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IMPress Polly
04-25-2016, 05:56 AM
I still meet people all the time who insist that many of the games I play aren't "real games", saying that many of my games aren't interactive enough to qualify or just aren't fun to play and games are supposed to be happy fun entertainment, not art, that sort of thing. Therefore, I thought I'd offer this helpful refresher course on the fact that...

1) you can't even define games, art, or fun because all three are intrinsically subjective, and...
2) these judgmental people don't even apply their own standards consistently anyway because it's not possible to.

What those who use expressions like "fake game" are really and truly saying is that they simply don't like for games to feature certain types of themes or goals or to appeal to certain demographics to which they don't personally belong (like me, for example). The video's a few years old now, but nonetheless very effective at getting these points across:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgu76ql6FSo
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgu76ql6FSo)
Do you disagree? If so, how is it that you define what is and isn't a game?

midcan5
04-25-2016, 06:04 AM
Hmm, gotta drop now....be back.

"The Paleolithic hunters who painted the unsurpassed animal murals on the ceiling of the cave at Altamira had only rudimentary tools. Art is older than production for use, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness, and the playground is the optimal milieu for the unfolding of his capacities." Eric Hoffer

Standing Wolf
04-25-2016, 07:49 AM
I tend to believe that the type of person who would find it necessary to criticize someone else's video game as not being a game is pretty much the same type of person who would spend two hours pointing out the logical inconsistencies in a Spiderman movie.

Peter1469
04-25-2016, 02:47 PM
Or stand in a church and tell its members they are stupid for believing in god.

kilgram
04-26-2016, 02:11 AM
I still meet people all the time who insist that many of the games I play aren't "real games", saying that many of my games aren't interactive enough to qualify or just aren't fun to play and games are supposed to be happy fun entertainment, not art, that sort of thing. Therefore, I thought I'd offer this helpful refresher course on the fact that...

1) you can't even define games, art, or fun because all three are intrinsically subjective, and...
2) these judgmental people don't even apply their own standards consistently anyway because it's not possible to.

What those who use expressions like "fake game" are really and truly saying is that they simply don't like for games to feature certain types of themes or goals or to appeal to certain demographics to which they don't personally belong (like me, for example). The video's a few years old now, but nonetheless very effective at getting these points across:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgu76ql6FSo
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgu76ql6FSo)
Do you disagree? If so, how is it that you define what is and isn't a game?

Can you give an example of those no-games or "fake games" that you play? :)

It is the first time that I listen it :)

IMPress Polly
04-26-2016, 04:21 AM
kilgram wrote:
Can you give an example of those no-games or "fake games" that you play? :)

It is the first time that I listen it :)

Some examples of games I've played in recent years that I've seen described as "fake games" include Gone Home, Dys4ia, Dear Esther, Beyond: Two Souls, Firewatch, Oxenfree (the game mentioned in my current avatar), Depression Quest, Actual Sunrise, Beyond Eyes, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Tales From the Borderlands, and That Dragon, Cancer, among others. Personally, I think many of these games qualify as among the most powerful gaming experiences that have ever been produced and that many of my critics simply lack the ability to appreciate more progressive-minded titles or even respect their existence as valid.

kilgram
04-26-2016, 04:35 AM
Some examples of games I've played in recent years that I've seen described as "fake games" include Gone Home, Dys4ia, Dear Esther, Beyond: Two Souls, Firewatch, Oxenfree (the game mentioned in my current avatar), Depression Quest, Actual Sunrise, Beyond Eyes, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Tales From the Borderlands, and That Dragon, Cancer, among others. Personally, I think many of these games qualify as among the most powerful gaming experiences that have ever been produced and that many of my critics simply lack the ability to appreciate more progressive-minded titles or even respect their existence as valid.
Seriously?

The only one that I would say that is borderline are the telltale games. But an interactive movie is considered a game and I agree. So the people who says the opposite is an ignorant and an idiot.

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IMPress Polly
04-26-2016, 05:01 AM
kilgram wrote:
Seriously?

The only one that I would say that is borderline are the telltale games. But an interactive movie is considered a game and I agree. So the people who says the opposite is an ignorant and an idiot.

Yeah, I mean most interactive movies are shown at E3 and not at film festivals. (Though I believe Beyond: Two Souls was actually shown at both game conventions and film festivals, as the exception to that rule). There's a reason that choice is made and I don't think it's to fool anyone.

And furthermore I happen to like a lot of those "walking simulators" like Gone Home and Oxenfree that I think most serious analysts would instead call coming-of-age mysteries. If I may illustrate how severely these more judgmental gamers are missing the essence of these titles, personally, walking has never made me cry before.

But I mean those were just some examples. As another, for instance, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons I have often seen described as a "painting". :rollseyes: