I remember the argument around Dear Esther as to whether or not you could classify it as a video game. I think it was predicated around the idea of failure states. That a game can only be classified as such if it had some condition for failure. I don’t know… arguments can be had over whether something is a game or not, or whether games are art or not. I don’t find those conversations particularly useful or interesting as it becomes a fairly reductive excersize in box-ticking and labelling. Dear Esther had a great commentary mode in which the creators explained their exasperation of how much video game story/dialogue felt very functional and exposition heavy. They wanted to introduce a deliberately fragmented, interpretative and sometimes contradictory story to play with convention and get discussion happening. You could argue that it’s a puzzle game for that reason, but again, I just don’t think that it matters too much. I really like games that recognise and respond to my actions. The increasing degrees to which the game recognises and responds to what I’m doing, the happier it makes me.
oh i love this sort of thing, lol. categorization questions. is Mario Teaches Typing a video game? how about I am a Teacher: Super Mario Sweater? when I'm making a spreadsheet for some logistical challenge in Eve online, does that count as "gaming"? I think so. I don't really think Bandersnatch is a video game, but I think Contradiction: Spot the Liar! is. shawnaroo said "the definition of video game is so broad it's almost useless" and I agree. but that's still fun. perhaps like a game? that I'm "playing" on my computer? 🤔 --- "if you remove the story, does the gameplay hold up"
What Remains of Edith Finch is an amazing example of interactive video game storytelling. They managed to really meld the interactive stuff and the story, and it made me cry. So good.
For me a video game is an experience. Like a journey that makes you feel things and makes you behave the way you would if the events were really happening
"Clint will get mad at me for not using his words" ahaha, but it's a good term! He was wrongly villified (too strong?) for it! That aside, I think it was Sid Meier? "Games are choices." I always liked that, since way-back. That's about it. In regards to genres, it's always been really interesting to me that games always made "genre" mostly about expectations of interaction (controls and camera), and less thematic context. That DOES exist some, but if I were describing the game "Viewfinder" for a large portion of the gaming population I'd probably still start with "It's like an FPS, but..." To the end: I don't generally play third person action games with damage numbers that pop up when I attack someone. I'll even roll my eyes sometimes at realistic (or semi-realistic) looking games where I swing a sword through someone and they lose health, rather than get cleaved in half. I don't hate them, and I'm sure there are some I enjoy, but I can't help it. If people want things realistic, then give me realistic. The context matters, to me. I play Warazone more than anything these days, but I still wish they'd go more nonrealistic and make it slower to kill someone, or keep it the same and make people die in a few bullets, as opposed to 40. (And I know ARMA and things exist, but that COD ease of input really is impressive. Intent transforms to action so easily.)
I feel like the category of Video Game is too broad, it's like calling all visual art "Pictures" Photographs, paintings, sketches, comics etc could all be classified as pictures, but to lump them in with each other seems like you're really missing the point of what kind of art they are When we move away from that kind of need to force everything under the one banner, I think the thoughts and conversation around "what is a game" can really go somewhere For games that just turn me off entirely because I don't find them fun at all, you have: Hames that require very precise complex input in a high stress scenario which includes things like rhythm games and fighting games Wave shooters just frustrate and demoralise me Mobas and class shooters are not fun at all for me Survival crafting games I really enjoy and I loved them when I was younger but now I just get so tired learning and playing them, I don't have the energy for them anymore High octane super quick shooting action where it takes 1 second to die and 2 seconds to respawn are too much for me I don't know if I can think of any others off the top of my head just now :o
The games industry is absolutely massive and extremely broad nowadays, to the point where I don't think it's really useful to have a definition of video game any less broad than something like "a computer based experience where a player has some level of control/agency over what happens on the screen". And even then you could probably convince me that words like computer or screen might not be broad enough. A far more useful and interesting question is probably "what kind of video games do you specifically prefer?", and even then with a lot of people I imagine you'd get a pretty broad response. The past few years the games I've put the most time into are overwhelmingly more open world games, but on the other hand, the only game I actually ever finished enough to publish on Steam is an arcadey pong-clone with exactly one "stage" and zero story. But I've also made a little walking simulator that has basically zero gameplay other than just wandering around and looking at things. I very often end up reading or watching things about video game niches that I had no idea existed, but which have their own preferred games and ways of playing and whole subcultures. The whole idea of speed running any game seems kind of insane to me, but there are huge communities dedicated to it, including to a ton of games that I would never imagine anybody wanting to speed run. There are games where the design and development is heavily influenced by the idea of the game being streamed by players. There are games designed to appeal to people who are going to spend hours figuring out stats values of hundreds of powerups and making huge spreadsheets to optimize their builds. Those are all types of gaming that sound pretty much miserable to me, but it's still gaming, it appeals to plenty of people, and it's all good. A thing our human brains seem to really like to do when confronted by something new is to try to contextualize and understand it by comparing it to things we've already got experience with, but that rarely gives you any sort of deep or nuanced understanding of something. So when people start arguing over those sorts of things it doesn't really seem all that useful to me. Assigning a genre to a game can tell you a little bit about it, but really only a little.
they are like the dream / illusion world, but we have brought the dream / illusion world into conscious reality. there is a risk in that but also a reward. The first video game that blew my mind was Kings Quest I. but i also was fascinated by pac man and the old arcade stuff.
i think for me it need to have a catchy type mechanics and a good story to get me feeling like i part of the game itself i would say that why I love portal the puzzles were fun don't get me wrong but the story had me asking why is everything going on and even now when i go back to playing portal i look at certain areas and it weird but I try to image if someone worked in this place how here daily life would been and wat this place could been like before if the walls could tell stories lol
Video games are a product, a service, a subscription, a platform, and a medium. Video games are simulations, sports, stimulators, stress relievers, challenges, brain teasers, brain dullers, cinematic, educational, and an art. Video games are sandboxes, corridors, levels, open worlds, side-scrollers, top down, simulated 3D, actual 3D, flat, and VR. Video games are escapism, social, passive, interactive, continuous, and finite. Video games are hardware, software, or both.
The bit where you mention you play a lot of FPS games has me curious, have you played the Serious Sam series? And alongside that question, what about console FPS games as well? Like HALO, or even as far back as Goldeneye or Perfect Dark on N64. One thing that got me thinking when you mentioned how a lot of different stuff can happen within one genre, was how those N64 shooters were more about doing a variety of objectives in open styled levels. They feel very different in their level design than most FPS games today. Timesplitters as well, since it follows that formula. I don't really have a conclusion with this comment, I'm just kinda rambling lol. I just think it's a neat subgenre and it'd be cool to see it again in something new.
It is what it is, Chet-meister. It is a kind of interactive experience where its players manipulate electronic outputs to achieve desired outcomes. It involves at least one player with specific goals, electronic equipment, and a game designed to engage, entertain, enlighten and challenge the player's skills. It is crafted to assist the players in achieving these goals within a dynamic system perceived as winnable, where the player's actions visibly impact outcomes. It is a success when its players consider it engaging, agreeable and fun. It is something one might find terribly boring or mildly amusing sometimes, and at other times it is, like, kind of fun or whatever. Something like that.
I remember the argument around Dear Esther as to whether or not you could classify it as a video game. I think it was predicated around the idea of failure states. That a game can only be classified as such if it had some condition for failure. I don’t know… arguments can be had over whether something is a game or not, or whether games are art or not. I don’t find those conversations particularly useful or interesting as it becomes a fairly reductive excersize in box-ticking and labelling.
Dear Esther had a great commentary mode in which the creators explained their exasperation of how much video game story/dialogue felt very functional and exposition heavy. They wanted to introduce a deliberately fragmented, interpretative and sometimes contradictory story to play with convention and get discussion happening. You could argue that it’s a puzzle game for that reason, but again, I just don’t think that it matters too much.
I really like games that recognise and respond to my actions. The increasing degrees to which the game recognises and responds to what I’m doing, the happier it makes me.
The thumbnail is quite catching. Lol
oh i love this sort of thing, lol. categorization questions.
is Mario Teaches Typing a video game?
how about I am a Teacher: Super Mario Sweater?
when I'm making a spreadsheet for some logistical challenge in Eve online, does that count as "gaming"?
I think so.
I don't really think Bandersnatch is a video game, but I think Contradiction: Spot the Liar! is.
shawnaroo said "the definition of video game is so broad it's almost useless" and I agree. but that's still fun. perhaps like a game? that I'm "playing" on my computer? 🤔
---
"if you remove the story, does the gameplay hold up"
What Remains of Edith Finch is an amazing example of interactive video game storytelling. They managed to really meld the interactive stuff and the story, and it made me cry. So good.
The key component is interactivity. if a game is entirely cutscenes/FMV and has absolutely no interactivity, it's a movie/machinima at that point
For me a video game is an experience. Like a journey that makes you feel things and makes you behave the way you would if the events were really happening
"Clint will get mad at me for not using his words" ahaha, but it's a good term! He was wrongly villified (too strong?) for it! That aside, I think it was Sid Meier? "Games are choices." I always liked that, since way-back. That's about it.
In regards to genres, it's always been really interesting to me that games always made "genre" mostly about expectations of interaction (controls and camera), and less thematic context. That DOES exist some, but if I were describing the game "Viewfinder" for a large portion of the gaming population I'd probably still start with "It's like an FPS, but..."
To the end: I don't generally play third person action games with damage numbers that pop up when I attack someone. I'll even roll my eyes sometimes at realistic (or semi-realistic) looking games where I swing a sword through someone and they lose health, rather than get cleaved in half. I don't hate them, and I'm sure there are some I enjoy, but I can't help it. If people want things realistic, then give me realistic. The context matters, to me. I play Warazone more than anything these days, but I still wish they'd go more nonrealistic and make it slower to kill someone, or keep it the same and make people die in a few bullets, as opposed to 40. (And I know ARMA and things exist, but that COD ease of input really is impressive. Intent transforms to action so easily.)
Any time I use ludonarrative I think I have to define it…
I feel like the category of Video Game is too broad, it's like calling all visual art "Pictures"
Photographs, paintings, sketches, comics etc could all be classified as pictures, but to lump them in with each other seems like you're really missing the point of what kind of art they are
When we move away from that kind of need to force everything under the one banner, I think the thoughts and conversation around "what is a game" can really go somewhere
For games that just turn me off entirely because I don't find them fun at all, you have:
Hames that require very precise complex input in a high stress scenario which includes things like rhythm games and fighting games
Wave shooters just frustrate and demoralise me
Mobas and class shooters are not fun at all for me
Survival crafting games I really enjoy and I loved them when I was younger but now I just get so tired learning and playing them, I don't have the energy for them anymore
High octane super quick shooting action where it takes 1 second to die and 2 seconds to respawn are too much for me
I don't know if I can think of any others off the top of my head just now :o
The games industry is absolutely massive and extremely broad nowadays, to the point where I don't think it's really useful to have a definition of video game any less broad than something like "a computer based experience where a player has some level of control/agency over what happens on the screen". And even then you could probably convince me that words like computer or screen might not be broad enough.
A far more useful and interesting question is probably "what kind of video games do you specifically prefer?", and even then with a lot of people I imagine you'd get a pretty broad response. The past few years the games I've put the most time into are overwhelmingly more open world games, but on the other hand, the only game I actually ever finished enough to publish on Steam is an arcadey pong-clone with exactly one "stage" and zero story. But I've also made a little walking simulator that has basically zero gameplay other than just wandering around and looking at things.
I very often end up reading or watching things about video game niches that I had no idea existed, but which have their own preferred games and ways of playing and whole subcultures. The whole idea of speed running any game seems kind of insane to me, but there are huge communities dedicated to it, including to a ton of games that I would never imagine anybody wanting to speed run. There are games where the design and development is heavily influenced by the idea of the game being streamed by players. There are games designed to appeal to people who are going to spend hours figuring out stats values of hundreds of powerups and making huge spreadsheets to optimize their builds. Those are all types of gaming that sound pretty much miserable to me, but it's still gaming, it appeals to plenty of people, and it's all good.
A thing our human brains seem to really like to do when confronted by something new is to try to contextualize and understand it by comparing it to things we've already got experience with, but that rarely gives you any sort of deep or nuanced understanding of something. So when people start arguing over those sorts of things it doesn't really seem all that useful to me. Assigning a genre to a game can tell you a little bit about it, but really only a little.
they are like the dream / illusion world, but we have brought the dream / illusion world into conscious reality. there is a risk in that but also a reward. The first video game that blew my mind was Kings Quest I. but i also was fascinated by pac man and the old arcade stuff.
i think for me it need to have a catchy type mechanics and a good story to get me feeling like i part of the game itself i would say that why I love portal the puzzles were fun don't get me wrong but the story had me asking why is everything going on and even now when i go back to playing portal i look at certain areas and it weird but I try to image if someone worked in this place how here daily life would been and wat this place could been like before if the walls could tell stories lol
Video games are a product, a service, a subscription, a platform, and a medium.
Video games are simulations, sports, stimulators, stress relievers, challenges, brain teasers, brain dullers, cinematic, educational, and an art.
Video games are sandboxes, corridors, levels, open worlds, side-scrollers, top down, simulated 3D, actual 3D, flat, and VR.
Video games are escapism, social, passive, interactive, continuous, and finite.
Video games are hardware, software, or both.
You should probably make it Skyrim with guns.
The bit where you mention you play a lot of FPS games has me curious, have you played the Serious Sam series? And alongside that question, what about console FPS games as well? Like HALO, or even as far back as Goldeneye or Perfect Dark on N64.
One thing that got me thinking when you mentioned how a lot of different stuff can happen within one genre, was how those N64 shooters were more about doing a variety of objectives in open styled levels. They feel very different in their level design than most FPS games today. Timesplitters as well, since it follows that formula. I don't really have a conclusion with this comment, I'm just kinda rambling lol. I just think it's a neat subgenre and it'd be cool to see it again in something new.
Yeah, we have an easter egg to us in Serious Sam. Played the others, but Halo has never clicked with me.
@@chetfaliszek Oh dang that's so cool. Which Serious Sam game? If you don't mind me asking.
@@ScarfKat second encounter, the secret about crates in first level, dunno about others.
@@Mugnum_ Oh thanks. I'll check it out on my next playthrough lol
It is what it is, Chet-meister. It is a kind of interactive experience where its players manipulate electronic outputs to achieve desired outcomes. It involves at least one player with specific goals, electronic equipment, and a game designed to engage, entertain, enlighten and challenge the player's skills. It is crafted to assist the players in achieving these goals within a dynamic system perceived as winnable, where the player's actions visibly impact outcomes. It is a success when its players consider it engaging, agreeable and fun. It is something one might find terribly boring or mildly amusing sometimes, and at other times it is, like, kind of fun or whatever. Something like that.