"Video Games": why is this primitive term still used?

[Entitled]

Reffering to all interactive mediums as video games, is all right. It's just the meaning that the term ended up with.

The problem is only when we start pretending that it's only single specific medium with a single set of standards. That we, as "gamers" need to protect a certain ideal of "gaming" compared to others.

It's as if we would call every motion picture "movies", and then discuss Game of Thrones, Mythbusters, Star Wars, Naruto, Dora the Explorer, The Blair Witch Project, and the Jimquisition, as if they would be in the same medium.

We do need new terms like "interactive stories", or "simulations", or "software toys", etc, but not as a replacement for gaming, but as specifying which gaming medium you are talking about.

Oh, and we probably won't need to force them into existence, because the currently existing game genre jargon will turn into them. For example, "AAA game" is becoming the name for cinematic interactive stories. The stereotypical "indie" style is starting to cover the medium emphasizing audio-visual artistic atmosphere. "Visual Novels" are already practically a separate digi-literary medium on their own. "Sandbox" pretty much covers the kind of games that have neither a gameplay goal, nor narrative direction.

 

[DasDestroyer]

Before whichever patch it was, Minecraft had no victory condition, and most people don't consider the one it has now as a true victory condition, are you saying Minecraft isn't a game?

Minecraft certainly wasn't a game at one point.

I hate to use a Yahtzee point (because people latch onto him as gospel around here, etc), but he was right when he said it wasn't really a sandbox game, so much as a sandbox. And there's no shame in that.

I can't say I agree with that. I usually try to avoid using dictionary definitions to prove my point since language isn't static, but in this case I feel it matches my gut feeling on the subject. A game is an activity engaged in for diversion or entertainment. Sure it may be a bit loose, but it certainly encompasses why I play most games - not necessarily to win or make someone lose, but to have fun.

 

[Jamash]

Because they're games we play on a video display?

I can't imagine any other name that wouldn't sound pretentious as fuck.

But perhaps we need a more pretentious term for our art to be taken seriously as a high brow art form, rather than just being mere entertainment.

How about "Electro-Digital Imagineering"?

 

[AT God]

The term video games is fine, it is the common term for the medium. When audio became normal for films, they changed the name from 'talkies' or moving pictures in to movies and that term has been the norm for many years. Movies have other names that are used more officially such as cinema; video games have their own official terms like interactive art.

Video games is the common term and it easily describes what a video game is. Video is the digital portion, the screen you watch, and games is the interactive part. Video games are the amalgam of videos (movies, film, cinema) and games (interactive, competitive, entertainment)

Any new name would be pretentious and it would not stick. Video games are still video-games. If video games evolve in to some different form, then they will be renamed

 

[Fisher321]

Its a video, and you play it.

playing something = game

Video+Game= video game.

mind=blown

 

[Something Amyss]

I can't say I agree with that. I usually try to avoid using dictionary definitions to prove my point since language isn't static, but in this case I feel it matches my gut feeling on the subject. A game is an activity engaged in for diversion or entertainment. Sure it may be a bit loose, but it certainly encompasses why I play most games - not necessarily to win or make someone lose, but to have fun.

It's so loose it renders the term meaningless. So now Minecraft is a game, but so is watching a movie or driving around or reading a book.

At which point, it really doesn't matter anymore.

 

[Something Amyss]

Because they're games we play on a video display?

I can't imagine any other name that wouldn't sound pretentious as fuck.

That won't stop people. See also Graphic novels for comic books, artistic combat for wrestling, and 'libertarian' for sociopath.

>.>

 

[Psycomantis777]

This reminds me of the whole, "It's not a comic book, it's a graphic novel" thing.

*Shudders*[/quote]

I always counted graphic novels and comics as different things, you know, a graphic novel is a big ol' rather mature comic, although I'm familiar that it's just so daft cunts had an excuse to read Alan Moore without reading comics...or something arrogant like that...

 

[A Holy Prodigy]

Why should we call Art, Art? The word is so short and doesnt give it the creative credit it deserves. We shouldn't call them graphic novels or comic book. Graphic just means the artistic side and not the story, comic makes them seem like they are all funny. *insert jackie chan meme*

 

[Milanezi]

I just call them games and consoles, and that's it.

 

[Full]

Why should we call Art, Art? The word is so short and doesnt give it the creative credit it deserves. We shouldn't call them graphic novels or comic book. Graphic just means the artistic side and not the story, comic makes them seem like they are all funny. *insert jackie chan meme*

It's settled then. Every single thing that will ever be created will now be called Jackie Chan Meme.

 

[Fappy]

For the same reason we still call movies "movies". 'Cause the picture, y'know... moves.

It's what they got called way back when the world was young and nobody bothered to come up with anything new before it stuck.

Do we need something new? Not really. Besides, at this point it would just sound pretentious.

"Excuse me? I'm not playing some "video game" for babies here, I'm partaking in interactive entertainment multimedia thank you very much."

This reminds me of the whole, "It's not a comic book, it's a graphic novel" thing.

*Shudders*

Your avatar is my reaction. Because of the differences. A graphic novel (or manga as I normally call them) have different aspects to them. It is longer than a normal comic book for one,the difference in art style,how some are formatted,things like that. I say call it what you want.

In the end they are still a comic though. "Comic" is pretty much just a non fancy way of saying "Sequential Art". A majority of the most famous graphic novels that exist today are actually just a collection of comic books that have been consolidated into one book. The Watchmen is a prime example of this.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

This sounds like something season 1 TNG Picard would say, talking about "Ancient" France.

"Can you believe people in the twentieth century actually called them /video/ games? How quaint. We've advanced so far since those primitive days."

Season 1 was pretty lulzy.

To be fair, though, there's something about Trek in general that makes me cringe. It sticks a group of humans in a chronological and sociological position of utter superiority to us, and it has the balls to sustain that some day, we'll have ironed out all our differences and started to move forward as a sort of mono-culture.

That and, well, the editorial choices made to define what the Federation guys consider to be noble and worthy of preservation. It just feels so... old, honestly. Opera, classic lit, philosophy, your standard Art History bullet points - they're all worth preserving. Oh, and fifties' schlock too, apparently, because the writers just freaking love referencing their own childhood!

No word on Grunge, Heavy Metal, Performance Art, Spoken Word or interactive artistic displays. You'll find Holodeck sims of the Greats, sure, but nothing referencing modern-day pop culture.

I don't know - there's just something in Trek that's always struck me as being pontificating. I say that being a guy who regularly devours both Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation. Voyager's a sweet spot of mine, too.

On topic, though: the term works. That's it. Trying anything else at this point would sound pretentious. It's come to mean a lot more than "basic geometric shapes projected onto a screen with basic rules and a basic scoring system".

I'm just happy enough to hear some people considering video games as the eighth and newest form of art. It's not quite painting and it's not quite cinema, it's not quite theatrical performance or literary creation and it's not exactly musical in nature - but it takes various things from all these disciplines and meshes them together with functional considerations borrowed from board games and sports.

 

[Full]

On topic, though: the term works. That's it. Trying anything else at this point would sound pretentious. It's come to mean a lot more than "basic geometric shapes projected onto a screen with basic rules and a basic scoring system".

I'm just happy enough to hear some people considering video games as the eighth and newest form of art. It's not quite painting and it's not quite cinema, it's not quite theatrical performance or literary creation and it's not exactly musical in nature - but it takes various things from all these disciplines and meshes them together with functional considerations borrowed from board games and sports.

I like you. I like you so much, in fact, that we should have a party. Not the simple minded party that those modern day humans have, no-no, we shall stroll the night, devouring hatred and conquering cruelty, for you and I, we will be the guardians of the sick, and the protectors of the weak. We will be, The Night.

(I had to add stuff)

 

[lapan]

A game is a type of activity meant for enjoyment and friendly competition and serve no direct productive purpose. An example of a game is chess or poker.

There is a "sub-genre" of games that are typically played on a computer or a special console, these games have no physical presence and instead give feedback through a video display, typically a computer screen or a TV. This type of game is therefore called a "video game" to distinguish it from traditional games.

The name still works.

A game has to have a victory condition and/or loss condition

Not really. Do simulator games have victory/loss conditions? There are also several games where you cant die. Are they not games?

Death is not necessarily a loss condition, nor does a game necessarily require a loss condition if there is a victory condition. (Play until you win)

Still, a simulation game often has neither. You can't "win" Windows Flight Simulator.

Then it's not a game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Flight_Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator (often abbreviated as MSFS or FS) is a series of flight simulator programs, marketed as video games, for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It is one of the longest-running, best-known and most comprehensive home flight simulator programs on the market. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed significantly from Microsoft's other software, which was largely business-oriented. At 25 years[1] it is the longest-running software product line for Microsoft, predating Windows by three years. Microsoft Flight Simulator may be the longest-running PC game series of all time.

People seem to have different opinions from you regarding that.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

The urge for a new name probably comes from the stigma of the old. Wouldn't it be just better to fight the stigma than appear pretentious and just make a new one?

 

[IamLEAM1983]

I like you.

Just doing my part, sir.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Because rappers never came up with a new word for it.