That being said, the important point is to realize that videogames are different from other games. How it is different is up for debate.

I think what’s new is the combination of so many at once. So far the game part of it has been emphasized more than the others, people have seen them as “games plus other things added in to improve the game” and not actually combined the forms too carefully. I don’t think it’s any one part that makes computer games unique, it’s the combination of the parts.

Think of music videos — they’re a combination of music and video, there’s nothing unique to either of those parts, but when combined you get something new, greater than either part. I think the ties that bind the different forms of art, the different ways that they can be combined, is what’s unique about computer games.

I agree that “games” are a hybrid artform. And I consider the game element optional. Like all the others, it has its own history and its own excellence. A computer game, however, is something new. We still need to discover what makes it so unique, so appealing. I personally don’t believe it’s the game element, if only because games are not new.

That being said, people play computer games for many different reasons of course, and not just because they are a unique form of entertainment, They might just like the music. Or the gameplay. Or something else.

Anyway, I agree that most of the objections are kind of weird. All general statements have exceptions, and pointing out one exception doesn’t make a general statement less useful. If I say “what goes up must come down”, and someone else says “you’re an idiot, what about space satellites?” they aren’t disproving what I’m saying, they’re just pointing out where it doesn’t apply. A lot of these responses are of that type.

How I approach this subject, for the record, is that I believe computer games are “games plus other forms of art”. E.g. a game is a game, a computer game is a game plus a painting plus a movie plus anything else you want to add. It’s a *combined* media, it’s not a single media, and different people focus on different parts of the combination. Just as opera and musicals combine music and theater, games combine virtually every form of art into one.

I also found that I actually agree with most of the objections made. If you look at it from a certain angle, everything I said is wrong. I knew that. That’s even sort of the point. I’m only trying to look at things from another angle. Because I’m not satisfied with the intellectual status quo. And I see a more glorious future for this medium than a place on the shelf in the toy store.

Much like the people who responded really like playing games, they probably saw my statements as a challenge, an obstacle to overcome. For me, however, there is always multiple realities going on simultaneously. Not one of them is the only true one or the correct one. If anything, I’m interested in adding more possible realities, rather than reducing their number to come to some kind of resolution. I’m not a gamer. There’s a reason why I did my school thesis about ‘Pataphysics -the science of imaginary solutions… ;)

Ultimately, like so many discussions, this would have become a semantic one. And those are so boring! Maybe the title to this post should have been “Ten Reason why computer games are not just games” or “Ten reasons why I could think people prefer playing computer games over other games”. Fine by me if that makes it more acceptable for you. Ultimately, I’d rather spend my time inventing more imaginary solutions than attempting to reduce reality to a single meaning.

That is why I like the interactive medium in the first place! It allows multiple realities to coexist happily. Ambiguity is at its core. Sid Meier might like games because they are a series of interesting choices. I like them when they allow me not to make a choice. To see, and be, many things simultaneously.

Embrace ambiguity!
Embrace non-linearity!
Reject plot!

Realtime is a poetic technology.

“why are many of the posters so concerned with the similarities between computer games and other games?”

the same reason anybody working within a genre or hybrid genre or cross genre is interested in its relationship to its precendents, consituents and associations. Being informed and well researched about all aspects of your pratice is a good thing. (…) Legacy is history, and history is there to be learned from.

Agreed. But contemporary videogames don’t just have old videogames or non-videogames as their precedents! We also need to learn about architecture, painting, poetry, literature, sound art, music, sculpture, theater, film, industrial design, furniture design, comic strips, performance art, opera, photography, etcetera! If I seem a bit overzealous in minimizing the importance of older games for contemporary ones, it’s only because most game developers and gamers seem to be over-focussed on only game design. There’s a lot more to this medium than games!

Tom, I am not a scientist. I am an artist. I am very much still convinced of the accuracy of my points. But I don’t believe in universal truths and unambiguous solutions for problems. I can see a lot of value in many of the points raised by the commentors. And as many people have pointed out in their own abusive ways, the truth of a statement depends mostly on context and point of view. I think we approach these issues from places that are completely alien to game-fans.

But I will go over the objections and try to explain myself and/or admit defeat. Probably in a new post.

Suffice to say, this is a very narrow and ill-thought out view on video/traditional games.

“why are many of the posters so concerned with the similarities between computer games and other games?”

the same reason anybody working within a genre or hybrid genre or cross genre is interested in its relationship to its precendents, consituents and associations. Being informed and well researched about all aspects of your pratice is a good thing. I sometimes feel that once you have decided that an aspect doesnt appeal to your ideals you consider it no longer worthy of consideration. To be honest, i think your blinkered and limited approach to defiing videogames is just as likely to hold back progress as the ‘hardcore’-style ludologists/gamers you criticise. Legacy is history, and history is there to be learned from. I dont doubt that most of the posters agree with your aspirations for videogames, but until you address some of the points th eyhave raisedI don’t beleive that you are really intetersted in a discussion. I would hope that the number of responses countering your points would at least make you reconsider them or are you still convinced of their accuracy?

That is not say that all games should be structured the same way or be all about competition, but rather that the experience of interaction itself is, or should be, central to any game.

“2. Stories are more important than rules”

A very big part of what made Shadow of the Colossus great was what it *felt* like to play it, not just emotionally, but physically… The feeling of weight as you climbed atop these giants and brought them tumbling down was half of the experience. And that’s not just in the animation. It’s in the controls.

The same is true of Ico.

The story and characters may create the context that give it meaning, but the interaction is the experience.

The ones that have most stayed with me have been those that succeeded in both…

Now. The reason why I am interested in how computer games are different from non-digital games is clear: because I believe that it is only through developing their unique properties that computer games will become a mature and culturally relevant entertainment medium (otherwise they will end up in the toy store next to the other games, instead of in the media store next to the films and books). To do this, we need to be prepared to remove the things that are holding the medium back.

My question is: why are many of the posters so concerned with the similarities between computer games and other games? Why is it so important to focus on the legacy rather than the potential?

Is this perhaps based on a cultural or linguistic difference? Something similar to how “game” and “play” are harder to differentiate in French, since they both use the same root word?

7. Aesthetics are more important
Aesthetics are a huge factor in both classic traditional and in more modern board games. Take even a cursory look into the culture surrounding the game of Go and you’ll find people who are willing to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on high quality gobans and stones. And maximizing art budgets is just as real a concern in board game development as it is in computer games (just on a smaller budget scale).

Honestly, this whole list felt like it was simply underestimating or misunderstanding non-digital games in general. Many of the statements made about single-player video games apply to other single-player games (eg. Solitaire), and likewise the assumptions placed on multiplayer traditional games (eg. the consequences of cheating) apply just as strongly to multiplayer video games. The only difference is that video games tend to have more single player experiences, although that’s rapidly changing as well. And concepts such as authorship can easily apply to non-digital games as well; the extreme case is clearly theater games and role playing games, but there are surely other highly social games with a high degree of player freedom that create a strong sense of authorship (assassin and werewolf, arguably?).

Not to mention that the ‘cheating makes games fun’ argument is not only subjective and pigeon holing, but also makes an assumption that every single game incorporates cheats. Which these days, is getting rarer.

1. Intimacy
You can’t be intimate with a computer. It’s a machine, not a person.

2. Stories are more important than rules
You obviously haven’t played a tabletop RPG.

3. Immersion
In computer games you are more locked into the world than in tabletop games. Why? Because the world is rigidly locked by the code of the game. In tabletop games, the gamers can make up new rules – all they need is some creativity and consensus among those present.

4. Not (just) for children
You obviously haven’t played a tabletop RPG or wargame.

5. An artistic medium
The emphasis on Art means computer games effectively try to control their players – who become servants to the computer game developer, lead by the nose through the Work which is the game (which they have no ability to influence at the fundamental level). Games are not art. To say games are art is to say that art is more important than games – art is looked upon as the ultimate concern. Games are on not a subclass of art – they are on equal footing. Games are games. Art is art. Games are just as important.

6. Players as authors
You obviously have never played a tabletop RPG. In a computer game you are limited by what has been built in the game world. Not so in a tabletop RPG, where I can, with a just a few sentences, create an entirely new land.

7. Aesthetics are more important than systems
This relates to the art thing above – the notion it is more important for the player to be lead on a collar through the Majesty of the Work than to have their own exploration of things. If you want art, go to a museum. The art experience is a million times better and more intense.

8. Persistent social context
You obviously haven’t played a tabletop RPG campaign. (I had one that lasted about four years.)

9. No losing
You obviously haven’t played a tabletop RPG campaign. (I had one that lasted about four years.)

10. Cheating is allowed
Well, you’re right on this one. It’s much easier to cheat an unfeeling computer. When you are in the same room as your friends, cheating is such a low-down dirty thing to do, almost no one does it. They maintain an honour system.

I enjoyed our previous exchanges but to be honest posts like this reveal how little consideration you have really given the subject. It smacks of an artistic manifesto approach with little concern or interest in any deeper research. You are obviously pigeonholing an entire history and practice just to promote yor own ideas.

2. Stories aren’t important in traditional games? What about role-playing games? And why pick a bunch of modern games with no or vestigial narrative as examples of how games aren’t as abstract as they were? Myst is a set of puzzles, GTA is a car-racing playset, The Sims is a dollhouse. Computer games virtually always use story as contextual window dressing, like Cluedo and Monopoly do.

4. Games are viewed as for children? Yeah, like poker.

6. Traditional games have strict rules? Yeah, like Mao or Cowboys and Indians.

Point 7 is flat out wrong, but a fairly common misconception. A pretty, unplayable game won’t sell. The Wii puts paid to the idea that aesthetics are the only criteria on which games compete.

9. “When people say they lost a computer game, they actually mean that they failed to accomplish a certain task. This often prevents them from making any further progress.” Uh, you’ve just described losing. The other article you cite just shows you’ve taken a narrow subset of computer games and concocted an arbitrary definition of ‘losing’. Good soundbite, superficial reasoning.

10. Cheating only makes games more fun if the game is badly broken/unbalanced to begin with or the player decides they’ve exhausted the possibilities of playing the game properly.

The other points are good examples of how computer games differ from non-digital games, but that doesn’t stop them being games.