogy to your argument that video games have outgrown the definition of "game" would be comics or in particular comic books and its relation to the word they have derived from. The Merriam Webster definition of "Comic" is 1: of, relating to, or marked by comedy 2: causing laughter or amusement : funny
Penumbra (even the first one) plays out pretty much like the so-called visual novels, with simple puzzles and some enemy-bashing (with a pickaxe) thrown in along the way, but you don't see many people disregarding this game as artsy non-games. In fact along with the sequel, it's regarded as a horror 'gem' of sorts. As you mentioned, it seems the debate is leading us to completely labeling the sub genre as dull. I think the huge backlash is partly caused by the recent introduction of 'incomplete'/glitchy visual novel-type games (which are often clueless in their premise. Thanks for making another awesome video.
I agree. I remember a while back the director of Quantic Dreams and other dev teams wanting to change the name of the medium to ''interactive entertainment''. It was because not all games are considered to be ''actual games'' on the technical level and to disassociate it from the label of ''toy''. I think you're right. Even if the medium is called ''video games'', they don't necessarily have to play like a traditional game to be considered as such.
My take on the issue: The Stanley Parable I'd argue is in fact a "game" in the technical sense. What winning and losing mean exactly is subjective, but there is actually a system there that the player has to dissect in a game-like fashion (the "challenge", essentially, is messing with the narrator). The player has agency, and there's rules. Minecraft would be a similar example: how you "win" is very subjective, but there is a game in whatever it is that you're trying. With walking simulators, I'd argue they're something akin to "degenerate" (for lack of a term with better connotations) games. I mean that in the geometric sense-like how an ellipse with zero eccentricity is a circle, a rectangle with a height of zero is a line, how a trapezoid with a side of zero length is a triangle. We don't think of easy games as being "less of a game" than harder ones. Theoretically, this line of reasoning would imply that a game that can't be lost is arguably still a game (just an extremely easy one). Interactivity is where things become a bit more interesting-there's non-game software that can be very similar to a walking simulator in its level of interactivity. Celestia, for example, could probably be repackaged as a walking simulator-type game with little effort. So, this is probably where something can be considered the "grey area". However, going one step further would be a game that has no interactivity and actually plays itself-in other words, a movie (unambiguously NOT a video game). Getting to my point: the question of "is this a game" is probably not a yes-or-no one. Walking Simulators exist near the border of what we'd call a "game". It isn't necessarily wrong to criticize their lack of interactivity if done with tact (since interactivity is important). A poorly made walking simulator (or really, a poorly made game narrative) turns the player and their character into little more than a camera who observes a story without actually participating in it. This can, sometimes, legitimately be seen as defeating the point of games as a storytelling medium. Having said that-this isn't unique to that particular genre (a lot of video games run into the problem of their supposed protagonist having no role in the story. Bioshock would be a good deconstruction of this tendency), it's simply more noticeable in them. Action games can fall back on their mechanics, and walking simulators are comparatively naked.
A very good video as I have had lot's of problems trying to explain these "Games" to people and having them dismiss them because they don't adhere to the common "Game" formulas.
Your argument, that "video game" is a term that refers to some things aren't really games, is exactly my view of the subject too. And I don't understand why people would even argue about something as petty as "it's not a game".
I agree completely. The phrase "video game" has grown to encompass a much broader range of interactive, digital entertainment than it was originally intended to describe. I'm not sure another phrase will take its place, and I think it is safe to say that the phrase is no longer limited to "games" in any strict sense.
Games don't need Failure States. Wario Land 2 and 3 and Kirby's EpicYarn lack fail states. You lose currency upon taking damage as punishment, but you'll never lose, and are usually only pushed back when you lose on a Boss.
I'm curious what your thoughts are on using the term 'western visual novel' for this genre of these, not quite game, experiences. My friends and I began using it as we found 'walking sim' to be a bit disingenuous.
I've taken (and I'm not alone in this, it does seem to be an emerging term) to referring to the videogames that usually get the "walking sim" label as "exploration games" as that is a much better description of what you tend to actually do in them.
Honestly I've just decided to own the term "walking sim." Rather than attempting to create another pile of words and hope they catch on, just grab the term and use it. plenty of marginalized groups have taken insults and made them their own, like "queer." (Not that dear ester has ever resulted in someones death but you know..)
+The Inkblot on the Corner Heh, perhaps a less errr...socially weighty, comparison would be "Impressionism", which got its name from an early negative review of a group show where a critic dismissed the works on display as "mere impressions" of paintings. The artists in the show actually all thought that was a fantastic summery of their style of work, and it ended up being adopted as the name of the movement. (I still hate "Walking simulator" though, but this is a much more enjoyable debate than game/not game).
I've always felt like one of the most extreme examples of a "Non-Game" (outside of visual novels) is The Beginner's Guide. It's a short, linear, non-challenging experience that's completely narrated from beginning to end. I actually enjoyed it, but as far as attacks on "walking simulators" go it practically has an enormous red target painted on it. One thing that's been bugging me recently is how this issue ties into "Let's Plays": video series of one or more people sitting down and playing a video game, usually with their own commentary. It could be argued that watching a video of a popular RUclipsr playing The Beginner's Guide from beginning to end gives nearly the exact same experience as paying ten dollars to play it yourself. For the majority of games, "Let's Play" series likely have a positive effect, bringing attention and endorsement to a game that might have not ordinarily gotten it. But when I can go online and watch every single ending to The Stanley Parable, am I harming the sales of the game? I don't know how this problem could possibly be realistically addressed, or if it even is a problem to begin with, but I feel like it's worth talking about.
I've done an episode in the past about the importance of interactivity, and I quite strongly believe that watching a game instead of playing it--even a linear experience like The Beginner's Guide--is something of an incomplete experience that removes the essence of how one is to experience a game: that is, interactivity. So yeah, I'd say it's a problem to get a half-assed experience of a game without actually supporting the people who made it (though I certainly don't oppose let's plays themselves, just certain uses of them).
Interested to know exactly how you refer to videogames, that is to say, like I did just there, as two separate words, or hyphenated? I go with the first (clearly) because of many of the things you talk about in this video. It marks it out as its own thing; they came from, are related to, and often still contain games, but they're not just the video version, they're something else. As an aside, not sure I'd put Her Story in with videogames that have no challenge, I'd say the challenge there is very clear (solving a mystery, it's effectively a puzzle) if you look up Dennis Wheatley's Crime Dossiers you'll even find a precedent for exactly that kind of game that predates computers.
I tend to use two separate words: video games. But that's mostly out of habit; making it a compound word like you do may be becoming something of an industry standard, and if it does I'll happily adjust. As for Her Story, I agree there's a challenge akin to puzzle-solving. Now that I'm thinking about it more it does perhaps have enough of that structure to fit the definition, though I'm not entirely sure. Either way it certainly got its fair share of "not a game" complaints, so I feel its inclusion in this video was appropriate. Though I'll be thinking more about this now...
well Sudoku technically doesn't have a fail-state if you follow the rules since the rule is that you can't have the same number twice in the same line/square hence putting one means you broke the rule
Fair point. I think in puzzles like Sudoko, crosswords, etc., the fail state would likely just be giving up when you can't figure it out. Though, taking a cue from many games, the fail state could simply be when you accidentally break those rules. Similar to many video games, it doesn't mean you definitively "lose," but rather that you failed to do it right and must lose some progress and redo the challenge.
Games As Literature exactly but since videogames are operated by the system then it can prevent you from doing so hence Sudoku on PC can prevent you from putting the wrong number. it's still a puzzle game but you can't lose and that's what walking simulators are puzzles that you can't lose since there aren't enough options to do so but in some of them the lose state can also be intrinsic since if you don't understand the story you wouldn't understand the game losing all meaning and value
For me it's a problem of false advertising. When I set out to buy and watch documentary I expect to see documentary not a fiction movie. When I set out to buy a game, I expect that I will get a game, not a digital art installation. I believe that Valve also acknowledge this problem, that's why walking simulator tag isn't banned while a lot of other tags are.
The games like "walking simulators" are mostly presentations - you don't really interact with them. This also includes presentations like The Stanley Parable - sure you have choices, but they lead to linear results and the goal really is to see them all - kind of negating the whole principle of "meaningful" choice. Because this is what an "actual" game should strive to be - personal to the player. If you complete a challenge, that's *your" achievement. If you go through a non-linear conversation, that's *your* conversation. It also helps the story to make it more personal and therefore engaging, instead of patronizingly spelling it out to a passive viewer.
Some people's definition of a medium might be different. Sometimes I feel like special effects movies are not "real" movies. But maybe some feel the opposite. There's a 1981 film named "My Dinner with Andre" which apparently consists solely of a conversation of two guys while eating. Just as movies can be so many things, I guess so can video games. Reminds me of how Roger Ebert described Armageddon as "not really a movie in the traditional sense, more like the world's most expensive video game for people too lazy to pick up a mouse or joystick."
1993 in cinema bought us Jurassic Park (action! running! dinosaurs! assorted Spielbergyness!), and Derek Jarman's Blue (a flat unchanging plane of blue filling the whole screen for the entire runtime), videogames are going to survive just fine with a couple of sub genre's that happen to not have (explicit) win/lose states.
Lets be frank, Roger Eberts opinion on videogames was very low, claiming they'd never be art and it was also extremely uneducated. His remark was snark, not an invitation to debate.
The argument here seems to be "these have literary/artistic merit, so we should include them in the definition "videogame" in order to strengthen the perception of videogames. I don't find that terribly compelling though. I think it is valid to say that a videogame is a work which satisfies the criteria of a game as a piece of computer software. That said, I disagree with you on what the criteria of a game are. I would say that the necessary elements of a game are: 1. An objective. 2. Constraints on the ways in which the objective may be validly completed. 3. The activity is undertaken for its own sake. You'll notice that I've not mentioned Challenge or a Failure State. They're not necessary to consider. Challenge is produced as an emergent result of the first two criteria. Putting a ball in a hole isn't a challenge, putting a ball in a hole way over there when you can only hit it with a certain kind of stick is Golf, which is pretty challenging even absent the extra obstacles that a given hole can have. Just having constraints on how you can achieve a goal is sufficient to produce challenge (and challenge is subjective). Specific failure states aren't necessary either, because any voluntary activity contains the possibility that you just stop doing it, and some games have exatly that as their only failure state. Classic Lucasarts adventure games, for instance, don't have failure states and many people said that made them actually better, but you can always get stuck and give up. You can give up on anything, so you don't need to look for extra specific failure states or define them as required. However, that's actually a very broad set of definitions which includes things you wouldn't necessarily think of as games. It is, in fact, possible for a book to be a game. No, not a choose your own adventure, just a book. One where you start on page one and read to the end. How? If it's a mystery novel. Mystery novels are very commonly games. The objective is to figure out whodunnit before the detective in the story reveals it at the end, the constraints are that you can only use the information the author reveals. Mystery novels as games have even had some principles of game design (see Father Knox' Decalogue) and even attracted negative press from literary fiction reviewers because they were too much like puzzles to be "proper" novels (Edmund Wilson, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Akroyd", The New Yorker, 1945). All of this, it turns out, has happened before. This means that a piece of entertainment software shouldn't be regarded as a videogame because of the presence or otherwise of certain mechanical interactions. A mystery visual novel which the player can only progress linearly but which if they pay attention to clues in the pictures and text they figure out the mystery before the novel reveals it is a game. A romantic visual novel with the same mechanical interactions which has a narrative where the gamist approach to the narrative doesn't work (because the only point of uncertainty in a romance is "will they or won't they", but the bits that make it look like they won't are there to give more catharsis to the bit where they actually do not to genuinely make the reader wonder if they maybe won't) is not. A piece of entertainment software is a videogame if it allows for a gamelike approach, if it fits the criteria of a game. If it doesn't, it's something else. To go back to the point that it's okay for things to not be videogames, I think it could actually be a negative thing to insist on calling them videogames. By insisting on lumping them together with a superficially similar but internally different medium people who make them will consistently receive criticism that come from a set of expectations which may not be applicable (of the mechanics or lack thereof), or feel pressured to include more mechanically gamelike interactions which may be to the detriment of the product. (I've heard people argue quite sincerely that Soma would have been better without the monsters, because they're not the interesting thing about it and they can be quite goofy sometimes). It's tempting to say "These are good so I want to expand videogames and make videogames good by association", but I'm not sure that has any more validity to say "These are boring they're not even games". Interactive fictions/visual novels/walking simulators/whatever you want to call them should be allowed to develop out of the shadow of the term videogames, and when they come up with interesting ways to convey narrative and art in software, videogames will probably steal it (better that than steal from noninteractive media in the name of being "cinematic".
Gone Home is an art game, and even though there is no fail state in it, and one has a clear goal and there are challenges in it, much like Dear Esther it is an example of interactivity in which the protagonist finds out more about what happened to their family while they were gone. There are no jump scares, no monsters to fight, and practically the only character who is physically present in the house is the protagonist. But I've noticed that people do not appreciate it as much - some going as far as to call it the worst game of all time. Between you and me, those c***s have never played Bloodborne, or the NES game Renegade. THOSE are the worst games of all time, even if the former has an enticing and involving story to it. I actually remember there being a significant amount of backlash against point-and-click games after 1998 because overtime people only viewed them as interactive puzzles rather than gaming experiences. And their "not a game" argument was very strong with them. However, with the arrival of Bioshock, Mass Effect, Skyrim, The Stanley Parable, and other games which essentially slapped players and reminded them of how pathetic and useless and worthless and insignificant they are in the context of the whole universe (and that the projection protagonist they play in each of these games is ten times more kick ass then them, any day of the week) point-and-click games returned to form. The end point is, game genres come and go and return. Sub-genres within genres are also subject to the same evolutionary process of gaming markets. The people who say that art games are not games (Like Dear Esther, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, or Gone Home, or The Stanley Parable) were raised by people who called games like Hexen, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, and Alien (for the Atari Jaguar) "Doom Clones", and it was only after six to eight years had passed that all these games were clustered under "first person shooters". Similarly, Age of Empires and Civilization were clustered under "Risk simulator", till such time that they became "Real Time Strategy" (RTS), which in itself is a complete genre with its own set of rules and regulations. When World of Warcraft started, it was literally described as "DOTA worldwide" by its naysayers and general audience of Blizzard fans - now, World of Warcraft is ONE of at least two constantly appraised MMORPGs, which include League of Legends and SMITE. This is just a phase. And yes, teenagers and game jocks in general are complete ass-hats and incapable of differentiating a game from a tool, but soon enough they'll accept these games and we'll have no worries.
Dear Esther is just an INTERACTIVE DEMO. As simple as that. No need to change long standing definitions when we already had a term for it since Commodore 64. That Demos were usually free doesn't wasn't an absolute rule as well - some demos were sold professionally, for example to stores to show off the capacity of presented computers. So yeah, I'm more surprised that this is even a discussion, because in over 30 years people already have figured out what is what and only modern marketing machinery is blurring lines because they think it will sell more products. And yeah, ofc, all those that cash in attention as well (click-bait). But I honestly don't care. I am way to old to get fooled into buying something simply because it was mislabled; thanks for at least a few honest people left on youtube ;-)
I have seen this written stories in steam greenlight lately, they dont have any sprite or character or map design is just words, like a ebook; But they got interactivity inside his pages. Can we call those videogames? and so, could it be any script without finish (modeled character, scenes, etc.) call themselves videogames? what about books that are interactive, if you copy them into a digital media they transform into videogames?
I actually just played one of them the other night, Choice of Robots, and I'd say a very generalized yes. Text-based games are nothing new: Zork is a classic, and I've never heard anyone challenge its status as "game." That said, Zork had game-like elements such as exploration and item collection, so it was a bit more than just an ebook with choices. But using Choice of Robots as an example, while it didn't have either of those elements, it structured your interactivity around not only "choose your own adventure" style branching paths, but also by affecting certain stats and relationships depending on the choices you made. It was an interactive story that a book could not feasibly have achieved (it's technically possible, but would be so unweildy as to be practically impossible). It may or may not technically count as a "game," as traditionally defined, but it definitely falls under the digital interactive art that the term "video game" has come to encompass. But you also bring up the idea of unfinished work, and that's an issue that exists and is easily solved outside of video games as well. A script without the other elements would be a video game in the same way the script of Star Wars is a movie; not because it's written, as words can obviously be present in the film, but because it's specifically written to be part of a bigger whole. The issue there is whether or not it's the complete work, not whether words count as video games. Interactive books being transplanted into a computer program would be an interesting grey area, and I have no definitive answer. It would likely be a pretty bad game, at any rate, since books offer limited interactivity and (far as I'm aware, at least) choose-your-own-adventure books have never managed to be of any particular quality. But all art forms have their grey areas--this entire conversation is regarding one--and I'd definitely say this is one that could be argued with interesting results.
The thing is, where do you draw the line? Is Journey a Videogame or a piece of "video art"? Goals and challanges themselves aren't really that set in stone either. Does Minecraft have a goal?(or rather *did* minecraft have a goal, they have since added a goal) Does Viridi have a challange? You could argue it does but you could equally argue that it doesn't. I feel like drawing that distinction would just limit the medium as a whole, it could mean we'll miss out on experiences that don't fit into either definition.
The problem with calling them a different medium is that it breaks down the discussion. I want to talk about the game design within Dear Ester but the conversation will become whether it has game design at all. Its made and consumed the same way as any other game, just with minimal mechanics.
I'm in agreement with Inkblot and Zeebee on this one. This question of rebranding the genre has come up enough that I might need to do an informal followup video to talk about it a bit.
I would also say that if you wanted to use the term Interactive art, it would be the umbrella medium term and video games would be a genre of interactive art.
You folks have brought up very valid points. I can't find myself in disagreement. If all video games should be treated as a form of art then they will develop their own catagories. It could be how the game mechanics work, the creators intent, or common player experience. I think it's harder to define games by catagories because there are many forms of art that go into it. Honestly, I don't like the term walking simulator. maybe we could call them Ambient Adventure Games, Narrative Adventure Game, Trance Adventure Games, or something more appropriate to help people that like the genre find the games more easily and help people that arnt fans avoid it.
I can see you've put a lot of thought into this, and honestly I've never thought of it this way before. Until now, I've only thought of things in light of the technical definition. Maybe it's time to change perspective. Maybe the medium needs a change of term. Since it seems you've already made a video on that topic, I think I'll check it out. I'm looking forward to your opinion on that topic.
Is Dear Esther not a game? Is Un Chien Andalou not a film? It's practically the same question, but there's not a critic in the world that would begin to suggest UCA isn't a valuable contribution to the film medium. In turn, I simply can't respect any critic's opinion if they dismiss Dear Esther or other similar games as not part of the medium for any reason. Dear Esther isn't a very good game, but that's an entirely different point.
In the most skeleton sense of it: No, Dear Esther is not a game and yes, that random pile of images are still a movie. What you should be comparing Dear Esther to is "is a audiobook run on a empty white screen a movie".
+ANDELE3025 "is a audiobook run on a empty white screen a movie" bar the choice of colour for the screen, this describes Derek Jarman's Blue, a movie from 1993.
+Onin How exactly did he miss your point? Un Chien Andalou is defined as a movie because it consists of images in motion. Dear Esther is not defined as a game because it involves no meaningful interaction whatsoever. Or would you consider going for a walk while listening to an audiobook a game?
I have to say that there is still a problem of naming "non-games", even if we accept them as videogames. Because usually to experience an art object in this media people pay money. Many people who were angry about "Dear Esther" were angry because nowhere in the marketing material it says that it is low(or even no)-interaction/challenge experience, so person who bought it expected a game. That was before steam-refund. "Gone Home", on the other hand, states "No combat, No puzzles" as it's key feature. "Walking simulator" steam-tag is helping, but it is often seen(and used) as derogatory term. It's basically the problem of naming the new genre. And as long as no one has monetary interest(as it was with MOBA name when Riot tried to distance LoL from DOTA) i think it's up to consumers.
Exactly. I'm pretty sure with the refund system in place a lot of those sales may have disappeared as fast as they got in. After all wasn't Dear Esther labelled as Adventure ?
As a fan of walking simulators, I don't consider them to be games- they're in a league of their own, and I don't think they need to be considered games to be worth examining or experiencing. Regrettably, some folks seem to think that a game not being a game takes away its legitimacy as an artistic expression.
Yeah, I'm not saying their value is based on their game-ness, or their consideration as such, rather just that they are of the same basic building blocks of the "video game" medium in general and don't need to be excluded from it.
The problem comes with marketing or to be precise expectation management. As long as these games are presented as what they are there's no issue. This wasn't the case with Dear Esther and that's why people complained.
Would like to bring in some foreign perspective. Considering the fact that terminology is very much rooted in language there might be some value in checking other languages definitions. So, russian word for game is "игра", but it seems to be a bit broader in meaning. One of the definitions is that it's a type of non-productive activity where the motive resides both in the result and the process itself. That is we play the games to play them, not to win them. That brings in more experience -based approach, and less mechanical. I believe a more accurate word for this meaning of "игра" is play. There is also an idea that games are based on illusions. A knight fighting a dragon with a fire sword is actually a little kid bashing a tree with a stick. The kid who is playing. And symbolism of this sort is the crucial element of play. The only thing one needs for a game are symbols and rules for them to abide by. ... hope it makes any sense)
I can agree that "walking simulators" can be digital, interactable works of art, and great experiences to, well, experience. But they are not video games - they are digital art. The difference is that in art the artist/creator is expressing themselves in such a way that the viewer/user can experience, but is is always one sided, a monologue. In video games both the creator and the user are expressing themselves. The user might just be expressing how exactly they are playing the game, or they may be a creator using the tools provided by the game developer - but it is a dialogue.
If both are interactive, how are "walking simulators" more one-sided than traditional video games? Your distinction is assigning exaggerated importance to traditionally-defined gameplay; the player interacts with the world and story of games like Tacoma and Firewatch as much, if not more meaningfully than games like The Last of Us and God of War.
I'd dissagree with you that games like "Pacman" or story games "aren't games." Pacman has a win state, it's just that what the winstate is is determined by the player rather than the game. If you've died in Pacman at a higher level than last time, then you've "Won." Ironically, since the game never declares, "You Win," the win state is dying. In story games, the win state is to get to the end of the story, and the lose state is to give up by choosing to stop playing the game. Even in Proteus, the win state is to simply be in the area the game provides. And thusly, the lose state is to not do that, meaning to not play the game.
Yeah, I saw it. It was a decent treatment of the subject, though clearly from kind of an outside perspective. I've always hated the idea that video games *can* me art, as opposed to just *being* art. It lets people pick and choose which games they think are worthy, instead of acknowledging the artistic merit of the medium as a whole, and ends up reducing what is and isn't "art" to a subjective measure of quality.
+Games As Literature True, I agree that both Dear Esther and Bioshock Infinite are artistic in different ways. Just because one has more gameplay or difficulty doesnt necessary mean it is better. Just a different way of artistic expression. We can hate or dislike something but it doesnt mean it should cease to exist. I hated Gone Home, but that doesnt mean that other people don't find good in it. Everything should be subject to taste, not by genre.
I think that "Interactive Experience" is a better name for some of the non-games. A lot are more akin to walking though an art gallery with an audio-book, but others have more interactivity (maybe not challenge, but you do need to interact and not just walk around). Others again, seem little some than a screen saver. Level of interaction aside, quite a few are trying to tell a story, and that story is what it needs to be judged by. If the interaction is limited and the story is uninteresting, then you have a bad "game." Fun to play games can get away with poor or no narrative. The Stanley Parable is an exemplar of a good interactive experience. It has, first and foremost, an engaging (and funny) story. I think I had a point, but i feel that I am just waffling now. I might go "experience" Dr Langeskov again, because that was a fun non-game.
Walking simulators are definetely not video games. Call them interactive fiction if you want, but gameplay is the defining feature of this medium, to say that interaction is what defines this medium is to put them in the same category as gamebooks.
You've got great content! I would like you to make a literary analysis of Okami! (Or Limbo. Or Ori and the Blind Forest. Or To the Moon) ... *sighs* I'm looking forward to what you have to say. And as much as I would like to see a literary analysis for Okami (or for the other), ANY literary analysis is welcome!
I would love to do all of those, actually. And may, at some point. Though Okami takes so long to play through that it'll have to wait until a certain Patreon goal, when I have enough financial support to justify such a huge undertaking.
I believe a video game should try to take advantage of the medium and not be ashamed or afraid to be that. A video game. Many developers fall for the trap of being cinematic or closer to literature and in the process they lose the essence of the video game. A game can have the most thought provoking story and characters, but if your gameplay is below average, you might as well just make a movie or write a book.
We could simply use a more broad term and keep on making and enjoying more great video-game-ish things... Yeah about that new name, I'd suggest intex: from interactive experience (I know, some people will not like it or prefer to keep calling these interactive art thingies video games but at least I tried :P)
On the subject of Dear esther and saying people had a problem because it wasn't a "traditional game". Matthew does a great comparison on both games and probably shines a lot of problems Dear esther has as a "game" ruclips.net/video/ST25ur3JSMU/видео.html I also feel the hand waving away of gameplay in our medium is outright silly when it is *game play* that makes our medium different from the other mediums. There is a reason why people want to keep the word walking simulators on some of these product because a lot of them adds nothing of value to this industry. ruclips.net/video/ZV1u8FMsb5I/видео.html
Dear Esther is more like a novel or movie for a lot of people, thus not a game. You wouldn't claim the next movie comes out is a game, would you? You wouldn't argue against people saying it's not a game even if the advertising calls it a game, right? A book is interactive because it requires you to flip pages, but it's not a game either despite being "interactive media". Anyway, I don't particularly care. As long as the games themselves are otherwise labeled well enough so people know what to expect.
Well it's true form "art" standpoint, but from customer side if i buy game I want game. If I buy a game and it's Deadpool movie DVD I'd be pissed because it's not what I wanted to get. As such Deadpool is good movie but if we look at it as game we cannot overlook that it's not a game. Even in art we need to define things, Mona Lisa is terrible sculpture, but in as painting is rather on good side. Video games are not that well defined from either side of that problem, when software starts being game and when game stops being game, plus as art definitions change with time. Still calling something a game or art does not make it such only gives us place from which we can critique it.
Either it is a Game or an Interactive Experience. Games that are classed as Walking Sims should be renamed as Interactive Experience. If there is no challenge or mechanic that must be learned to 'win' the game then it isn't a Game. I would class a Interactive Experience as the in-between point with a Movie and a Game.
I disagree that Dear Esther spawned the genre of walking simulators or inspired similar games. Dear Esther was pretty much on rails and no other game tried to follow that formula. I think games like Amnesia had bigger impact on that genre. I hate the term "walking simulator", I prefer exploration game.
Most games that are thrown into the category of "walking simulator" are extremely linear. The last thing I would call games like that are exploration games. the word *exploration* seems like it would better fit a AAA MMO tbh.
So, you don't really offer up your own definition. Then you state these aren't games, rightfully so, thus the definitions we have don't work. Take out the 'current climate' these words don't work for these works. They aren't video games they're something else, and trying to compare them to Mario, Pac-Man, or Call of Duty seems silly. We need new words, we need new genres, and we need new ways to think about these things. Language has failed us here and we need to get words for these more than we need to make them fit a definition we already have. I don't think it's that they need to be entirely separated from video games, but it's more like looking at Bebop in Jazz music, or maybe the idea of Jazz in music as a whole.
7:11 it is at this moment you argument turns into a steaming pile of bullshit. It's not they didn't understand, they understand perfectly, they played it and found it *boring*. They did not find any redeeming quality so they complained. They rightly recognized its not a game *which even you agree is true*. They rightly understood there is no mechanical value in it. That doesn't mean it cannot have any other value. The Stanely Parable is popular on Steam, VNs have a Renaissance on Steam, CYOA book styled games are also popular. They understand that quite well. But you can make sure when they hear that it is a "walking simulator" they will double check what redeeming values outside of mechanics they have, maybe they have great writing and characters? maybe its an interesting audio-visual experience? Whatever the case they will know what they get themselves into. And when they see then next Firewatch maybe they will consider not for them. Maybe they will consider it too pretentious artsy bullshit. Whatever the case stop shoving legitimacy as a substitute for value. People just consider them not worth the cash.
Huh, i actually made a video very similar to this a little while ago. ruclips.net/video/sl2SvsKucyc/видео.html I rework the traditional games definition to argue that challenges and fail states aren't inherent to games. That they would be put under the category of a restriction
at the end of the day it all depends on your enjoyment. I did not enjoy gone home, ergo not a game. I enjoyed yuminikki and even the stanley parable. both are different types of walking simulators, both are games because there was fun for me to have. the minute a game is no fun it stops being a game and becomes a chore.
That's... not how things work though. Personal preference can't be our rubric for judging the very nature of a thing. I hated the Battleship movie, but that doesn't mean it's not even a movie. It's a bad movie, but still a movie. It makes no sense to exclude something from the entire medium based on a subjective measure of quality rather than the nature of the thing and its place within the medium.
what's wrong with pointing out "that's not a game"?. it hasn't be a derogatory term, just stating a fact. gone home or those you mentioned as "non games" are exactly that, not videogames. that genre should be called something different, visual story, interactive novel, virtual novel, virtual experience, visual experience, whatever you like, but not games, even selling them as games is false advertising. a collection of random noise is not music, it's sound, but it's not music. the "walking simulators" are a thing, but not games.
You'll note that I pointed out that they're not games in this video. So of course, there's nothing wrong with it. But it's usually used to be exclusionary (i.e. "I can't believe these critics liked Gone Home, it's not even a game!"). And there is something wrong with that. And it's notable we're not talking about genres here. "Video games" are not a genre, they're an art form. Genres within that art form exist, and "non-games" can easily inhabit one of them, but I don't think there's any compelling reason to separate them from the entire medium.
The amount of emotional baggage connected to the word "game" is kind of ridiculous. After all it's not important at all, how we call stuff. What is important is to realize that an interactive system like Dear Esther is fundamentally different from something like Chess or XCOM. And someone designing a thing like Dear Esther has to allude to completely different principles of what makes good design than someone making a strategy board game. Concepts matter, not words.
I think that clarifying that Dear Esther and Chess are completely different is basically every way, by giving them different labels, will help people design them to their strengths. If we just have "game design" courses, books, articles, and sites, people will half the time be given information that does not in any way apply to what they are making. Also -- I remember you from Dinofarm! ( :
I agree. And I think the more people understand how different these things are, the more it won't make sense to call them all "games" anymore. First in specialist circles but later on quite probably in the mainstream as well. Ha! The Dinofarm is everywhere! ;)
+Games As Literature Good to hear! I thoroughly enjoyed the last Bioshock episode because you managed to capture what the artist behind the game wanted to express. Not many channels on RUclips have managed to do that to such detail. Well done, keep up the good work :)
You couldn't avoid referencing the (non-existant in my opinion) issue of objectifying woman in video games, could you? Is that really the biggest controversy within gaming, and not, well, half of society treating video games as nothing but toys, or speaking about them without any knowledge? Or constant bribery and dishonesty of reviewers, corruption and actual problems of big poublishers? Really? Now, about the issue itself - I do believe, that the art form that is video games provides plenty of opportunities to create unique experiences and works. However, the game has to have actual content within it. I did not play "Dear Esther", so I cannot really speak about that game itself, but let's have hypothetical situation - we have a said game, that has only letters read in it. The letters are great, but they are all that is. You are just walking around, with no real influence on the world. You are not even playing a movie, nor a book. You are listening to it, with no real input. If that is the case of this game - as I said previously, that is just me speaking hypotheically - then I don't really think it is really that good of a work of art, even if the letter itself is interesting, cause it is not using the actual elements of the work to it's advantage. Imagine movie that has just sound played out, with no visuals shown at all, literally black screen. It may be good, yeah... but can we call it a movie at that point? Won't it be harmful towards other movies if we treat that one movie higher just because it is different? I see a problem here. However, as I said, this is just hyphotesis. If "Dear Esther" does indeed have some actual form of input, with control of the played over protagonist adding to the overall presentation, than I do think it deserves to be called a video game. However, the input has to be there. Interaction with the medium is prime aspect of video games. Without it, it is no longer a true member of the genre, no matter how much "artsy" it tries to be.
With Gamergate (which has not once effectively addressed the actual issues about corruption, despite the desperate facade), yes, it's the biggest controversy in gaming. Not just objectifying them in games, but treating real life women well within the actual gaming industry and community. Half of society misunderstanding games is a big issue, but it isn't what I'd call a "controversy." And yes, all you do in Dear Esther is walk around and explore, but that is input, and it does affect what you discover in the world and narration you hear, and thus as a result, how you perceive the story. Though "treating it as higher" isn't the suggestion in the first place, just as equal.
Games As Literature You know, if I'm honest, the case of woman in video games can be applied to movies as well. Yes, Gamergate is a problem, but we had some guys call out Mad Max and TFA to be feminist bullshit propaganda just cause there is important - and awesome - female lead in those movies. Within video games, I think the problem lies equally on both sides. Yes, there are a lot of games, where woman are just an eye candy - although honestly, it's not a black/white situation, where everytime there is fanservice it's treating woman as just objects. good looks are something to be admired, as they are hard to keep - but there is equal, if not higher amount of games, where that is otherwise. About treating woman within industry - well, I can't really say anything about this issue, as I don't really recall any serious attacks on woman within industry, that could not be applied to man as well, or was not justified (see Anita Sarkeesian. Yes, attacks on her are a problem, but they are there cause she speaks crap, so it resulst in animalistic, stupid reaction. that happens to men as well, if not more often, as actual statistics show). However, as I said, I have not looked up any information about discrimination against many female developers, or anything along those lines, I freely admit that. And if we are talking about how woman are treated in multiplayer community - well, I don't think that is something that can be changed. It's just assholes being assholes, swearing does not have to be strictly related to anyone's gender, even if it is addressing it. The problem here is more the overall toxic environment within a lot of online communities and forums, not just targeting woman. Hmm, if it does indeed matter, then I am freely ready to call it a video game. However, what actual quality it presents, well, that is other topic. Will have to look up actual writing and themes of the work. I actually like some non-typical ideas within video games, part of reason I love Shadow of the Collossus so much. Btw, cannot wait to see you analise another game. Any specific target around? And what about video game series with each installments being different from each other from narrative point of view, like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, or Kotor? Will you speak about series in general, or about specific installment. You know, instead of targeting whole series, just talk about the very bests -Kotor 2, Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 2 as an example.
I have plenty of games I want to do, I'm just trying to deal with some life changes that make my schedule difficult to deal with. >.< As for talking about the best in a series, there are some cases where I plan to do that, but in scenarios where the earlier games are still talking about (Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, and Fatal Frame to name a few) I would like to do them in order. Skipping around would be confusing, and I don't want to bar myself from talking about a great game because I was impatient to get to its sequel. So we'll see. Current target is Hatoful Boyfriend, as requested by a Patron, then in the near future I plan on doing Journey, Halo 2, Ico, and some others. Also I think Dust: An Elysian Tail has been requested by a patron as well. And I plan on doing Spec Ops: The Line sometime in the near-ish future, but I might wait for a special occasion.
randomguy6679 Well, I am not saying there is no issue at all. However, I do not believe, that the overall issue is just the problem of video games, nor that it truly is something completaly harmful. Yes, there are examples of woman being treated as less of people, or having them just in sexual roles with no real personality beyond their sex appeal, but to be honest... only the former is something truly wrong. The latter... well, it really depends on context of said video game. And yes, the issue does exist, but I overall think it is not as big as majority of people make it out to be, and for the most part it is not case of people hating woman, or any crap like that, but being bad writers, or general assholes. Like in Mass Effect 3, where Liara and Ashley were intentionally made more "sexy" (although effect was actually bizzarre) just to attract more players, without any lore reason. It's not that it was an act of misogony, or treating woman as objects, considering how much BioWare wanted to appeal to LGBT and feminists, it's just bad taste and another example of bad writing. I know it's nitpicky for me to say it, but if we just treat every example of that as treating woman as less of people, then we are missing the real source of the problem.
Kind of astounds me that implying that the gaming world should treat women better is regarded as "virtue signalling" instead of just "being a decent human being."
At 7:00 you describe certain games as not fulfilling the criteria of the traditional game, based in part of the lack of failure state in titles such as "Her Story".
I would argue that this would involve a very strict definition of what a "failure state" actually is. Her Story has both an implied failure state and a challenge. The challenge of the game is to uncover the truth. One does so by searching keywords, however these keywords are picked up through the analysis and investigation of the different videos in the game. The "failure state" is a failure to progress, to find the truth. The game is an exercise in paying attention and comprehension, picking up on details in order to further provide you with the keywords necessary to unlock all of the videos, which will eventually lead you to the truth. A failure to progress is still a failure state. It is not a "game over" screen, but it is an implied failure state due to your failure to progress through all of the content the game has to offer. It's important not to strictly define a failure state simply because you then run the risk of starting to apply the lack of failure state argument to games that don't let you die. It's worth noting that one cannot simply claim a failure to progress and as such a failure state if the player simply decided to stop playing for no reason. That decision to stop playing must be built on a failure to progress in some form which directly resulted from a challenge presented by the game. Games are in essence a contest against the games programming. Your failure state can consist of surrendering to that challenge.
As a result, the definition of what is and is not a game is deliberately very restrictive so as to include almost everything, while excluding any product that does not provide any sort of challenge or failure state at all. Dear Esther for instance can only be failed by refusing to move forward. There are no puzzles to overcome, no challenges or investigation to be done. The narrative is fed to you without you having to achieve anything in order to do it. It's at that extreme point that we can start to say 'maybe this isnt a videogame, maybe this is some sort of narrative experience, a virtual installation of sorts'. I'd use the term visual novel but that's already in use for another more established genre, as I might add is interactive fiction (though one has to question how interactive things like Dear Esther really are, when you can argue that they can be experienced in just the same way when watched on a video).
As regards to passage. I would argue that your definition of videogame may be a little too restrictive in and of itself, because Passage clearly does have goals and mechanics, not to mention a challenge. The game allows you to earn points by picking up treasure chests. As you are joined by a "wife" character, it becomes more difficult to acquire said chests due to the navigational challenges put in front of you. Your inability to die is irrelevant to the concept of failure state. The failure state is that of failing to play the game optimally, by not collecting as many of these treasure chests before you inevitably die of old age and the game ends. Whether or not there is any real purpose to the collection of said chests is not the issue at all, the fact that they exist at all and you can fail to collect them, means there is a challenge and there is an implied failure state. The best way to describe the implied failure state is that it is an expression of the ability for a player to make decisions that will have positive or negative results. Anything that allows you to do that, has an implied failure state and is as such, a game. Anything that allows you to make a choice that the player can then interpret as an optimal or suboptimal outcome, fulfils the definition of a videogame, regardless of whether or not there is any form of traditional difficulty associated with said choice. This is why Stanley Parable can easily be considered a game, since you can make choices that lead to different outcomes that are, in the eyes of the player, more or less desirable.
Using that as the measuring stick, I think its quite easy to determine what is and is not a videogame. That definition is deliberately inclusive and excludes very little, while avoiding the "I think its boring so its not a game" fallacy.
As to the dismissal of "non-games", there's no doubt it happens, but similarly, expecting regular players to engage in deep debate about that sort of thing is perhaps an idealistic and unrealistic expectation. Most people buy games to be entertained. That's all they really want from it. Negative reactions to "non-games" are an expression of consumer frustration that their money went into something they didnt fully understand or enjoy in some way. Games dont have to be fun, but they must be compelling in some way, they must be interesting. Some of these narrative-only experiences fail to do that and that is the source I believe of the backlash, rather than some sort of exclusionary manning of the walls and closing of the portcullis to keep out the invaders to our believed hobby.
Anyway, your video was great and I'm glad that other people are providing a nuanced discussion on this topic.
Well first I have to say I'm surprised and kinda' honored to have such a prominent figure of gaming's RUclips scene notice my channel. I'm glad you liked the video. ^_^
I agree with you on Her Story, partially through discussion generated earlier in these comments. I used it as an example primarily because it was a recent, well-received game that got plenty of "not a game" pushback, and I perhaps could have placed that reference better so as not to imply it didn't fit as a "game."
As for Passage, I agree it has those elements, but I find it hard to claim the status of "game" based on them since, as you mentioned, their presence doesn't really affect any explicit win or fail states. If anything that sounds more like simple play, rather than the structured rules of the game, but since those gameplay elements grant meaning to the narrative that wouldn't be appropriate either. But I definitely understand where you're coming from there, and now I kind of want to take a few minutes to play through it again and see.
I think a lot of it comes down to the difference between what the average consumer wants out of the medium and what more academic criticism is looking for. The "not a game" pushback on Her Story doesn't really come from a place of common sense. What most of it was really saying was "well this doesn't appear to be a traditional game experience that I'd be willing to pay for, so I'm going to make this broadstroke argument". I think there's also an element of knee-jerk reaction to anything like Her Story that's a non-traditional gaming experience that is heavily pushed by the gaming press, a natural suspicion amongst certain subsets of gamers that probably started with Gone Home getting such a massive press spotlight and ending up not being the game that some people were necessarily hoping for. There's a feeling of distrust between some gamers and the media that is fueling a lot of what you've described as difficulty discussing this topic. To bring up the dreaded boogieman "Gamergate", anything that seems even slightly connected to it has a tendency to poison good discussion. The "non-game" thing is related to that somewhat and that's made discussing it very difficult outside of small circles of trusted, sensible people.
To explain my definition more clearly, it comes from a very utilitarian place. The purpose of the failure state to me is not relevant. In Passage, the implied failure state may have no narrative purpose at all, or it may exist to make an abstract point about life (that would seem to be the case, if after adding a spouse into the mix it becomes more difficult to acquire these treasure boxes, although that seems a little too on the nose so perhaps my interpretation is completely off). The purpose of the definition is to provide accurate information to people, to categorize things in a useful manner. I'm a stickler for sub-genres in metal for instance. People ask me why, why cant' everything just be "metal". Well, it is, but there are very specific things within that kind of music that I like and I want an easy way to find them. Games are similar, but the medium is still in the process of evolving and there may be some products that don't really qualify as games. Maybe they need a separate label.
What's important I think is to not look down upon "non-games". They're not lepers, they're not inferior, they're just different. As much as I've looked for a better definition than the failure state argument, I've yet to find one. However for that definition to work you have to believe as I do that a game is inherently a competition against something. Some people don't believe that and as such that definition isn't going to work for them.
It's a fascinating discussion, I've enjoyed having some of it with you. Thanks for your video and your time. Keep trying to encourage discussion in difficult areas, its important.
A thing to note with fail and win-states is that they aren't necessarily "absolute". For example: you technically can't "win" at Pac-Man so much as "lose less". The inverse would be LucasArts adventure games, were you "win less" by not being able to solve puzzles.
Passage, I'd argue is a game in the sense of challenge. You "win" by getting points, and "lose" by not getting points.
Interactive experiences should not be measured on how much they are like "games", but on how engaging the content is that it presents to the player. I see the argument that some people put forth that "walking simulators" aren't fun, but the real problem with some of them is that they aren't engaging.
The Stanley Parable could absolutely be called a walking simulator because that's just about all you do in it. However, the engagement level in participating with that game and playing through it is so high that people are able to see it for what it actually is -- an enjoyable experience that makes you think about games as a whole.
Great video!
I've heard LaurakBuzz refer to this type of games as "interactive dramas" and I found that a fitting name for the genre.
One thing that's been on my mind lately: if a game has checkpoints or a save system, does it really have a fail state? Most of the time it's merely a setback, whereas with games before video games (from chess to sports to D&D) failure meant you had to start completely from scratch again. Where's the line between a failure state and a state of non-progress?
I also wonder if other art forms ever had a similar discussion; was there ever a group of traditionalist sculptors that claimed sculptures made from clay “aren't really sculptures because you don’t carve the material”?
I'd say that a fail state would have to be a penalty given to punish a certain behavior (ie dying, running off the map, failing a task), no matter how negligible the consequence. In some faster paced games non-progress itself feels like a punishment, so that line could be a distinction without a difference.
I would say that's probably not a very good definition because it would classify bad strategies as fail states as they may eventually lead to loss or cost the player unnecessary time or resource. I would say games that have checkpoints or ones that you can try again entirely without the emotional acknowledgement that you 'lost', don't have fail states. If the setbacks are significant enough that a player feels like he or she loses when experiencing them, it would make sense to call them fail states. Of course, this is for game theory purposes, and with this solution one would likely view each section separated by checkpoints from other sections as separate games in this regard.
Rens de Jonge I'd think in cases were the setback is negligible, the loss or strategy failure itself is more disappointing than the penalty. In super meat boy you respawn really quickly, but failing is still disappointing. I don't know many games where you can lose without any emotional response at all.
I would say that challenges and fail states are looking too narrow at a broader topic. I think that games have Creative Restrictions. Meaning that they have restrictions put in place by the game maker for no other reason than the game maker put them there. For example, the only reason you use a club in golf is to make it more interesting than walking up to the green with the ball in your hand. Fail states and challenges are simply a type of restriction.
To your first question, yes. Anything that indicates a failure to achieve the goal, regardless of the penalty, would be considered a fail state. That's not to say that idea of a "fail state" isn't grey area in principle anyway, but the presence of "save" mechanisms or checkpoints definitely does not contradict the existence of a fail state. Fail states deal more with the rules of gameplay, whereas checkpoints and "saving" deal more with the penalties of poor gameplay, so the two concepts operate on individually unrelated design elements. Not holistically unrelated; nothing in a "design" of any medium is unrelated on the whole, but different decisions can primarily affect different elements without interfering with each other. They each operate on their own axis, so to speak.
To address your question about non-progress, I would say that there isn't a true line between failure and non-progress in the first place. There are many game genres (puzzle games, for example) that generally operate on the idea that the player has either finished the puzzle, or hasn't. You could say the only "failure state" in such games is the scenario where the player decides to give up and quit the game rather than continue attempting to succeed, but I think that's broadening the scope to an impractical degree. This is one of the reasons that a "fail state" isn't always considered a core constituent of a game: it excludes far too many things that are traditionally considered games. I tweak the term to say "failure condition," and include the idea that a "failure condition" could be considered any condition that does not contribute to the player attaining the goal. That means that the "failure condition" is, in the least-forgiving interpretation, equivalent to a state of non-progress. Basically, that would then mean that when playing a game of "blocked stone," the failure condition is constantly satisfied except when the player moves a stone that gets them closer to the solution--there is simply no penalty for that failure. If you're good with math, I think a good way to visualize the idea of "goals" and "fail states" when there are games that only ambiguously have either (such as goal-less sandbox games) is with interval notation. Games with definite fail states or definite goals (where the game explicitly notifies the player of either) are like inclusive intervals (i.e., with brackets). However, indefinite fail states and indefinite goal states are non-inclusive (i.e., with parenthesis), as if those states can be approached but never truly achieved (since the game itself has no such coded condition(s)).
In more direct terms, my best answer is that there's only a definite line between a "fail state" and a "non-progress state" if there is a given condition in the game that results in losing progress, such as losing all health or failing a time trial. More generally applicable: if the game has a condition that notifies the player "you lose!" "you died!" "game over!" etc., that is the fail state--regardless of the severity of the penalty incurred. If that state is not triggered, then it is not the fail state, even if progress is negative (such as falling from a large height in a climbing section but not "dying"). If there exists no such condition that triggers a "you lose!" (etc) notification, then there is no fail state, and a non-progress state can be considered the design equivalent. This theory is still flawed, for it would definitely include many things that either *aren't* games or are hotly contested as such. So, I would tentatively say that if "non-progress" is considered equivalent to "failure" if no true "fail state" exists, then the game would also have to include some manner of obstacles that attempt to force that non-progress state. I think that clears things up somewhat while leaving some things open, but I'll try to focus my theory more if it raises more questions.
I wonder similar things about other artistic media as well, and I know for sure that academic art has had at least one huge reform considering what was "good art." See: the impressionist movement. That was when people started deciding that art (specifically, painting) didn't need to strive for photorealism to be "good," and could aim instead to express the thoughts and feelings of the artist. It also happened to be the era when cameras were first becoming a thing, so painters were being displaced as the primary method for recreating reality. Some felt the need to search for a deeper purpose than simply recreating what was in front of them, and joined in on the impressionist movement.
So in a way, this type of cultural movement in regards to artistic media has *definitely* happened before, but I think the heart of the discussion is a little different, even if the emotion behind the naysayers is largely the same. Some lovers and creators of a medium dislike a group of works for focusing on something they don't care much for, and are angered when those works are classified in the same way--and so reject that classification, with their anger coming to a point. I don't agree with those motivations, but I do agree with a more traditionally-focused definition to "video games." I think there is technical merit to drawing a distinction, primarily in identifying and analyzing different core elements in genres, but also in marketing.
If works that aren't technically "games" aren't marketed as such, then they won't build expectations that they have no intention of fulfilling, which I think is the main trigger for the anger that often sparks this debate. If games are marketed with this distinction in mind (and probably a couple other sister classifications to "video game") then products can be more efficiently matched with consumers who are most likely to appreciate and enjoy them. There's definitely a market for un-game-like "games," and attempting to squeeze into an oversaturated market that's not well-understood to begin with seems like a huge missed opportunity for a somewhat misguided sense of semantic pride. It is indeed sad that this issue seems to be driven by stubbornness and misguided pride on both sides, rather than primarily viewed either a pragmatic or critical perspective. I don't think "video games" have much to gain critically by adopting a more inclusive definition, and I definitely think the market for both sides has a lot to gain pragmatically by adopting a more *strict* definition--and the issue never should've been so emotionally driven in the first place.
What's frustrating about the "not a game" critique is, as you eloquently point out in this video, it's not really a constructive criticism.
Instead of discussing why a certain experimental game succeeded where another failed, it's a constant argument over whether these games have a right to exist.
And of course they should. Video games have a unique characteristic, setting them apart from any other medium, of being able to create believable, tangible worlds the player can explore at their own pace. It's only natural we were inevitably going to get games that focus solely on that attribute.
I doubt it's about whether they should exist. It's whether they should be lumped in with video games. Whether video game critics should review them. Whether gaming sites should mention them. Whether Wikipedia should put them under the category of video games (or even just "games"). As opposed to categorizing them as interactive media or something.
Why not let them be placed together though? However diverse they are in genre they are part of the same medium, and creators in one genre in that medium influence and are influenced by others, the same as it works within film which also has a huge diversity of works. Gaming sites should mention whatever they fancy, some sites will cover more mechanic centred games where others will have more of an interest in art titles, others in narratives, and others focussing on AAA. This is pretty much how it works for cinema now. Not every film review publication or site covers the same movies, they each have a slightly different leaning and are tailored to a slightly different audience, be it people who thought Marvel's The Avengers was the best movie of 2012, or people who thought it was Holy Motors, or both!
Amy Procrastinating
But I'm not sure they are the same medium, any more than movies and TV shows, or paintings and photos, or books (w/ illustrations) and comics.
That's an impasse then, because I can't see two audiovisual works made (if we take Dear Esther and HL2 as our examples) using the exact same tools and interacted with using the exact same inputs as not being in the same medium.
"Art" games and "normal" video games are fundamentally made and consumed the same way.
I personally have always contended that a definition for "video games" must include the traditional definition for a game: that is, a goal, obstructions to that goal (or "challenges"), and a failure condition (a "fail state"). However, I have also always contended that considering a piece of interactive media "not a game" doesn't necessarily devalue it, and I'm really glad that this was your main point. No one really seems to bring up the idea that the semantics of a work's categorization doesn't really matter in terms of critiquing the work itself. At worst, it simply means the work isn't what it claims to be, which is of little consequence (except in marketing, which is probably the only good argument in-favor of making the distinction). Claiming "not a game" as a meaningful critical statement says more about the critic than the work they're critiquing. I don't personally find the issue quite as important as you say it is, but I do agree it's important on some level. I think it matters the most, as I parenthetically mentioned, in the context of marketing for a game.
I think "non-games" meet the biggest contention when their marketing and advertising doesn't adequately set up expectations for what they are. I can hardly imagine the contempt that could be felt when expecting some kind of adventure RPG or at least "adventure" with implied puzzles, only to walk around, find bits of dialogue, and see the credits roll. Had I encountered such a thing before being aware of the current trend, I probably would've been part of the crowd to angrily proclaim "not a game!" The anger comes from unmet expectations, not true critique. While one solution is to culturally alter our concept of "video game" in the first place, I think the most practical solution is for all interactive media to not set up expectations they have no intentions of fulfilling. Though "video game" certainly implies much more than the general term "game," especially in terms of artistic and literary elements, I think it still evokes thoughts of those basic elements that comprise a game in the traditional sense. Thus, marketing a work as a "video game" is setting up expectations that it isn't aiming to fulfill (and likely isn't deliberately defying in avant garde style) and will only serve to disappoint the player and harm the work's reputation. I think it's useful to make a distinction between "video games" and the wider umbrella of "interactive media" for the pragmatic benefit of accurately pairing up products with consumers most likely to appreciate and enjoy them.
In my college program, the branch of studies informally called "video games" is formally referred to as "interactive design," and legitimately includes design projects that fall well outside of what is traditionally considered "video games." So, at least in some higher-education programs not aimed specifically at the video game industry, there already IS a formal distinction between "interactive media" and its smaller subset of "video games." That's not to say such institutions alone drive our convention and conclusions as a global community, but it means that some groups devoted to analyzing these things are perfectly okay with making the distinction and not letting that interfere with the analysis and critique. They're models that show it's possible to draw lines and still make meaningful analyses, if nothing else.
I feel that categories are descriptive, not prescriptive, so categorizing a work as "game" or "not game" should be an afterthought anyway. The semantics regarding a work's classification is secondary to my enjoyment and critique of it, so I think the controversy is more important on a cultural level than a personal one. On the other hand, perhaps some others see games as rigidly conforming to a set of classifications, in which case this discussion is *definitely* important for their personal perception and understanding of the media they interact with. Perhaps then, for me, that's motivation to participate in the discussion and attempt to at least contribute to a cultural shift to viewing media categories as descriptive and largely unnecessary considerations for the enjoyment of the work. Then, at least we could use "not a game" as a jab at the marketing decisions for a work, not a statement about the work itself.
Incidentally, I *do* consider visual novels to be video games. At least, the ones with branching paths. The goal is to get the (or one of the) "good endings," the fail condition is any of the "bad endings," and the challenge is selecting the appropriate dialogue choices based on your knowledge of the plot and characters to achieve one of those "good endings." The very presence of "good ending" and "bad ending" in many visual novels (especially the ones that explicitly use those terms) should be an indication that they indeed follow the basic structure of a game. Non-branching visual novels, however (so-called "kinetic novels) are *not* video games, and are rather much close to novels on kindle than they are to conventional video games. Not that that in any way degrades or invalidates the experience (including the artistic decision to make the work digital), but such works shouldn't be marketed as video games since such a category carries implications that it doesn't mean to imply. And again, I think the pragmatic marketing benefit of making a conventional distinction outweighs the critical/analytical benefit of changing our cultural semantics of the term "video game."
(Though while we're talking semantics, I think "visual novel" is a horrible name for a media category in the first place. It's incredibly close to "graphic novel," and if I didn't know any better, I would assume the terms are interchangeable. Calling it a "digital novel" would be less ambiguous, even when that risks being confused with a "novel in digital format." It would at least convey the digital nature of the medium, which "visual novel" definitely does not do. The point is kind of moot since the term seems already rooted in convention, but I thought I'd bring it up since we were discussing semantic interpretation of media category names anyway)
I TOTALLY agree with you when you said that the discussion on whether or not a game is a game is often just used as a way to dismiss/lessen a "game." It's the exact same thing with the "cheerleading/swimming/gymnastics isn't a sport." By the definition of a sport, they aren't; they're competitions because you cannot interfere with your opponent. Everyone will get up in arms when you say that something isn't a sport with the defense of "It's really difficult! People get injured! People train harder than your sport for it!" Just because something isn't a sport does not mean that it's any less difficult or respectable, just like how something isn't less of an art or crappier if it's not a game. People get so caught up on labels. It's truly annoying.
I just found your channel thanks to the Errant Signal Video, and I'm really glad I did it. On a couple of days I'm becoming a game design professor in a private school for the first time in my life and your videos are going to become one of my teaching tools. Actually this one in particular gaves me a lot of ideas for my very first class.
Thanks a lot!
Glad to hear it! I taught game design and games as literature at a couple charter schools before I started this series, and it's a really interesting experience. Glad I can provide some helpful tools for others looking to do the same!
wow i wasn't too sure if i even wanted to watch this video since this topic has been discussed so much that i didn't think anything could be added to the discussion at this point, but i gotta say, the clear distinction of 'video games' and just 'games' is brilliant. I'm glad i watched this.
An equivalent analogy to your argument that video games have outgrown the definition of "game" would be comics or in particular comic books and its relation to the word they have derived from.
The Merriam Webster definition of "Comic" is
1: of, relating to, or marked by comedy
2: causing laughter or amusement : funny
Penumbra (even the first one) plays out pretty much like the so-called visual novels, with simple puzzles and some enemy-bashing (with a pickaxe) thrown in along the way, but you don't see many people disregarding this game as artsy non-games. In fact along with the sequel, it's regarded as a horror 'gem' of sorts.
As you mentioned, it seems the debate is leading us to completely labeling the sub genre as dull. I think the huge backlash is partly caused by the recent introduction of 'incomplete'/glitchy visual novel-type games (which are often clueless in their premise.
Thanks for making another awesome video.
I agree. I remember a while back the director of Quantic Dreams and other dev teams wanting to change the name of the medium to ''interactive entertainment''. It was because not all games are considered to be ''actual games'' on the technical level and to disassociate it from the label of ''toy''. I think you're right. Even if the medium is called ''video games'', they don't necessarily have to play like a traditional game to be considered as such.
My take on the issue:
The Stanley Parable I'd argue is in fact a "game" in the technical sense. What winning and losing mean exactly is subjective, but there is actually a system there that the player has to dissect in a game-like fashion (the "challenge", essentially, is messing with the narrator). The player has agency, and there's rules. Minecraft would be a similar example: how you "win" is very subjective, but there is a game in whatever it is that you're trying.
With walking simulators, I'd argue they're something akin to "degenerate" (for lack of a term with better connotations) games. I mean that in the geometric sense-like how an ellipse with zero eccentricity is a circle, a rectangle with a height of zero is a line, how a trapezoid with a side of zero length is a triangle. We don't think of easy games as being "less of a game" than harder ones. Theoretically, this line of reasoning would imply that a game that can't be lost is arguably still a game (just an extremely easy one). Interactivity is where things become a bit more interesting-there's non-game software that can be very similar to a walking simulator in its level of interactivity. Celestia, for example, could probably be repackaged as a walking simulator-type game with little effort. So, this is probably where something can be considered the "grey area". However, going one step further would be a game that has no interactivity and actually plays itself-in other words, a movie (unambiguously NOT a video game).
Getting to my point: the question of "is this a game" is probably not a yes-or-no one. Walking Simulators exist near the border of what we'd call a "game". It isn't necessarily wrong to criticize their lack of interactivity if done with tact (since interactivity is important). A poorly made walking simulator (or really, a poorly made game narrative) turns the player and their character into little more than a camera who observes a story without actually participating in it. This can, sometimes, legitimately be seen as defeating the point of games as a storytelling medium. Having said that-this isn't unique to that particular genre (a lot of video games run into the problem of their supposed protagonist having no role in the story. Bioshock would be a good deconstruction of this tendency), it's simply more noticeable in them. Action games can fall back on their mechanics, and walking simulators are comparatively naked.
A very good video as I have had lot's of problems trying to explain these "Games" to people and having them dismiss them because they don't adhere to the common "Game" formulas.
Your argument, that "video game" is a term that refers to some things aren't really games, is exactly my view of the subject too. And I don't understand why people would even argue about something as petty as "it's not a game".
I agree completely. The phrase "video game" has grown to encompass a much broader range of interactive, digital entertainment than it was originally intended to describe. I'm not sure another phrase will take its place, and I think it is safe to say that the phrase is no longer limited to "games" in any strict sense.
Games don't need Failure States. Wario Land 2 and 3 and Kirby's EpicYarn lack fail states.
You lose currency upon taking damage as punishment, but you'll never lose, and are usually only pushed back when you lose on a Boss.
I'm curious what your thoughts are on using the term 'western visual novel' for this genre of these, not quite game, experiences. My friends and I began using it as we found 'walking sim' to be a bit disingenuous.
I've taken (and I'm not alone in this, it does seem to be an emerging term) to referring to the videogames that usually get the "walking sim" label as "exploration games" as that is a much better description of what you tend to actually do in them.
Honestly I've just decided to own the term "walking sim." Rather than attempting to create another pile of words and hope they catch on, just grab the term and use it. plenty of marginalized groups have taken insults and made them their own, like "queer."
(Not that dear ester has ever resulted in someones death but you know..)
+The Inkblot on the Corner Heh, perhaps a less errr...socially weighty, comparison would be "Impressionism", which got its name from an early negative review of a group show where a critic dismissed the works on display as "mere impressions" of paintings. The artists in the show actually all thought that was a fantastic summery of their style of work, and it ended up being adopted as the name of the movement. (I still hate "Walking simulator" though, but this is a much more enjoyable debate than game/not game).
I've always felt like one of the most extreme examples of a "Non-Game" (outside of visual novels) is The Beginner's Guide. It's a short, linear, non-challenging experience that's completely narrated from beginning to end. I actually enjoyed it, but as far as attacks on "walking simulators" go it practically has an enormous red target painted on it.
One thing that's been bugging me recently is how this issue ties into "Let's Plays": video series of one or more people sitting down and playing a video game, usually with their own commentary. It could be argued that watching a video of a popular RUclipsr playing The Beginner's Guide from beginning to end gives nearly the exact same experience as paying ten dollars to play it yourself.
For the majority of games, "Let's Play" series likely have a positive effect, bringing attention and endorsement to a game that might have not ordinarily gotten it. But when I can go online and watch every single ending to The Stanley Parable, am I harming the sales of the game? I don't know how this problem could possibly be realistically addressed, or if it even is a problem to begin with, but I feel like it's worth talking about.
I've done an episode in the past about the importance of interactivity, and I quite strongly believe that watching a game instead of playing it--even a linear experience like The Beginner's Guide--is something of an incomplete experience that removes the essence of how one is to experience a game: that is, interactivity. So yeah, I'd say it's a problem to get a half-assed experience of a game without actually supporting the people who made it (though I certainly don't oppose let's plays themselves, just certain uses of them).
Interested to know exactly how you refer to videogames, that is to say, like I did just there, as two separate words, or hyphenated? I go with the first (clearly) because of many of the things you talk about in this video. It marks it out as its own thing; they came from, are related to, and often still contain games, but they're not just the video version, they're something else. As an aside, not sure I'd put Her Story in with videogames that have no challenge, I'd say the challenge there is very clear (solving a mystery, it's effectively a puzzle) if you look up Dennis Wheatley's Crime Dossiers you'll even find a precedent for exactly that kind of game that predates computers.
I tend to use two separate words: video games. But that's mostly out of habit; making it a compound word like you do may be becoming something of an industry standard, and if it does I'll happily adjust.
As for Her Story, I agree there's a challenge akin to puzzle-solving. Now that I'm thinking about it more it does perhaps have enough of that structure to fit the definition, though I'm not entirely sure. Either way it certainly got its fair share of "not a game" complaints, so I feel its inclusion in this video was appropriate. Though I'll be thinking more about this now...
well Sudoku technically doesn't have a fail-state if you follow the rules
since the rule is that you can't have the same number twice in the same line/square
hence putting one means you broke the rule
Fair point. I think in puzzles like Sudoko, crosswords, etc., the fail state would likely just be giving up when you can't figure it out.
Though, taking a cue from many games, the fail state could simply be when you accidentally break those rules. Similar to many video games, it doesn't mean you definitively "lose," but rather that you failed to do it right and must lose some progress and redo the challenge.
Games As Literature exactly but since videogames are operated by the system then it can prevent you from doing so
hence Sudoku on PC can prevent you from putting the wrong number. it's still a puzzle game but you can't lose
and that's what walking simulators are
puzzles that you can't lose since there aren't enough options to do so
but in some of them the lose state can also be intrinsic since if you don't understand the story you wouldn't understand the game losing all meaning and value
For me it's a problem of false advertising. When I set out to buy and watch documentary I expect to see documentary not a fiction movie. When I set out to buy a game, I expect that I will get a game, not a digital art installation.
I believe that Valve also acknowledge this problem, that's why walking simulator tag isn't banned while a lot of other tags are.
The games like "walking simulators" are mostly presentations - you don't really interact with them. This also includes presentations like The Stanley Parable - sure you have choices, but they lead to linear results and the goal really is to see them all - kind of negating the whole principle of "meaningful" choice.
Because this is what an "actual" game should strive to be - personal to the player. If you complete a challenge, that's *your" achievement. If you go through a non-linear conversation, that's *your* conversation. It also helps the story to make it more personal and therefore engaging, instead of patronizingly spelling it out to a passive viewer.
Some people's definition of a medium might be different. Sometimes I feel like special effects movies are not "real" movies. But maybe some feel the opposite. There's a 1981 film named "My Dinner with Andre" which apparently consists solely of a conversation of two guys while eating. Just as movies can be so many things, I guess so can video games.
Reminds me of how Roger Ebert described Armageddon as "not really a movie in the traditional sense, more like the world's most expensive video game for people too lazy to pick up a mouse or joystick."
1993 in cinema bought us Jurassic Park (action! running! dinosaurs! assorted Spielbergyness!), and Derek Jarman's Blue (a flat unchanging plane of blue filling the whole screen for the entire runtime), videogames are going to survive just fine with a couple of sub genre's that happen to not have (explicit) win/lose states.
Lets be frank, Roger Eberts opinion on videogames was very low, claiming they'd never be art and it was also extremely uneducated. His remark was snark, not an invitation to debate.
The argument here seems to be "these have literary/artistic merit, so we should include them in the definition "videogame" in order to strengthen the perception of videogames. I don't find that terribly compelling though.
I think it is valid to say that a videogame is a work which satisfies the criteria of a game as a piece of computer software.
That said, I disagree with you on what the criteria of a game are. I would say that the necessary elements of a game are:
1. An objective.
2. Constraints on the ways in which the objective may be validly completed.
3. The activity is undertaken for its own sake.
You'll notice that I've not mentioned Challenge or a Failure State. They're not necessary to consider. Challenge is produced as an emergent result of the first two criteria. Putting a ball in a hole isn't a challenge, putting a ball in a hole way over there when you can only hit it with a certain kind of stick is Golf, which is pretty challenging even absent the extra obstacles that a given hole can have. Just having constraints on how you can achieve a goal is sufficient to produce challenge (and challenge is subjective).
Specific failure states aren't necessary either, because any voluntary activity contains the possibility that you just stop doing it, and some games have exatly that as their only failure state. Classic Lucasarts adventure games, for instance, don't have failure states and many people said that made them actually better, but you can always get stuck and give up. You can give up on anything, so you don't need to look for extra specific failure states or define them as required.
However, that's actually a very broad set of definitions which includes things you wouldn't necessarily think of as games. It is, in fact, possible for a book to be a game. No, not a choose your own adventure, just a book. One where you start on page one and read to the end. How? If it's a mystery novel. Mystery novels are very commonly games. The objective is to figure out whodunnit before the detective in the story reveals it at the end, the constraints are that you can only use the information the author reveals. Mystery novels as games have even had some principles of game design (see Father Knox' Decalogue) and even attracted negative press from literary fiction reviewers because they were too much like puzzles to be "proper" novels (Edmund Wilson, "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Akroyd", The New Yorker, 1945). All of this, it turns out, has happened before.
This means that a piece of entertainment software shouldn't be regarded as a videogame because of the presence or otherwise of certain mechanical interactions. A mystery visual novel which the player can only progress linearly but which if they pay attention to clues in the pictures and text they figure out the mystery before the novel reveals it is a game. A romantic visual novel with the same mechanical interactions which has a narrative where the gamist approach to the narrative doesn't work (because the only point of uncertainty in a romance is "will they or won't they", but the bits that make it look like they won't are there to give more catharsis to the bit where they actually do not to genuinely make the reader wonder if they maybe won't) is not.
A piece of entertainment software is a videogame if it allows for a gamelike approach, if it fits the criteria of a game. If it doesn't, it's something else.
To go back to the point that it's okay for things to not be videogames, I think it could actually be a negative thing to insist on calling them videogames. By insisting on lumping them together with a superficially similar but internally different medium people who make them will consistently receive criticism that come from a set of expectations which may not be applicable (of the mechanics or lack thereof), or feel pressured to include more mechanically gamelike interactions which may be to the detriment of the product. (I've heard people argue quite sincerely that Soma would have been better without the monsters, because they're not the interesting thing about it and they can be quite goofy sometimes).
It's tempting to say "These are good so I want to expand videogames and make videogames good by association", but I'm not sure that has any more validity to say "These are boring they're not even games". Interactive fictions/visual novels/walking simulators/whatever you want to call them should be allowed to develop out of the shadow of the term videogames, and when they come up with interesting ways to convey narrative and art in software, videogames will probably steal it (better that than steal from noninteractive media in the name of being "cinematic".
Gone Home is an art game, and even though there is no fail state in it, and one has a clear goal and there are challenges in it, much like Dear Esther it is an example of interactivity in which the protagonist finds out more about what happened to their family while they were gone. There are no jump scares, no monsters to fight, and practically the only character who is physically present in the house is the protagonist. But I've noticed that people do not appreciate it as much - some going as far as to call it the worst game of all time.
Between you and me, those c***s have never played Bloodborne, or the NES game Renegade. THOSE are the worst games of all time, even if the former has an enticing and involving story to it.
I actually remember there being a significant amount of backlash against point-and-click games after 1998 because overtime people only viewed them as interactive puzzles rather than gaming experiences. And their "not a game" argument was very strong with them. However, with the arrival of Bioshock, Mass Effect, Skyrim, The Stanley Parable, and other games which essentially slapped players and reminded them of how pathetic and useless and worthless and insignificant they are in the context of the whole universe (and that the projection protagonist they play in each of these games is ten times more kick ass then them, any day of the week) point-and-click games returned to form.
The end point is, game genres come and go and return. Sub-genres within genres are also subject to the same evolutionary process of gaming markets. The people who say that art games are not games (Like Dear Esther, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, or Gone Home, or The Stanley Parable) were raised by people who called games like Hexen, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, and Alien (for the Atari Jaguar) "Doom Clones", and it was only after six to eight years had passed that all these games were clustered under "first person shooters". Similarly, Age of Empires and Civilization were clustered under "Risk simulator", till such time that they became "Real Time Strategy" (RTS), which in itself is a complete genre with its own set of rules and regulations. When World of Warcraft started, it was literally described as "DOTA worldwide" by its naysayers and general audience of Blizzard fans - now, World of Warcraft is ONE of at least two constantly appraised MMORPGs, which include League of Legends and SMITE.
This is just a phase. And yes, teenagers and game jocks in general are complete ass-hats and incapable of differentiating a game from a tool, but soon enough they'll accept these games and we'll have no worries.
Dear Esther is just an INTERACTIVE DEMO. As simple as that.
No need to change long standing definitions when we already had a term for it since Commodore 64.
That Demos were usually free doesn't wasn't an absolute rule as well - some demos were sold professionally, for example to stores to show off the capacity of presented computers.
So yeah, I'm more surprised that this is even a discussion, because in over 30 years people already have figured out what is what and only modern marketing machinery is blurring lines because they think it will sell more products. And yeah, ofc, all those that cash in attention as well (click-bait).
But I honestly don't care.
I am way to old to get fooled into buying something simply because it was mislabled; thanks for at least a few honest people left on youtube ;-)
Nice take on the topic. Love your videos :D
Glad to hear it! ^_^
Also nice that you respond :P
I have seen this written stories in steam greenlight lately, they dont have any sprite or character or map design is just words, like a ebook; But they got interactivity inside his pages. Can we call those videogames? and so, could it be any script without finish (modeled character, scenes, etc.) call themselves videogames? what about books that are interactive, if you copy them into a digital media they transform into videogames?
I actually just played one of them the other night, Choice of Robots, and I'd say a very generalized yes.
Text-based games are nothing new: Zork is a classic, and I've never heard anyone challenge its status as "game." That said, Zork had game-like elements such as exploration and item collection, so it was a bit more than just an ebook with choices.
But using Choice of Robots as an example, while it didn't have either of those elements, it structured your interactivity around not only "choose your own adventure" style branching paths, but also by affecting certain stats and relationships depending on the choices you made. It was an interactive story that a book could not feasibly have achieved (it's technically possible, but would be so unweildy as to be practically impossible). It may or may not technically count as a "game," as traditionally defined, but it definitely falls under the digital interactive art that the term "video game" has come to encompass.
But you also bring up the idea of unfinished work, and that's an issue that exists and is easily solved outside of video games as well. A script without the other elements would be a video game in the same way the script of Star Wars is a movie; not because it's written, as words can obviously be present in the film, but because it's specifically written to be part of a bigger whole. The issue there is whether or not it's the complete work, not whether words count as video games.
Interactive books being transplanted into a computer program would be an interesting grey area, and I have no definitive answer. It would likely be a pretty bad game, at any rate, since books offer limited interactivity and (far as I'm aware, at least) choose-your-own-adventure books have never managed to be of any particular quality. But all art forms have their grey areas--this entire conversation is regarding one--and I'd definitely say this is one that could be argued with interesting results.
maybe we could call walking simulators interactive art or video art.
The thing is, where do you draw the line? Is Journey a Videogame or a piece of "video art"? Goals and challanges themselves aren't really that set in stone either. Does Minecraft have a goal?(or rather *did* minecraft have a goal, they have since added a goal) Does Viridi have a challange? You could argue it does but you could equally argue that it doesn't. I feel like drawing that distinction would just limit the medium as a whole, it could mean we'll miss out on experiences that don't fit into either definition.
The problem with calling them a different medium is that it breaks down the discussion. I want to talk about the game design within Dear Ester but the conversation will become whether it has game design at all. Its made and consumed the same way as any other game, just with minimal mechanics.
I'm in agreement with Inkblot and Zeebee on this one. This question of rebranding the genre has come up enough that I might need to do an informal followup video to talk about it a bit.
I would also say that if you wanted to use the term Interactive art, it would be the umbrella medium term and video games would be a genre of interactive art.
You folks have brought up very valid points. I can't find myself in disagreement.
If all video games should be treated as a form of art then they will develop their own catagories. It could be how the game mechanics work, the creators intent, or common player experience. I think it's harder to define games by catagories because there are many forms of art that go into it.
Honestly, I don't like the term walking simulator. maybe we could call them Ambient Adventure Games, Narrative Adventure Game, Trance Adventure Games, or something more appropriate to help people that like the genre find the games more easily and help people that arnt fans avoid it.
I can see you've put a lot of thought into this, and honestly I've never thought of it this way before. Until now, I've only thought of things in light of the technical definition. Maybe it's time to change perspective. Maybe the medium needs a change of term. Since it seems you've already made a video on that topic, I think I'll check it out. I'm looking forward to your opinion on that topic.
Is Dear Esther not a game?
Is Un Chien Andalou not a film?
It's practically the same question, but there's not a critic in the world that would begin to suggest UCA isn't a valuable contribution to the film medium. In turn, I simply can't respect any critic's opinion if they dismiss Dear Esther or other similar games as not part of the medium for any reason.
Dear Esther isn't a very good game, but that's an entirely different point.
In the most skeleton sense of it:
No, Dear Esther is not a game and yes, that random pile of images are still a movie. What you should be comparing Dear Esther to is "is a audiobook run on a empty white screen a movie".
Good job completely missing the point.
+ANDELE3025 "is a audiobook run on a empty white screen a movie" bar the choice of colour for the screen, this describes Derek Jarman's Blue, a movie from 1993.
Amy Procrastinating
Derek Jarman's Blue, a audiobook from 1993* FTFY.
+Onin How exactly did he miss your point?
Un Chien Andalou is defined as a movie because it consists of images in motion.
Dear Esther is not defined as a game because it involves no meaningful interaction whatsoever.
Or would you consider going for a walk while listening to an audiobook a game?
These new kinds of narrative video games are also discussed under the terms Interactive Digital Storytelling and Interactive Digital Narrative.
For games like walking simulators and such, we should give them a separate name, let's say "video experience".
I have to say that there is still a problem of naming "non-games", even if we accept them as videogames. Because usually to experience an art object in this media people pay money. Many people who were angry about "Dear Esther" were angry because nowhere in the marketing material it says that it is low(or even no)-interaction/challenge experience, so person who bought it expected a game. That was before steam-refund. "Gone Home", on the other hand, states "No combat, No puzzles" as it's key feature.
"Walking simulator" steam-tag is helping, but it is often seen(and used) as derogatory term. It's basically the problem of naming the new genre. And as long as no one has monetary interest(as it was with MOBA name when Riot tried to distance LoL from DOTA) i think it's up to consumers.
Exactly. I'm pretty sure with the refund system in place a lot of those sales may have disappeared as fast as they got in. After all wasn't Dear Esther labelled as Adventure ?
As a fan of walking simulators, I don't consider them to be games- they're in a league of their own, and I don't think they need to be considered games to be worth examining or experiencing. Regrettably, some folks seem to think that a game not being a game takes away its legitimacy as an artistic expression.
I agree with you; but I also think that calling a walking simulator a game, could mislead a buyer.
+Wise Guy 508 Hence the value of reviews.
Yeah, I'm not saying their value is based on their game-ness, or their consideration as such, rather just that they are of the same basic building blocks of the "video game" medium in general and don't need to be excluded from it.
The problem comes with marketing or to be precise expectation management. As long as these games are presented as what they are there's no issue. This wasn't the case with Dear Esther and that's why people complained.
Would like to bring in some foreign perspective. Considering the fact that terminology is very much rooted in language there might be some value in checking other languages definitions. So, russian word for game is "игра", but it seems to be a bit broader in meaning. One of the definitions is that it's a type of non-productive activity where the motive resides both in the result and the process itself. That is we play the games to play them, not to win them. That brings in more experience
-based approach, and less mechanical. I believe a more accurate word for this meaning of "игра" is play.
There is also an idea that games are based on illusions. A knight fighting a dragon with a fire sword is actually a little kid bashing a tree with a stick. The kid who is playing. And symbolism of this sort is the crucial element of play.
The only thing one needs for a game are symbols and rules for them to abide by.
...
hope it makes any sense)
I can agree that "walking simulators" can be digital, interactable works of art, and great experiences to, well, experience.
But they are not video games - they are digital art.
The difference is that in art the artist/creator is expressing themselves in such a way that the viewer/user can experience, but is is always one sided, a monologue. In video games both the creator and the user are expressing themselves. The user might just be expressing how exactly they are playing the game, or they may be a creator using the tools provided by the game developer - but it is a dialogue.
If both are interactive, how are "walking simulators" more one-sided than traditional video games? Your distinction is assigning exaggerated importance to traditionally-defined gameplay; the player interacts with the world and story of games like Tacoma and Firewatch as much, if not more meaningfully than games like The Last of Us and God of War.
I'd dissagree with you that games like "Pacman" or story games "aren't games." Pacman has a win state, it's just that what the winstate is is determined by the player rather than the game. If you've died in Pacman at a higher level than last time, then you've "Won." Ironically, since the game never declares, "You Win," the win state is dying. In story games, the win state is to get to the end of the story, and the lose state is to give up by choosing to stop playing the game. Even in Proteus, the win state is to simply be in the area the game provides. And thusly, the lose state is to not do that, meaning to not play the game.
I love this channel. Also, you kind of sound like the Nostalgia Critic.
Thanks, and thanks! I've fallen way behind on the Critic's stuff, but I really like him.
Yeah, I saw it. It was a decent treatment of the subject, though clearly from kind of an outside perspective. I've always hated the idea that video games *can* me art, as opposed to just *being* art. It lets people pick and choose which games they think are worthy, instead of acknowledging the artistic merit of the medium as a whole, and ends up reducing what is and isn't "art" to a subjective measure of quality.
+Games As Literature True, I agree that both Dear Esther and Bioshock Infinite are artistic in different ways.
Just because one has more gameplay or difficulty doesnt necessary mean it is better. Just a different way of artistic expression. We can hate or dislike something but it doesnt mean it should cease to exist.
I hated Gone Home, but that doesnt mean that other people don't find good in it. Everything should be subject to taste, not by genre.
I think that "Interactive Experience" is a better name for some of the non-games. A lot are more akin to walking though an art gallery with an audio-book, but others have more interactivity (maybe not challenge, but you do need to interact and not just walk around). Others again, seem little some than a screen saver. Level of interaction aside, quite a few are trying to tell a story, and that story is what it needs to be judged by. If the interaction is limited and the story is uninteresting, then you have a bad "game." Fun to play games can get away with poor or no narrative. The Stanley Parable is an exemplar of a good interactive experience. It has, first and foremost, an engaging (and funny) story.
I think I had a point, but i feel that I am just waffling now. I might go "experience" Dr Langeskov again, because that was a fun non-game.
Walking simulators are definetely not video games.
Call them interactive fiction if you want, but gameplay is the defining feature of this medium, to say that interaction is what defines this medium is to put them in the same category as gamebooks.
Let's just call them "entertainment programs"
Ooo.... That opening hurt Alil....
You've got great content!
I would like you to make a literary analysis of Okami! (Or Limbo. Or Ori and the Blind Forest. Or To the Moon) ... *sighs*
I'm looking forward to what you have to say.
And as much as I would like to see a literary analysis for Okami (or for the other), ANY literary analysis is welcome!
I would love to do all of those, actually. And may, at some point. Though Okami takes so long to play through that it'll have to wait until a certain Patreon goal, when I have enough financial support to justify such a huge undertaking.
I believe a video game should try to take advantage of the medium and not be ashamed or afraid to be that. A video game. Many developers fall for the trap of being cinematic or closer to literature and in the process they lose the essence of the video game. A game can have the most thought provoking story and characters, but if your gameplay is below average, you might as well just make a movie or write a book.
We could simply use a more broad term and keep on making and enjoying more great video-game-ish things...
Yeah about that new name, I'd suggest intex: from interactive experience (I know, some people will not like it or prefer to keep calling these interactive art thingies video games but at least I tried :P)
On the subject of Dear esther and saying people had a problem because it wasn't a "traditional game". Matthew does a great comparison on both games and probably shines a lot of problems Dear esther has as a "game" ruclips.net/video/ST25ur3JSMU/видео.html
I also feel the hand waving away of gameplay in our medium is outright silly when it is *game play* that makes our medium different from the other mediums. There is a reason why people want to keep the word walking simulators on some of these product because a lot of them adds nothing of value to this industry. ruclips.net/video/ZV1u8FMsb5I/видео.html
Awwwww Red Dead.. Aw man I played me some Red.. Word, son.
Dear Esther is more like a novel or movie for a lot of people, thus not a game. You wouldn't claim the next movie comes out is a game, would you? You wouldn't argue against people saying it's not a game even if the advertising calls it a game, right? A book is interactive because it requires you to flip pages, but it's not a game either despite being "interactive media".
Anyway, I don't particularly care. As long as the games themselves are otherwise labeled well enough so people know what to expect.
Well it's true form "art" standpoint, but from customer side if i buy game I want game. If I buy a game and it's Deadpool movie DVD I'd be pissed because it's not what I wanted to get. As such Deadpool is good movie but if we look at it as game we cannot overlook that it's not a game. Even in art we need to define things, Mona Lisa is terrible sculpture, but in as painting is rather on good side.
Video games are not that well defined from either side of that problem, when software starts being game and when game stops being game, plus as art definitions change with time. Still calling something a game or art does not make it such only gives us place from which we can critique it.
Sick beard, dude.
Either it is a Game or an Interactive Experience. Games that are classed as Walking Sims should be renamed as Interactive Experience. If there is no challenge or mechanic that must be learned to 'win' the game then it isn't a Game. I would class a Interactive Experience as the in-between point with a Movie and a Game.
I disagree that Dear Esther spawned the genre of walking simulators or inspired similar games. Dear Esther was pretty much on rails and no other game tried to follow that formula. I think games like Amnesia had bigger impact on that genre. I hate the term "walking simulator", I prefer exploration game.
Except that you cannot compare the 2. Amnesia actually had exploration in it and wasnt a pile of audio files tied to you pressing wasd.
Most games that are thrown into the category of "walking simulator" are extremely linear. The last thing I would call games like that are exploration games. the word *exploration* seems like it would better fit a AAA MMO tbh.
Svettgurkan
Exploration doesn't necessary mean walking around freely. It can be looking for clues or reading notes that slowly unravel the story etc.
Venser
No... that would be detective work/investigation, something Dear Esther also lacks.
Venser But that is not what Dear Esther is in any way.You are falsely advertising that game to the consumers if you would throw it into that category.
So, you don't really offer up your own definition. Then you state these aren't games, rightfully so, thus the definitions we have don't work. Take out the 'current climate' these words don't work for these works. They aren't video games they're something else, and trying to compare them to Mario, Pac-Man, or Call of Duty seems silly. We need new words, we need new genres, and we need new ways to think about these things. Language has failed us here and we need to get words for these more than we need to make them fit a definition we already have.
I don't think it's that they need to be entirely separated from video games, but it's more like looking at Bebop in Jazz music, or maybe the idea of Jazz in music as a whole.
7:11 it is at this moment you argument turns into a steaming pile of bullshit.
It's not they didn't understand, they understand perfectly, they played it and found it *boring*. They did not find any redeeming quality so they complained. They rightly recognized its not a game *which even you agree is true*. They rightly understood there is no mechanical value in it.
That doesn't mean it cannot have any other value. The Stanely Parable is popular on Steam, VNs have a Renaissance on Steam, CYOA book styled games are also popular.
They understand that quite well. But you can make sure when they hear that it is a "walking simulator" they will double check what redeeming values outside of mechanics they have, maybe they have great writing and characters? maybe its an interesting audio-visual experience? Whatever the case they will know what they get themselves into.
And when they see then next Firewatch maybe they will consider not for them. Maybe they will consider it too pretentious artsy bullshit.
Whatever the case stop shoving legitimacy as a substitute for value. People just consider them not worth the cash.
have no meaning outside of amerika
and inacurate inside also
manhole was released in 1988
Next problem is, 'this game was poorly made and is not fun therefore it must be 'art'' instead of another poor attempt.
"Video games" also doesn't have much to do with "video" anymore.
Huh, i actually made a video very similar to this a little while ago.
ruclips.net/video/sl2SvsKucyc/видео.html
I rework the traditional games definition to argue that challenges and fail states aren't inherent to games. That they would be put under the category of a restriction
at the end of the day it all depends on your enjoyment. I did not enjoy gone home, ergo not a game. I enjoyed yuminikki and even the stanley parable. both are different types of walking simulators, both are games because there was fun for me to have.
the minute a game is no fun it stops being a game and becomes a chore.
That's... not how things work though. Personal preference can't be our rubric for judging the very nature of a thing. I hated the Battleship movie, but that doesn't mean it's not even a movie. It's a bad movie, but still a movie. It makes no sense to exclude something from the entire medium based on a subjective measure of quality rather than the nature of the thing and its place within the medium.
did people "enjoy" Pan's Labyrinth? Did that lack of "joy" make it a worst movie?
what's wrong with pointing out "that's not a game"?. it hasn't be a derogatory term, just stating a fact. gone home or those you mentioned as "non games" are exactly that, not videogames. that genre should be called something different, visual story, interactive novel, virtual novel, virtual experience, visual experience, whatever you like, but not games, even selling them as games is false advertising. a collection of random noise is not music, it's sound, but it's not music. the "walking simulators" are a thing, but not games.
You'll note that I pointed out that they're not games in this video. So of course, there's nothing wrong with it. But it's usually used to be exclusionary (i.e. "I can't believe these critics liked Gone Home, it's not even a game!"). And there is something wrong with that.
And it's notable we're not talking about genres here. "Video games" are not a genre, they're an art form. Genres within that art form exist, and "non-games" can easily inhabit one of them, but I don't think there's any compelling reason to separate them from the entire medium.
Man, I fucking beg you to do Playdead's Inside
I have it pre-ordered, but of course I can't do anything on it before I can even play it.
Thanks a lot. there's a lot to analyze in that game.
The amount of emotional baggage connected to the word "game" is kind of ridiculous. After all it's not important at all, how we call stuff. What is important is to realize that an interactive system like Dear Esther is fundamentally different from something like Chess or XCOM. And someone designing a thing like Dear Esther has to allude to completely different principles of what makes good design than someone making a strategy board game. Concepts matter, not words.
I think that clarifying that Dear Esther and Chess are completely different is basically every way, by giving them different labels, will help people design them to their strengths. If we just have "game design" courses, books, articles, and sites, people will half the time be given information that does not in any way apply to what they are making.
Also -- I remember you from Dinofarm! ( :
I agree. And I think the more people understand how different these things are, the more it won't make sense to call them all "games" anymore. First in specialist circles but later on quite probably in the mainstream as well.
Ha! The Dinofarm is everywhere! ;)
Awesome vid
Bioshock infinite review?
Someday!
+Games As Literature Good to hear! I thoroughly enjoyed the last Bioshock episode because you managed to capture what the artist behind the game wanted to express. Not many channels on RUclips have managed to do that to such detail. Well done, keep up the good work :)
great video
You couldn't avoid referencing the (non-existant in my opinion) issue of objectifying woman in video games, could you? Is that really the biggest controversy within gaming, and not, well, half of society treating video games as nothing but toys, or speaking about them without any knowledge? Or constant bribery and dishonesty of reviewers, corruption and actual problems of big poublishers? Really?
Now, about the issue itself - I do believe, that the art form that is video games provides plenty of opportunities to create unique experiences and works. However, the game has to have actual content within it. I did not play "Dear Esther", so I cannot really speak about that game itself, but let's have hypothetical situation - we have a said game, that has only letters read in it. The letters are great, but they are all that is. You are just walking around, with no real influence on the world. You are not even playing a movie, nor a book. You are listening to it, with no real input. If that is the case of this game - as I said previously, that is just me speaking hypotheically - then I don't really think it is really that good of a work of art, even if the letter itself is interesting, cause it is not using the actual elements of the work to it's advantage. Imagine movie that has just sound played out, with no visuals shown at all, literally black screen. It may be good, yeah... but can we call it a movie at that point? Won't it be harmful towards other movies if we treat that one movie higher just because it is different? I see a problem here.
However, as I said, this is just hyphotesis. If "Dear Esther" does indeed have some actual form of input, with control of the played over protagonist adding to the overall presentation, than I do think it deserves to be called a video game.
However, the input has to be there. Interaction with the medium is prime aspect of video games. Without it, it is no longer a true member of the genre, no matter how much "artsy" it tries to be.
With Gamergate (which has not once effectively addressed the actual issues about corruption, despite the desperate facade), yes, it's the biggest controversy in gaming. Not just objectifying them in games, but treating real life women well within the actual gaming industry and community. Half of society misunderstanding games is a big issue, but it isn't what I'd call a "controversy."
And yes, all you do in Dear Esther is walk around and explore, but that is input, and it does affect what you discover in the world and narration you hear, and thus as a result, how you perceive the story. Though "treating it as higher" isn't the suggestion in the first place, just as equal.
Games As Literature You know, if I'm honest, the case of woman in video games can be applied to movies as well. Yes, Gamergate is a problem, but we had some guys call out Mad Max and TFA to be feminist bullshit propaganda just cause there is important - and awesome - female lead in those movies. Within video games, I think the problem lies equally on both sides. Yes, there are a lot of games, where woman are just an eye candy - although honestly, it's not a black/white situation, where everytime there is fanservice it's treating woman as just objects. good looks are something to be admired, as they are hard to keep - but there is equal, if not higher amount of games, where that is otherwise. About treating woman within industry - well, I can't really say anything about this issue, as I don't really recall any serious attacks on woman within industry, that could not be applied to man as well, or was not justified (see Anita Sarkeesian. Yes, attacks on her are a problem, but they are there cause she speaks crap, so it resulst in animalistic, stupid reaction. that happens to men as well, if not more often, as actual statistics show). However, as I said, I have not looked up any information about discrimination against many female developers, or anything along those lines, I freely admit that. And if we are talking about how woman are treated in multiplayer community - well, I don't think that is something that can be changed. It's just assholes being assholes, swearing does not have to be strictly related to anyone's gender, even if it is addressing it. The problem here is more the overall toxic environment within a lot of online communities and forums, not just targeting woman.
Hmm, if it does indeed matter, then I am freely ready to call it a video game. However, what actual quality it presents, well, that is other topic. Will have to look up actual writing and themes of the work. I actually like some non-typical ideas within video games, part of reason I love Shadow of the Collossus so much.
Btw, cannot wait to see you analise another game. Any specific target around? And what about video game series with each installments being different from each other from narrative point of view, like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, or Kotor? Will you speak about series in general, or about specific installment. You know, instead of targeting whole series, just talk about the very bests -Kotor 2, Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 2 as an example.
+Darth Likaon of course its also in movies but that doesnt magically make the game objectification issue go away
I have plenty of games I want to do, I'm just trying to deal with some life changes that make my schedule difficult to deal with. >.<
As for talking about the best in a series, there are some cases where I plan to do that, but in scenarios where the earlier games are still talking about (Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, and Fatal Frame to name a few) I would like to do them in order. Skipping around would be confusing, and I don't want to bar myself from talking about a great game because I was impatient to get to its sequel. So we'll see. Current target is Hatoful Boyfriend, as requested by a Patron, then in the near future I plan on doing Journey, Halo 2, Ico, and some others. Also I think Dust: An Elysian Tail has been requested by a patron as well. And I plan on doing Spec Ops: The Line sometime in the near-ish future, but I might wait for a special occasion.
randomguy6679 Well, I am not saying there is no issue at all. However, I do not believe, that the overall issue is just the problem of video games, nor that it truly is something completaly harmful. Yes, there are examples of woman being treated as less of people, or having them just in sexual roles with no real personality beyond their sex appeal, but to be honest... only the former is something truly wrong. The latter... well, it really depends on context of said video game.
And yes, the issue does exist, but I overall think it is not as big as majority of people make it out to be, and for the most part it is not case of people hating woman, or any crap like that, but being bad writers, or general assholes. Like in Mass Effect 3, where Liara and Ashley were intentionally made more "sexy" (although effect was actually bizzarre) just to attract more players, without any lore reason. It's not that it was an act of misogony, or treating woman as objects, considering how much BioWare wanted to appeal to LGBT and feminists, it's just bad taste and another example of bad writing. I know it's nitpicky for me to say it, but if we just treat every example of that as treating woman as less of people, then we are missing the real source of the problem.
but dnd is also a game
Was that virtuesignalling really necesseary?
Kind of astounds me that implying that the gaming world should treat women better is regarded as "virtue signalling" instead of just "being a decent human being."