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

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Books and films aren't necessarily entertainment. I think the problem with "games" is that, whether or not it should, it automatically connotates entertainment, which again connotates something that is not intellectual or productive. This, of course, isn't the case - chess is a game, so are tennis and darts and those all exercise the mind and/or body. They don't exist simply to entertain and waste time.

I personally don't give a crap whether others see electronic gaming as a waste of time or whether they see it as having the potential to be artistic, but that perception does have an effect on the medium (I don't like to use the word "industry" but perhaps that word applies too). If the people who fund games have the idea that they are mindless and necessarily so, then the games they develop will always follow that trend. Which is why anything that tries to delve into the depths of the real potential of the medium isn't usually made by the "big guys", at least initially.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Question: Do you think video games should get an alternate or even new name? And if so, what? And/Or, what classifies a "game" to you?

After reading the "The Walking dead is a bad game but a good story" thread, and replies in it, it got me thinking even more than I usually do about this medium.

Should we just segregate "interactive stories" and "games" into different categories? Do "games" just have more layers than other entertainment forms, and we should take all of those into account? Or should we be forced to take all "games" for what they are, to avoid an industry standard?

I think it boils down to just opinions, and what people personally classify things as, but still, they can all be entertaining in the same way, and as a superficial representation as to what this medium is, it's hard to even put a finger on one.


EDIT: I just kinda realized this is what they were talking about over there. Shit.

I agree with you. I think there are actually two different kinds of video games--games that are built for an experience (think interactive fiction, point and click adventures, games like Bioshock that minimize the impact of 'losing'--where skill isn't the point) and games that are built for competition, which more closely resemble (similarities between racking up kills in Counter-Strike to points in games like basketball).

And they're all lumped into the same category of 'games.'

I think instead of redefining video games, we're slowly redefining games as a concept.

 

[zehydra]

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

"I'm no longer enjoying this game" sounds like a loss condition to me.

Edit: Right the topic. Come up with a 2-3 syllable word that doesn't sound pretentious and maybe it will catch on. It won't, but maybe.

but that is not an example of victory/loss condition

 

[thiosk]

You are right! Let's rename them... Make up a random word here, gazongas! I'm gonna go play with gazongas for a while, cya.

 

[PrimitiveJudge]

Because you're pretending to be sophisticated, and ended up looking dumb that's why. Unless you want to go down the route of VN, and point and click not being games.

You have officially became my favorite responder ever.

As for the OP. Why do they call them Movies and not talkies(original name), why call them gun and not hand cannons? It is what it is, no one in the next 100 years is going to call a wheel (as it was named 100,000 years ago) a rotator, or someone
saying this is not a rock, it is a planetary space object that fell from the cosmos and shall be used to throw or bash a skull in.

 

[Altorin]

would it be better served with a new name? maybe. Do I think someone should arbitrarily make one and enforce it on people? no. we have enough craziness in this world without a subset of people claiming video games aren't video games but are rather Interactive Gameplay Scenarios or some garbage. Everyone knows what a video game is, at least in general, and that's how language is best used.

 

[FalloutJack]

Can't really think of a good reason to change it. It's quick, it's functional, and instantly recognizable by all persons.

 

[MiriaJiyuu]

Any suggestions for other name?
Digital games? (Digames, Digigames?)

I got to here before I started singing the original Digimon theme in my head.

OT: Why would we change it, there's no reason that wouldn't be applied to the new term and we'd all continue calling them video games anyway.

 

[burningdragoon]

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

"I'm no longer enjoying this game" sounds like a loss condition to me.

Edit: Right the topic. Come up with a 2-3 syllable word that doesn't sound pretentious and maybe it will catch on. It won't, but maybe.

but that is not an example of victory/loss condition

And your rigid view is the correct one because...?

 

[GangstaGeek]

Well for one abbreviations is a good way to do it.

Also making up a term seems better than just stuffing two terms together.

"interactives" my favorive easy simple and respectable

"short for interactive media"

 

[zehydra]

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

"I'm no longer enjoying this game" sounds like a loss condition to me.

Edit: Right the topic. Come up with a 2-3 syllable word that doesn't sound pretentious and maybe it will catch on. It won't, but maybe.

but that is not an example of victory/loss condition

And your rigid view is the correct one because...?

Victor/Loss conditions are defined with respect to the game. However you feel has no bearing on these conditions; they are objective.

For instance, just because you find chess boring doesn't mean you lost

 

[COMaestro]

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

"I'm no longer enjoying this game" sounds like a loss condition to me.

Edit: Right the topic. Come up with a 2-3 syllable word that doesn't sound pretentious and maybe it will catch on. It won't, but maybe.

but that is not an example of victory/loss condition

And your rigid view is the correct one because...?

Victor/Loss conditions are defined with respect to the game. However you feel has no bearing on these conditions; they are objective.

For instance, just because you find chess boring doesn't mean you lost

Is Skyrim a game? You never "win" the game as it keeps going on and on. You can finish a quest path, but you will always be able to roam round the world fighting monsters. You can die, but you simply reload and continue from where you left off, so it barely counts as a "loss". By your definition, many open world games cannot be considered games, which I completely disagree with. Do you consider it winning when you complete the main storyline? When you do that and all the side quests? When you have acquired all acheivements/trophies? For games like Skyrim or Fallout, this is totally subjective as it depends on the person playing and how they determine when they have "won" the game.

 

[burningdragoon]

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

"I'm no longer enjoying this game" sounds like a loss condition to me.

but that is not an example of victory/loss condition

And your rigid view is the correct one because...?

Victor/Loss conditions are defined with respect to the game. However you feel has no bearing on these conditions; they are objective.

For instance, just because you find chess boring doesn't mean you lost

Why do the win/loss conditions need to be explicitly written into the game to be valid? And why do games need explicit win or loss conditions to count as games?

If you're in a chess competition and then just stop for whatever reason, you've still lost even if you didn't lose by the explicit state of checkmate.

 

[zehydra]

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

"I'm no longer enjoying this game" sounds like a loss condition to me.

but that is not an example of victory/loss condition

And your rigid view is the correct one because...?

Victor/Loss conditions are defined with respect to the game. However you feel has no bearing on these conditions; they are objective.

For instance, just because you find chess boring doesn't mean you lost

Why do the win/loss conditions need to be explicitly written into the game to be valid? And why do games need explicit win or loss conditions to count as games?

If you're in a chess competition and then just stop for whatever reason, you've still lost even if you didn't lose by the explicit state of checkmate.

Technically speaking you didn't lose so much as forfeit the game. That is, you giving up is external to the game itself, not a part of the game. The Victory condition of checkmate is part of the game.

 

[zehydra]

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

"I'm no longer enjoying this game" sounds like a loss condition to me.

Edit: Right the topic. Come up with a 2-3 syllable word that doesn't sound pretentious and maybe it will catch on. It won't, but maybe.

but that is not an example of victory/loss condition

And your rigid view is the correct one because...?

Victor/Loss conditions are defined with respect to the game. However you feel has no bearing on these conditions; they are objective.

For instance, just because you find chess boring doesn't mean you lost

Is Skyrim a game? You never "win" the game as it keeps going on and on. You can finish a quest path, but you will always be able to roam round the world fighting monsters. You can die, but you simply reload and continue from where you left off, so it barely counts as a "loss". By your definition, many open world games cannot be considered games, which I completely disagree with. Do you consider it winning when you complete the main storyline? When you do that and all the side quests? When you have acquired all acheivements/trophies? For games like Skyrim or Fallout, this is totally subjective as it depends on the person playing and how they determine when they have "won" the game.

Typically beating the "main quest" is usually considered beating the game, but though it's not really clear in open world video games. Their status as a game is fuzzy. You might consider something like Skyrim to be an entity that has many different games within it.

 

[McMarbles]

Because we're not incredibly pretentious?

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Well, we still call games played on a board board games, games played with pen and paper, pen and paper games, ect.
So, why shouldn't we call a game played on a video display a video game?

 

[Something Amyss]

I see what you did there.... *twitch twitch* sorry I always think the world is out to get me..er is against me..er dose not agree with my opinion >>

LOL

Happens to the best of us, sometimes. It's even harder on the web, since it's easy to misconstrue text.