What Is A Game? | Feature Creep By Tarmack
58What is a video game? I'll discuss what I feel is a good definition and explain my logic to the best of my abilities. I usually ask for feedback on these videos, but this time I mean it more than ever. Let me know what you feel defines games and if your definition is different from mine. But first, my opinion. I'm Tarmack and this is an unabridged version of Feature Creep.
My recent video on Dungeon Keeper may have been a bit misleading because I went to the point of saying that it is not a game, which is actually not correct. It's just a bad game.
There have been a few titles in recent memory which have stretched the game experience to its' limit and I thought that I should clarify my stance and why I believe it is an important distinction.
So here is my definition of a game. Normally I speak quite quickly in Feature Creep, but I'll slow this one down because we're dealing with a pretty heavy topic and missing points will be easy in this one.
A game is an interactive experience between a person and an irrelevant number of external opponents whether those are computer AI, scripted behavior or other people which includes a failure state. In basic English, that means you the player and at least one other person, computer or situation competing against you for an objective. This definition fits 99.9% of what are commonly considered video games that have been produced to date.
Why an interactive experience? Well, for a game to be a game, the player needs to be able to play. There has to be something in the game that allows the player to influence the outcome in some way. If this interaction isn't present, then the title may as well be a movie or a book.
What is an opponent? It is something that is between you and your completion of the objective. This could be another person shooting at you in a multiplayer FPS, it could be a puzzle that you just can't get quite right or it could be
This bleeds in to the concept of a failure state. The opponent MUST be capable of preventing you from completing your objective whether permanently or temporarily. The failure state is the crux of the definition of game that I'm putting forward. Every video game from Pong on until whatever was released last week. This failure state of course comes in many forms. It could be losing the Pong match against your opponent. It could be your SimCity game developing traffic congestion due to your lack of planning skills. It could be dying to Deathwing in WOW. Having a party member leave in Dragon Age.
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