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Comments
I tend to follow a view of Gone Home as not a game, but narrative over gameplay is not my criteria for not-a-game interactive stories, it's the lack of clear failure states. For me a game is defined by win/fail states, otherwise they are interactive fiction. My definition I know it's restrictive but I've been a prescriptivist twat since adolescence. I think that should be a topic on itself though(what are the criteria for games/should games have criteria?).
Gone Home makes use of the medium plenty: its Amnesia-esque setting puts you on the wrong foot, the extra background of the family gives you the feeling of a living and breathing setting, and it does a great job of adding time-appropriate flavour for the nostalgia vibe. That doesn't make its story of fear of coming out, teenagers running away or lesbians as automatically punk and divided into surrogate gender roles any more original or emancipatory.
It's hilarious to bring up a tone argument as whining about WORDS WORDS WORDS is in itself a tone argument: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/derail-using-intellectualism/
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Which has nothing to do with its validity as a "game", as you were originally arguing.
Touché. I'll have to remember to be more careful with my posts next time as to avoid "Gotcha" distractions like that. However, I stand by my core point that your argument prioritized commentators' style over substance, and I feel that style is meaningless if you're going to dismiss it anyway.
Technically, SimCity doesn't count as a game either. Since the player has to make up win conditions, it better fits the "toy" category. I think a lot of the issue stems from "game" being used to describe a broader array of software beyond just attaining a win/lose condition. For instance, the Nintendo DS is a gaming machine, yet it hosts software such as Art Academy and that cooking guide. People just associated Myst and its ilk with the adventure game genre and thus "games" in general, even though those are arguably distinct. I agree that it's a topic worth pursuing further though, and I will be willing to participate in such a thread if someone sets it up.
Incidentally, I believed video games couldn't be art for the longest time because I felt that a "game" implied functional interaction that conflicted with the creativity of "art". However, many people are more interested in "experiencing" as opposed to "winning" games, so that would be more in the artistic vein. I'm sure most people playing Super Mario 64 at least feel tempted to treat it as a playground and make their own goals after all.
A spaniard reviewer I follow tends to make a distinction, 'gamer' as in the core FPS/Mainstream game audience, and 'softófilos' (software-phile) for game enthusiast in the more broad sense. It could be a way for a more inclusive language to be more widespread, and also useful.
The one problem I have with that is that FPS games only started becoming mainstream (for console players at least) since Halo. Back when I was a kid, platformers with cartoon characters were the dominant game style for consoles, and I do remember adventure games used to be a major force on the PC around that time.
It's true, but the context is everything, in the sense that when marketing campaigns tout the word gamer, they almost always use it to mean FPS or Fighting Game or Action game players,
It would be interesting to find out what percentage of players of [insert genre here] would answer yes to the question "Would you call yourself a gamer?".
>implying you can ever avoid 'gotcha' sophistry
Calling my tone argument a distraction versus yours not being one could resemble A In B Situation Is Not Equivalent To X In Y Situation derail.
This is the point where you accuse me of trying to derail the conversation using humour, I deflect back that you're accusing me of not arguing in good faith, and so on and so forth if you weren't exasperated after the first two of these back-and-forths.
Semantic escape hatch: dismissive walking simulator remarks says little about categorization and more about dismissing that genre of games as one I personally am disappointed by in terms of length and hype/pay-off(whether you find this notion sincere or backtracking is up to you, and it probably contradicts something I've posted elsewhere-consistency and hobgoblins and all that).
Only the second paragraph of the post on that review can be really dismissed as a style-over-substance argument, the entire first one goes plenty into what I like about the substance.
A major force that was still completely dwarfed by FPSes. Still, my impression is that console gaming was bigger than PC gaming until recently, but I can't seem to find data from before the Wii explosion.
In my personal experience, strategies were big but the coherent scene was built on stuff like Counterstrike.
I remember some complaint over Gone Home that said the devs pretended the game was a horror, got people drawn to the premise, and then it turned out it's just about protagonist's sister being gay. But you know, now that I think of it, that's the art for you. One will puke, the other will say it's True Art and that it Challenges the Preconceptions or some other buzzword. Heh heh. This is quite funny, I've gotta say.
^^Yeah I know, Doom and its ilk. As for the biggest platform, I'm not sure. Those two always had their separate histories, and PC was typically regarded as technically superior to consoles. Of course, mobile gaming is a thing nowadays whereas before, it used to garner as much respect as a Tiger Electronic.
>implying paragraphs are separate entities rather than connected ideas.
You conclude you are dismissive of the race commentary message anyway and that it's his other points you find more palatable. You don't like being exposed to social justice ideas? Fine. But that doesn't mean those writings should cater to you.
I hope that some day, the interactive software medium matures to the point where something like this isn't viewed as an anomaly. Sure, there was controversy over Brokeback Mountain, but in the big picture, it was just another film.
Actually, that's another point worthy of discussion. Films tend to be representative of what audience they target, e.g. Art house, summer blockbuster, so bad it's good, etc. Broad strokes criticism tends to limit itself to one of those categories, and summer blockbusters, romantic comedies, etc. are criticized for their conventions instead of their legitimacy. However, games are treated as a monolithic entity, as if a commentary on one game is a commentary on video gaming itself. Yeah, there's segmentation, but it's often in a gatekeeping sense (e.g. EGM idiot on Endless Ocean posted above). So it seems no one questions the legitimacy of film itself, but people still question the legitimacy of video games, in part because game reporters themselves denigrate the legitimacy of individual games.
Forget gaming's Citizen Kane, video games need a Roger Ebert. Then again, the primary difference between film and video games in terms of commitment is 5+ hours. (I would say money, but downloadable games are making this less applicable generally)
Unfortunately I don't have time to follow with a longer reply (or fortunately, as this gives me a pretext to drop off two lines and call it a post, heh heh), so I'll address just this one point.
You mentioned Brokeback Mountain. This makes me think - it's true it was just another film, but turns out there's some deeper meaning in what you've said: it, as far as I know, had a plot and all that and differed by the fact the forbidden romance was between two gay cowboys. You replace the gay with vanilla, there's still some story left that could still find a place in TV in some housewife time slot. Gone Home, I am told, was criticised for not having enough "game" in it (I'm assuming the criticism that I've read was not based on "moral" reasons) - when you do the same and remove the gay, it's just a sandbox where you roam a house and learn your sister was not accepted by your parents, or what. A way to pass an idle hour or two and that's all. Not much to speak of. I think this was at heart of many a critical opinion.
Granted, I've experienced neither, so I'm just trying to repeat the points I've read somewhere else without pretending my voice on the matter is anything worthy of heed.