Are those games really games?

A video game is defined as "A game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or other display screen." And then I suppose we have to look up "game" which basically says it a sport of some kind with competitive rules or challenges. If only it could be that simple.


I think we all know where I'm going with this. Its been a growing argument in recent years with the rise of very strange type of games with such a harsh and strict focus that people have been rejecting the notion that they are even games at all. It has become quite common to hear of an indie game that in order to play you need to prepare yourself to reject all past expectations that you'll have any traditional gaming elements, which naturally makes some wonder how it still gets by as a game. Most of these games involve you walking in some perspective through a shifting or script controlled landscape until you reach the end, but along the way its the experience that strongly counts and servers as the value. Games like Dear Esther, Gone Home, Stanley parable (which also seeks to mock this debate on both sides), the path, and many others like them sort of fit within this type of game. They have been nicknamed walking simulators, grouped as art games, or just summarized as a "linear narrative driven game". While they've become a great example of how indies can branch out and alter the landscape of gaming, its also came at the cost of wondering if its gone too far by simply being not enough to count as a game. Some people expect challenge, win conditions, or something of heavy play and interaction on the player's part before they'll be willing to accept it as a true game. Opponents of this view point talk like these games are ahead of their times and people still need to get used to them, or they may even try to lump a game into some other more traditional genre by stretches of very minimal pieces or technicalities of the game in question (Like calling Journey a platformer or Gone Home an Adventure game). My take on the argument? I'm not so sure I really have a side or great answer, but I love the discussion never the less. Like usual I also feel like there's some right and wrongs on both sides... lets check them out.

Does a video game require challenge? Maybe so, but there are a ton of different ways especially considering today's market. The challenge in Sim City, Kirby's epic yarn, Rayman legends, Killzone, Portal, and Xcom are all extremely different. I suppose most could be summed up as "you die, restart" but that would be undermining them and what makes them different. I can die in Killzone and Portal and get penalized by a restart, but the way I need to reach victory and the tasks required to not fail is too different to consider it the same sort of challenge. I can fail portal without ever dying by just not understanding or being capable of winning the puzzle. Its a binary challenge to test whether or not you know how to pass a test set for you. Meanwhile in Killzone if I can't succeed it often results in death by enemies or level because of my poor understandings of tactics, bad reflex, or a bad use of the level. Its a lot more open to me as a player and has more depth and complexity while letting me technically win easier if I'm not a total fool, but the world is also a lot more hostile and actively trying to kill me. Meanwhile we can jump the subject entirely and move on to Kirby where you can't die at all but still exist in a world with a victory condition and a hostile level design... so where does the challenge step in if the hostile can't stop me from the victory? Well its a matter of being the best at victory. Its a score attack mind set installed into you where your performance is measured and rated, and the game urges you to do well or suffer the expense of a lesser score. Its a fair and obvious challenge with a nice take on difficulty. This is also why you never hear any of these games being questioned as a game. Many typical gamers will scoff at simulators and certain weird types of strategy games like Sim City or the grand strategy map and menu based genre, but because they are so clear as being strategic games they can't be found guilty as a non-game in this sense.

There are massive differences in these challenges, and the rules around them, and as a result they set the stage for their genre name and their following fans or haters. I can't stand an old adventure game like Monkey Island or Grim fandango because I hate the puzzles, and I hate the lack of interaction within it, and I don't prioritize the narrative about interaction. So I seek a separate rule set and a totally different play style while others adore that genre. Meanwhile I really enjoy old FPS games because it has a great level of recourse management, tactics, and constant opposition, all while allowing you some solid level of freedom and interaction as well as a light narrative.

Meanwhile a game like Gone Home or Dear Esther is mostly about pressing forward to walk, and if you want to overgeneralize them further maybe you could beat the game by doing that 90% of the time. There really isn't much of a challenge by comparison. However... I've got to start to raise up how bluring this line is when a game like Tearaway steps out and gets so heavily applauded as a great artistic platforming video game. From playing the long and enjoyable demo, I can see that Tearaway is a game of experience. You walk around, play with the world in a linear but whimsical fashion, it tells you a story with scripted bits that you can poke into and mess with, and you take in the world and relax with it. However it has platforming and monsters, both of which will challenge you and defeat you sending you right back to the.... 3 seconds ago or something like that. Yeah the penalty is kind of next to non-existent, and the opposition itself is a matter of defeat or try again. Without any real sense of logic behind it there isn't exactly a binary test as much as it is just a binary task... like a script rather than a puzzle or an obstacle. There is also no emphasis on a scoring system. Its there, and there are collectibles which are rewarding, but its so light and not there while some other linear artsy walking sims even got this much down. Every obstacle in the game was like a toy, you just played with it to pass. If you couldn't get it, it wasn't because of skill or opposition, it was just a goof up and you're picked back up and told to try again. I guess there is still technically a stable set-up for a game since you are pushing buttons that defeat an enemy/obstacle, and they can penalize you even if by seconds, but at the end of the day this wasn't any more of a challenge than any of the super linear artsy games. Heck I'd even say I had more of a challenge in Gone Home, where my brain was being put to the test to make sure I checked every valued detail and was constantly piecing together a greater narrative... which is the exact point to most of these games.

 This gets one thinking further, maybe this is their idea for a challenge? Sims City challenges you to put together the right planning and task management, MS flight challenges you to learn and manage an airplane, Halo challenges you to kill or be killed within battlegrounds, Angry birds challenges you through trial and error and score attack, Myst challenges you to solve puzzles, Thief challenges your sneaking abilities and a score attack, Tearaway challenges your creative side and interaction, and games like Dear Esther and Gone Home challenge your observations and your sense of narrative comprehension. Its not really that different or foreign honestly, your brain will be used for something more than what could be said for a movie or by just watching someone play. When I was so gripped and pulled into exploring Gone Home, Playfully thrilled through my entire trip in Journey, and figuring my way around the demo of Unfinished swan it all kept me as tense and tied into it as much as any other game experience, and its something unique to gaming. I can't say I have the same feeling towards movies, or even Beyond two souls.

Oh and just to be clear, I wasn't insulting Tearaway's lack of challenge, the demo on its own had me smiling and entranced in the enchanted world they made and it was so much fun. I'm also not saying its in the same category as the "walking sims", instead I was bringing it up as a test of challenge that fails the traditional game sense of sport or challenge. Its not the only game to really do that either. Think of what a "challenge" FTL is with its total random luck driving the adventure rather than a challenge or a true competitive set of rules. Its still clearly getting by on the impression that its a strong video game, and has been a massive success as a PC indie game that seems to have driven an interest into the rouge-like genre; A genre full of other games based mostly in chance. Not very sportsman-like when you just walk into a room and get pounded out of the playthrough because the coin landed on the wrong side. Games like Tearaway, Gone Home, Heavy Rain, Unfinished Swan, and even Kirby which I used earlier are all pretty separate games but they really push the traditional sense of mentality behind challenge and feel like they bend that old definition posted at the top. Much like the copyright laws, this is a time when old writing simply isn't cut out for the modern world and I feel like it might be a time to reconsider how a game challenges a player or if challenge is even a factor at all.

Much better than a typical game

Now the problem I do have though is when these walking simulator games are made to sound ordinary... they're not. I've had people try to tell me Gone Home is some special Adventure game in the same manor as Monkey Island or Myst because it has keys to progress a narrative and "puzzles" in the form of finding a give away key numbers. None of it is done anything close to the extent of an adventure game, and can be overlooked entirely by people that dislike that genre such as myself. The "puzzles" aren't puzzles or puzzling at all, even the developers have advertised the game as puzzle free. You could say there's a puzzling mystery to the narrative you piece together, but there is nothing like a sort of gameplay based puzzle to be found. As for keys, yeah they're there but very obvious and easy to stumble upon to the degree where they don't make up the experience very well at all. They simply wall off the pieces so you can play it in the right order, its more of a developer tool than a gameplay element while in something like Doom (oh hey, another key game... its adventure?) keys are a part of the action and exploration that give it a sense of down time and proper pacing while in Gone Home you were already being told to explore long before you ever bumped into a need for a key. Gone Home is no more of an adventure game than Donkey Kong Country is a beat 'em up bralwer, or Portal is a shooter.... telling me its something ordinary because of some very loose connection is just absurd. If any tiny detail or technicality can be played up to sum up a game's genre, there simply wouldn't be genres... it would be too difficult to keep it all together. Suddenly Half-life becomes a platformer/adventure/brawler/puzzler/shooter/RPG, Torchlight 2 is a twin stick shooter in addition to its true RPG form, and Battlefield is a literal Real Time Strategy game if a team can pull together right. Instead genres seem to be named after the highlight of a game's attention, and what familiar features shine the strongest in its gameplay as compared to what gamers know. If something is so weird it can't count towards anything familiar without entering weird technicalities, its probably time to look for something with a similar theme or think of it as a potential new genre.

I honestly do believe walking simulator is the closest most of these come to a real genre. "Narrative driven" game works and sounds more sophisticated, but it also implies that its a better priority over adventure games and puzzle platformers which isn't true for many cases, or those that despite being within another genre tell a grand story that outdoes these by far in the typical narrative sense (Metal Gear Solid and Last of us especially come to mind). Maybe I'm being picky there, but I think its a bit of a stretch for that reason. Then what other common labels for this type of game are left? Artsy games? That's more of an adjective, and many think of things like braid or Okami within that and those are certainly different gamey experiences than Dear Esther. So we seem to be left with Walking simulator... and that isn't so great either as it can't be taken literally as its not a simulator. However it does set up the idea that the game is about walking, which holds very true. In Dear Esther you walk and get story bits until it ends. In Gone Home you walk, observe, and pick up stuff to further the game. Proteus is a mix between the last two, as you walk through and observe a pixelated nature as the key point. In Journey you're doing a lot of walking and jumping, and there are plenty of side gamey bits, but the center of the show is moving forward and experiencing the land in between your start and the goal. In the Stanley Parable you're walking through the office with a silly commentary at the focus.

Now I suppose you could say walking is in pretty much every character based game, and is a big part of it considering you can't do anything else without moving. You have to walk to progress in Quake, Portal, Donkey Kong, etc. However that is never a highlight like it is within the other games. In these games at question here walking gives you part of the draw to the game and is more glamorous. I was excited to be taking a tour into the mysterious house of Gone Home, and I was thrilled to be running across and playing in the sand in Journey, and if I had Proteus I would be playing it to walk through a virtual nature rather than do anything else. Meanwhile in Serious Sam I play it to shoot and kill aliens while struggling against numerous odds to keep myself alive. This ideal set-up is a major trait in pretty much all shooters and is why they got that name to begin with. Walking is overshadowed and less of a focus as its just something basic to do, it is only rewarding to focus on that aspect if you want to get distracted by something off to the side like observing a wall texture while in Gone Home that tour sense of walking and looking is the game's strong point rather than some minor passable detail. The detail, the reward, the focus, and the goal is all surrounded within the idea of walking and observing, in pretty much all these games, it is a big common center of the action these games all have. They are walking interactive visionary games with a nice narrative and little else, and that is for the best considering their goals. I'm not hating on them for being like that, I loved my time in these games, I love their emphasis on detail and the need to explore without a strong sense of penalty or risk, and I love getting interesting narratives told to me through the often stylized methods these games have. Its just that when it breaks down to it and what it all comes down to, you've been enjoying a game with exploring at its key but its nothing like the traditional adventure game... its even more casual and care-free, so its better to describe it as a walking sort of sense. These are walking heavy games, and something the most popular coined term that many have come to understand (even if some hate it) to describe this best is walking simulator. It works, it feels honest (though overgeneralized like any genre name), and it pushes out those that would hate that thing while others who are more interested will look on for more details. Sure I would prefer a better sounding name, like casual explorers, Observation adventures, Tour narratives, and maybe some other ideas... but like how stupid Real Time Strategy and Point and Click sounds, I think it'll be something people need to get used to and accept.

However everything within this discussion comes down to whether or not these are games..... my stance is I don't care enough to make a sure answer. I'd side more with "yes its a game" but I wouldn't be too shocked to find someone in disagreement. I honestly believe its a matter of taste more than anything else, and in the end that truly is all that matters as we consume entertainment for our own enjoyment, and these games are without any doubt a part of that. Whether or not you think its heresy to call Metroid Prime a shooter, its still a good game and I think the same logic applies to these games or non-games. You don't have to like them, and maybe that somehow drives you away from calling it a game, but respect it for a means of good entertainment targeted at certain people. I know I don't like the average sports game because its not gamey enough to me, but I still live with it in a world where its known as a video game and I respect its purpose. However the question left to those unwilling to call it a game is that I'm not quite sure what else you would call it. The interactivity in some of these goes far beyond the ideal interactive movie, they're often made by people with some history as a game developer and coder who also have a passion for the hobby, and many spin a twist on the narrative in a way that is more gamey than most games are with their narrative. So what is that? Is it simply a pseudo-game, a virtual adventure novel of some kind, or just some unnamed digital art form? This is where I go back to my stance, I'd prefer to call it a game but I don't care... its just fun if its done right.

I see gaming mostly defined in two forms... one was covered earlier and even stands as the technical definition about sports tones, goals, and/or challenges. Another, and the one that often supports these games, is simply about having an engaging interactivity with the player. As someone who grew up curious as to how to play the super linear primitive games of the retro SNES and younger days, it was a brilliant evolution to me to get sucked into a far more interactive and playful world within a game like Spyro. I didn't get hooked because I won anything, or felt challenged, but I got sucked into that and further games because it was simply an amazing medium of interaction. That is what games mean to me at their core, even today. I don't fuss and praise deep mechanics out of their skill, even if that's what I will sound like I'm doing, but in the back of my mind it is because deeper mechanics open up a level of interaction and let the player do stuff. I may praise health packs in shooters because its a skill and importance of management, but truthfully I'm more of a fan of it because it is something for the player to interact with without over-complicating things. You look for health, your urged to search a more complex world for secrets and hidden pick-ups, your engaged to see damage leveled at you by the number or bar, and your felt empowered to keep up with your character's statistics. Yes it takes skill, but its also a part of pulling the player in and something to keep up with related to your character doing stuff in the world. This is also why I hated AC3's move of removing health kits and armor in favor of health regen, even though they made it so that was harder because it only regenerates out of combat. This meant that you had to finish your fights or die trying or run, there was no easy stackable 20 packs of health to keep you going like an immortal magic man... however this was also less stuff to buy, less to keep up with, and less upgrades to make, and no more decorating your costume with armored plates across time. It raised the skill level to a reasonable and solid way while taking out a mechanic that had me engaged, and as a result I was angry over it because to me Interaction>Challenge. So I was never on the same page as these sports game definition. I want challenge when it means a better grip of interaction and immersion and serves as something more to master, like recoil on a gun, or a suspenseful sword duel in Chivalry but at the forefront it is the interaction that is appreciated. If a game-like thing was good and let me get immersed and assume control in a way that has me enjoying the experience, I will be happy for the same exact reasons I got into gaming to begin with and I wake up to play one every day. A lot of these games in question like Journey and Proteus attempt to do interaction in a weird and different way, but  its there and it can be very playful and relaxed about it at times giving a nice sense of unique value to them for their interaction. It wins my vote as a game for that reason.

While its a bit important to keep labels around to some degree (see the "gone home as an adventure game" bit mentioned earlier), I think we really are at a time when gaming is breaking through the old ideas and maybe it is time to readjust what we believe to be a traditional game rather than being blunt about what is a terrible lack of "game"-ness. However this isn't exactly so new to run into weird games that bend what feel right to the individual. The people that like shooters, strategies, sports games, platformers, and RPGs probably have much different tastes than those that love Adventure games, find and seek, traditional puzzles, and similar such games. There's games where you have a strong sense of control, a strong sense of doing, a strong sense of fighting for something. Then there are games that simply toss glorified riddles and contraptions on the screen and ask you to find the solution with a different sense of award and accomplishment attached to it and often a strong narrative. I feel like the Walking sims we face today are a bit like a cross between them but share that idea that they'll probably attract their own kind of people, and heck I'd say the same for card games as well considering there's a better direct sense of choice and challenge while also being static in perspective and puzzling in thought. These walking sims are deep in perspective and usually interaction as they allow you to control the adventure through a character, however there's more of an emphasis on do or don't rather than winning or survival, making the objective more driven like a point and click but under a better sense of control. Its also super linear in the manner of an adventure game, but it'll likely take its level influences and designs from more in depth games like shooters or platformers. Its a totally different experience that one will have trouble determining if they will enjoy and it takes a unique sense of taste. Its a new kind of game, and it'll require its own kind of taste rather than relying on everyone to universally accept it into some magical genre or to even earn it the respect of a true game. Much like I don't see much of a game in Monkey Island or Dragon's Lair, there will be those that can't find much of a game within Brothers or Stanley parable. However for everyone's sake can we start to respect them a bit anyways. Give them a solid genre name, again I'll use walking sim until I find a better common one, and lets encourage this diversity to our medium rather than slashing at it.