Here's an opinion piece from Game Informer today I found interesting... http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/11/05/opinion-stop-being-so-rigid-in-how-you-define-games.aspx?utm_content=buffer6f65d&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

Thoughts?

It depends how much you believe video games are or can be an established "medium" like movies, books, and art. If games are simply a way of wasting time and ignoring your work akin to Legos, then you're going to say "WHAT IS THIS I CAN'T EVEN SHOOT ANYTHING" but if you lean more towards video games as its own medium then it's "A new way of approaching a scenario." It opens your senses and lets you interact with a story rather similar to how a movie or book puts you in the middle of a scene.

A piece of entertainment is more like a game than it is like a movie if you ask me. So it is a game.

Hey, you take that back about Lego.

I think arguing about what is/isn't a game is like arguing what is/isn't music. It's a subjective thing and no amount of opinion pieces will change that.

All a game really needs is interaction with the player. And that's only to prevent it from being lumped into the definition of "movie" or other kind of entertainment.

I was wondering how long it would take to get this response.

About 3 seconds.

Your post was just at 8:58.59 and mine was 8:59.02.

Broadly sympathetic, but I think the exact claim being made is not entirely clear, and there are a lot of relevant issues that aren't discussed.

The exact claim is not clear. The author does not make clear whether she thinks that "game" includes more things than many people think; whether she thinks that "game" is vague (like "bald" or "heap"); or whether she thinks that "game" is context-sensitive (like "tall"). These are all different claims, and some are more plausible than others. (I think the third option is the most plausible).

Another issue is that while "game" is ostensibly just a descriptive term (ie. picking out a class of cultural artefacts), it is often used normatively. Think of Crocodile Dundee "that's not a knife, this is a knife". Obviously both are knives; the joke is that the big knife is the "real" knife, it better deserves to be called "knife". This matters in cultural artefacts because of the way labels are used to form cultural/social identities/groups. Denying the label "game" from certain cultural artefacts can be a way of excluding someone from a group (and vice versa). If you want to see this in action, just go the TES subforums, and look at the way "RPG" is used.

A nice read, and I applaud the main point and the optimism.

It is true that there are some innovators looking for totally new ground, but for the most part the industry follows a number of well identified success formulas. The vast majority of games, and gamers, do not steer a wide path. Including me, to be honest...I have far more available gaming time than pretty much anyone, but I still will generally spend that time on the 'tried and true' and take little time for exploration.

And when someone talks about the 'gaming experience' expanding in new directions right now as if we are in some sort of golden age I think it reveals a certain lack of history. Some of those successful formulas were laid down by game franchises that started before the writer was born. A lot of potentially interesting game forms came and went before she was paying attention, during the years when there really weren't any established formulas to be counted on. In fact a lot of the current 'innovations' are actually renewed efforts in those forms that didn't make it at the time for whatever reason. The big question is whether they can catch on now in the face of the entrenched competition.

I don't break things down into game / not-game. I see it as something I would play or something I would ignore. If it's something I wouldn't play, I don't care if you call it a game, or call it a whiffleball. By my own definition, if I'd play it, it's a game. This is 100% subjective.

Does anyone else remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon on laserdisc? An early blending of movie and game.