What is a video game?

Are you having fun?
>yes
It's a video game
>no
It's not a video game

>>388861304
Do you have control at any point?
Does it have a win and fail state?

If the answer is yes to both, it's a video game.

>>388861470

several games don't have a win or fail state though

i think being able to interact is the most important, in a visual novel all you do is flipping through text so that's like the minimum amount of interaction possible, but you are still interacting with it

>>388861649
>several games don't have a win or fail state
Name some. Even something like Heavy Rain has both (win state being to reach the end, fail state being getting the worst possible ending).

Take your damn clothes off.

If it's interactive, it's a video game.

>>388862042
Not the guy you're talking to, but what's your definition of "fail state"? Does it include simply not being able to achieve the "win state"?

A game must have a failstate otherwise it's not a game.

>>388861649
>several games don't have a win or fail state though
Ergo...

>>388863038
Can you define "fail state", please?

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>>388861304
A miserable little pile of secrets.

>>388863148
Losing

>>388863183
>The Sims isn't a video game

>>388862954
Basically. In Mario 64, you need to collect stars. Failure to collect those stars means you can't reach the win state.

>>388863351
I'm glad we agree

>>388863183
That's not any less ambiguous. How does a fail state/losing apply to Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, for example, or would you say that this isn't a game because you cannot lose?

>>388863530
The latter

>>388862042

Animal crossing
You could equate that paying your house and collecting furniture is advancing toward a goal but it doesn't really have a win or lose status

>>388863568
Define "losing". I would define it as a result that hinders you from reaching the primary objective.

>>388861304

Is the medium using a video screen?

Is it a game (a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.)?

>>388861304
It is a damn shame this isn't a movie. It would be amazing and a cult classic.

>>388863745
I define it as the game ending or otherwise kicking you to the start screen despite not winning. By your logic, losing a life in mario would be considered a fail state. But the lives you are given and whatever extra lives you acquire are part of the conditions the game gives you in order to win. A game over where one could not continue, would be the actual fail state

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Visual Novels with branching paths=Video Games
Visual Novels without branching paths=Not Video Games

That's my definition of a video game. I also consider stuff like Gone Home a video game because you control the time at which events occur and your own interaction ultimately causes the endstate of the "entertainment" if you will, it's designed with player agency in mind. If Gone Home was an on rails FPS movie and the only thing you could move was the camera, I would not consider it a video game.

Feel free to challenge my 100% absolutely flawless line in the sand that surely has no loopholes.

>>388864162
Then games with no Game Overs would be no games? Like Super Meat Boy?

>>388864212
What about Visual Novels without branching paths where you need to solve shit?

>>388864275
Exactly
What people fail to realize is that the industry has moved from making games to making experiences

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>>388861304
Videogames are a mix of various media: video, music, novels and, among others, games.
And by "games" I mean traditional games, tabletop games, card games and similar. Games have a set of rules and players competing against eachother or collaborating to reach the end (or win).
It's different from sports, because in games you tend to use your mind or reflexes rather than your trained body.
I think you have an actual Videogame when it is closer to a game than to, say, a video/movie. A good Videogame has a set of rules (gameplay) and those rules should shine over everything else.
This is why VN or cinematic experiences tend to be criticized so much. They give focus on storytelling or shiny visuals over creating original and engaging rules.

Also, before someone gets triggered, a Videogame can and should strive to tell a good story and/or being good looking. But along those, first and foremost, there MUST be a good gameplay.
Great Videogame: good gameplay + good story + good visuals
Acceptable Videogame: good gameplay + bad/mediocre story + bad/mediocre visuals
Poor Videogame: bad/mediocre gameplay + good story + good visuals
Hardly a Videogame: bad gameplay + bad/mediocre story + bad/mediocre visuals

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>>388861304
I don't get why people want to differentiate between a video game and "a thing that has too little gameplay to be called a video game". It's really strange to me how some people legitimately get mad over someone calling a VN a game.

Isn't everything that matters in the end solely whether it manages to entertain you or not? I mean that's the whole point of video games, to entertain you. Whether it's through fun gameplay or a really great story, who cares.

>>388864162
>losing a life in Mario would be a fail state
That's exactly what I'm saying. If you lose a life in Mario, you dun goofed.

>>388864426
Obviously video games since progression via an interaction of systems is needed.

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>>388864526
Games without Game Overs aren't exactly a recent development, though. There have always been adventures that wouldn't allow for the player to die, for example, especially from the early/mid 90's onward. Would you exclude those from being games as well?

>>388865026
You dun goofed, but you haven't lost the game yet. In soccer if the enemy scores a goal, the game isn't over

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This is CERTIFIABLY not a video game.

A video game requires the player to look at something on a video display device. This game only uses the screen to set up the games themselves. The games are played by looking at the other player. There is no "video" part of any of the gameplay in this.

>>388865148
Yep

>>388865285
Well, it's not a videogame but at least it's more of a game than The Last of Us or Life is Strange.

>>388865268
Yes, but the fact that it's possible to mess up is what makes it a game. You can't mess up a film or a book because you have no control over them.

>>388865442
The Last of Us is a TPS with stealth sections. Definitely a game.

Is it declared to be a video game by the creator? Then I'll accept it as one and judge it as such. If it has little to no interactivity, then it's still a video game, just a shitty one.

>>388862042
Stuff like Dear Esther and other walking sims can't be lost.

>>388865449
The fact that you can mess up makes it interactive, nothing more

>>388865667
Neither can Day of the Tentacle.

If you removed the deaths from Dragons Lair and just made it so the game waits for the player input is it a videogame?

>>388861304
¿ʇi ʇǝƃ

>>388865770
And yet you can in maniac mansion. What does that say about Tim Schafer?

"Interaction" doesn't equal to "videogame".
You can interact with most PC software, like Word or your antivirus, but it doesn't make it a videogame.
So interaction isn't really enough to call a VN a videogame.
Not saying VN aren't videogames, it's just that "interaction" isn't an actual argument.

>>388861304
If it says its a video game, its a video game. That's all there is too it.

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Any entertainment within a vacuum that requires the input of a third party to properly proceed is a game. Video Games are basically just giant digital functions.

Checkmate atheists.

>>388866321
I say my post is a videogame.
Eagerly awaiting for the IGN review of my game.

>>388866481
>Any entertainment within a vacuum that requires the input of a third party to properly proceed is a game.

>DVDs with menus are video games

>>388866678
send it it then

>>388866689
Some actually are, yes.

>>388861446
fuck, according to /v/, there are no vidya in existence.

>>388866689
>Within a vacuum

Do you consider flicking through a menu when ordering your ticket at the cinema part of the movie you're about to watch?

>>388866142
>"Interaction" doesn't equal to "videogame". You can interact with most PC software, like Word or your antivirus, but it doesn't make it a videogame

Those are tools though, they're not made for enjoyment/cultural enrichment whatever.