this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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I think one thing that would help the discussion is acknowledging that there are now multiple kinds of interactive media, and not all of them are games.
The terms i personally use are:
Game: an interactive experience with rules, challenges, and the possibility of winning and losing.
Toy: an interactive experience where you are given tools and a space to play in, but which lacks a structured goal. Paper doll falls into this category.
Interactive Story: an interactive experience where you go through a linear or branching narrative, but which avoids mechanical or mental challenges and can't be lost. Many visual novels would fall into this category.
I think a lot of tension between people who enjoy these different categories would be lessened if we talked about them as equally valid, but different, forms of interactive entertainment.
The boundaries can be blurred of course. There are many examples of mixed experiences that combined all of the above, but i think it's still a helpful way to look at for me at least. Some people really enjoy toys but don't like games, and that's not just OK, it's a good thing. It broadens the media pool and lets more people in.
In terms of description, what should we call a toy that is a digital product? If I said to a friend, "I played a paper doll toy on my PC yesterday," I would just get a ton of follow-up questions.
Or what about, "I work at a development studio that makes toys for release on Steam"? Confusing. Are games that force a retry (like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) toys or interactive fiction because losing isn't really an option? And does a definitive answer actually matter? Would it even be respected by an audience? Is doing the dishes a game?
I think there's room for movement within genre and media, especially when it comes to something interactive.
The terms are just my own, so i wouldn't expect them to make sense yet without explanation.
As i said many things blur the lines, just like you point out. The goal of these terms isn't to put up barriers, but to make it easier to talk about the differences between things. My goal is to point out the core of interactive experiences can be fundamentally different from a game, and using that term as an umbrella for everything can create false expectations. Does that make sense?
Prince of Persia falls solidly into the game definition for me for the record. It has challenges, rules, and while the loss mechanic can be rewound, it's still a loss mechanic. You don't have to load a game for something to be a loss, in other words. A loss simply means the player has been given feedback that what they did is incorrect and they can't succeed at the game or challenge by doing what caused the loss.