I'm writing an essay and possibly making a youtube video on the subject of the definition of videogames

I'm writing an essay and possibly making a youtube video on the subject of the definition of videogames.

By wikipedias and most other definitions by various dictionaries etc, a videogame is:

"A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual
feedback on a video device, such as a tv screen or computer monitor."

By this definition, visual novels are games, but games for blind people aren't.

I've seen plenty of people on Holla Forums arguing that visual novels aren't games and for the most part I agree, but then the issue remains, how do you define what is and what isn't a game.

Is the visual novel Katawa Shoujo the same medium as, for example, Rocket League?

How would you do it?

No because the sole purpose of a VN is to tell a story. Games are there to do things and have fun. Most games blend story telling and gameplay, but the game can run without a story and still be fun.

Bonus round: Argue that games are not art.

"Do things and have fun" won't hold up, since technically you're doing something when you interact with a vn, like making a choice, and you have fun by being entertained by the story.

Good point though about games could run without stories and still work. Maybe a new definition should include a sentence saying games could still work without sound and a story. Sometimes even without visuals.

I wouldn't consider a game intended for a blind person to be a video game. A sound-game I guess it would be called?

Anything visual in a game made for the blind is ENTIRELY vestigial. There is, quite literally, no reason to have it. Unless it's some strange sort of social game in which the screen acts like a WiiU pad to provide the players with sight concealed information.

That actually sounds fun.

And yah, a visual novel is a video game, just one in which everything has been stripped off of it except for interacting with it via inputs. It's actually sort of interesting since it represents the absolute limit of the definition.

The questions of video games being art is always a waste of a time because it's the wrong question. The first one is "what is art" and then if video games fall into it or not is mathematical. Though, I am starting to suspect that when people mean "art" they really mean "expression". Since that is what tend to be the relevant questions people are posing, as in "should they be regulated" or "can it convey meaningful ideas?" etc. And you always see the same spergs show up to the threads too.

I fucked your mom OP

Visual novels are borderline, but out of convenience it's better to group them with games. There are many VNs that feature actual gameplay, but a distinction is not made for every single case, it is pointless, they're just lumped together with games. You don't necessarily need a definition of videogames that specifically includes or excludes visual novels because of this. VNs are an exceptional case.
And yeah, a game for blind people is certainly not going to be a video game. A computer game, perhaps, but not video.

Wrong, retard.

Visual novels aren't games. Or videogames.

Fuck off gook.

As I see it, video games require gameplay, like it is in the name. Now there were those older games that were on dosbox, and barely had any controls at all and were mostly text with decisions as well as your vn example. As I see it theyre the barest of bones of vidya if they have "choices". Like an interactive adventure book. If its just like choose your talk option its even less of a videogame and is really pushing itself into interactive movie land.

Where im going is, vidya, to truly be considered a game needs gameplay. The more gameplay, the better. With little gameplay and very shallow options, it's still technically a game but barely. And with movies like the newer final destinations where you can choose the endings, its more like these types of videogames are ebbing into interactive movie territory instead. Its all very muddled really.

A lot of games don't really have fail states if you really look at it. Puzzle games like Spacechem or Myst don't proceed until you've found the solution, action games like Revengeance or Super Metroid don't proceed until you've figured out how to beat whatever hurdle is thrown your way. This can be applied to many other games, across genres. I'm playing Dustforce right now, and you can die in it, but you're constantly restarting from the beginning of the level to get an S/S rank. It's not like I failed the stage, I just haven't mastered it yet. Actual fail states make you fail the game itself, like most arcade shmups, or any platformer with a life system (where dying at 0 lives starts at the beginning). RPGs have real fail states, too: if your party is poorly constructed it forces you to start over. Strategy games with permadeath apply here, too.

So the 'fail state' isn't the best way to classify a game, otherwise a lot of games widely recognized as quality wouldn't qualify.

My definition would include challenge, especially in the sense of mastering mechanics. When a dev designs their game, attention is usually (hopefully) drawn to how the player interacts with the game. Blame Resident Evil 4 for starting some bad shit in the industry, but the game itself has a very fine-tuned combat system with a lot of thought put behind its mechanics. Strip everything unnecessary away from the game and all you're left with is the gunplay.

OP, you might want to look into Costikyan principles on defining a game (even if Costikyan himself is a faggot).

So he is saying all forms of creative expression are subordinate to video games?

…this makes an odd amount of sense.

It's a bit vague but it's a start

This would make VNs video games because they are simulations of a CYoA book, and story is still a form of entertainment.

sony movies arent games

Telltale choose your next cinematic arent games

weeaboo virtual books with animu backgrounds arent games

THIS IS FACT DEAL WITH IT

ITS LIKE MENTAL ILL PEOPLE FORCING HOMOSEX TO BE A NORMAL THING

NOW WE HAVE EVEN BIGGER SICKOS CHOPPING THEIR DICKS OFF

NEXT THEY WILL GO FOR THE CHILDREN JUST WAIT

So War is a game? Makes sense. There's win, lose, and stalemate conditions and attacks are allowed, even encouraged.

If you're referring to the pic, it's the rather the opposite. Games are only a small subset of creative expression, based on the decision trees with the listed criteria.

It's weird because fucking traps is completely fine and straight, those who take it up in the ass really deserve to be hanged.

If you read the PDF I provided, Costikyan himself addresses something similar that could be seen as a game: real-world economics. Basically, he addresses it by stating that the meanings/values within a game must only hold true within said game. Once you start involving "the real world" - or any other outside structure - then those meaning/values cease to being part of a game.

In other words, games don't real. It's all fiction.

You're right though, that war could be seen as a game - at least based off the Crawford gif.

Kill yaself, my man.

Costikyan has always been a faggot.

In Wario Land II there's no fail state. You just lose money or inconvenience yourself. It's one of the best videogames I've ever played. Your analysis is simplistic and innacurate.

Losing money and inconveniencing yourself is failing. Being helped up with no actual repercussions isn't.

I'd choose a topic that's not the definition of "video game".
"Game" as a category itself is incredibly poorly defined, since playing a pen-and-paper RPG, reading one of the more railroad-y Choose Your Own Adventure books, and throwing a ball at your dad/brother/friend all end up in the same bucket.

A much more fruitful endeavor would be the taxonomy of interactive media, which is also more fun to explore anyway, since you find shit like Tennis for Two, which military scientists played on an oscilloscope when they weren't busy keeping the nuclear defense systems online.

I'd do my own homework instead of coming to Holla Forums and expecting them to help me/do it for me.

Games contain failure states that lead to game-over. There is an aspect of player performance to them.

Is classic "game of life" a game, according to this definition?

It's interactive, but very limited. Besides the college vs career at the start, I don't remember much in terms of decision-making. Whatever career you choose could lead to bonuses, but those are random as well. Moving plastic pieces about with your hands or spinning a wheel are still considered forms of "play" in colloquial terms.

There's competition, in the sense that players see who does better by the end. However, the struggle comes more from the randomness rather than actual competition.

I'd say it is, but it's a poor game. Same as an electronic Rock-Paper-Scissors. At least RPS has an element of psychology to it when done in person, but electronic is pretty much random.