The question marks wild and with disdain. A post on selectbutton.

"I'm having a discussion about game design with some other guys, and we eventually ended up having a conflicting definition of "game".

They say that a game needs to have a challenge and a goal to be a game. I on the other hand think that interaction is enough to make it a video game.

The main things that need to be discussed are:

Challenge: Does the game have to make the player show some skill in order to complete it to be a game? A game that makes it impossible to not reach the goal, is not a game? What if I play a shoot 'em up with unlimited lifes and don't care about high score? Am I not playing a game? What if I play a puzzle game, but I always use a walkthrough when I get stuck. Am I not playing a game? What about games that just let you continue even if you fail? Not games? An RPG where you can't lose battles is not a game?

Goal: Does the game need a goal to be a game? A game where you can do lots of stuff, but doesn't really have any way to complete it is not a game? MMORPGs are not games? How is a goal defined at all? What about message games that have as a goal to tell the player about that message, are they not real games?

Player's making a game a game: What if the game does neither offers a challenge or a goal, but the player can make it himself a challenge or a goal (like in MMORPGs)? Does this not count? The people I discussed it with are claiming "If the game offers to cheat, everyone will do so." and also "If you have to create the challenge yourself, it's not a challenging game and thus not a game because it lacks the challenge aspect."

Fun: Does a game need to have the goal to be fun to a player to be a game? What about message games again? Can you consider it fun to get the message of a game designer via some interactivity? I mean Passage is not really fun to play or is it? But it's a game, right? On the other hand I think most games are worthless if they are not fun, but they are still games, aren't they?

Interactivity: Does interactivity define a game? Obviously anything that's not interactive can't really be a game... if they'd remove the battles in The Bouncer it would probably be considered a movie even if it was for PS2, right? But taking a look at it the other way around, if something is interactive, is it automatically a game? What about some kind of interactive movie where you can decide how it continues, is that a game? Is it only a game if you need to decide in a limited amount of time (thus adding challenge)?

What about games where you only "fly around" in an imaginary world and explore it. You can interact with its objects, but there's no goal and you can't die. It's only about exploration. Is that not a game? Is that only a game for 5 year olds and younger?"

Responses to This Person's Query or Whatever