This is not a game

[Sharcman]

It's an interactive story. I could recreate the whole thing using basic HTML. How did this end up on Steam?

[Wraith_Magus]

Oh look, someone else who needs an education on what a game is...

How are visual novels "not games"? I just had this same argument over in two other threads (and I'm just copy pasting here to save time,) and the only argument that anyone put forth that actually excluded visual novels from being games was "I don't enjoy playing it". As I said there, what's to stop me then from saying that FTL is not a game because I, personally, didn't enjoy playing it?

The attempt to make this "not a game" argument strikes me as just an intellectually dishonest way of saying you don't like a game rather than an argument made on its own merits.

[Nikke]

Originally posted by wraith_magus:

The attempt to make this "not a game" argument strikes me as just an intellectually dishonest way of saying you don't like a game rather than an argument made on its own merits.

Would you say e-books are video games?

[Sharcman]

Originally posted by wraith_magus:

Dude, how the hell do you have 14 hours on depression quest? It only takes a couple of hours to complete and has ZERO replay value. WOW

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Nikke:

Would you say e-books are video games?

Books in general are non-interactive, unless they are Choose-your-own-adventures, in which case they are games, as well.

Anything beyond that is just attempts to try to stiffle what gaming can be.

To quote myself in this same argument in other threads again,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blj91KLOvZQ

Fact is, this whole "not a game" thing only became such a catchphrase after games like The Sims started letting those dreaded "casual gamers" into gaming. If a "traditional gamer" (I.E. a male aged 10 to 35) plays Minecraft on survival mode, it's a game, but if anyone else plays Minecraft on creative mode, played often by children or older gamers, it's "not a game". The "not a game" label has just become gamer elitism jargon for "games I don't play that let other people enjoy gaming, or exapnd gaming beyond merely making FPS games all the time." (After all, someone was trying to tell me in the other thread how Candy Crush Saga "wasn't a game", as well... and there's no objective way you can pull that one off.)

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Sharcman:

Originally posted by wraith_magus:

Dude, how the hell do you have 14 hours on depression quest? It only takes a couple of hours to complete and has ZERO replay value. WOW

Not that this question particularly needs answering, but Steam doesn't count time actually played, it counts time from hitting the start button to the program being closed. It's easy to just leave a game open and do something else, including walking out of the room to go cook dinner or something. (Helped along by the fact that this game doesn't have saves.)

It's also rather false to say that this game has zero replay value, as it clearly has multiple paths. At the very least, most people would play it twice just to see the "good ending" and then try to get the worst possible ending, just to see how badly they let you crash.

[Sharcman]

Originally posted by wraith_magus:

Originally posted by Nikke:

Would you say e-books are video games?

Books in general are non-interactive, unless they are Choose-your-own-adventures, in which case they are games, as well.

Anything beyond that is just attempts to try to stiffle what gaming can be.

To quote myself in this same argument in other threads again,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blj91KLOvZQ

Fact is, this whole "not a game" thing only became such a catchphrase after games like The Sims started letting those dreaded "casual gamers" into gaming. If a "traditional gamer" (I.E. a male aged 10 to 35) plays Minecraft on survival mode, it's a game, but if anyone else plays Minecraft on creative mode, played often by children or older gamers, it's "not a game". The "not a game" label has just become gamer elitism jargon for "games I don't play that let other people enjoy gaming, or exapnd gaming beyond merely making FPS games all the time." (After all, someone was trying to tell me in the other thread how Candy Crush Saga "wasn't a game", as well... and there's no objective way you can pull that one off.)

Oh well, I suppose we all look at games from different points of view. Personally, I don't see this as a game simply because the "gameplay" consists of nothing but reading large blocks of text. Whether you consider this a game or not, Steam is not the place for it.

[BloodyStirge]

The upside of this game is that you don't have to pay money to... experience it.

[Nikke]

Originally posted by wraith_magus:

Originally posted by Nikke:

Would you say e-books are video games?

Books in general are non-interactive, unless they are Choose-your-own-adventures, in which case they are games, as well.

So what it boils down to is that everything that is interactive and brings us an experience is a game. With this logic books could be considered games, as you interact them physically. E-books are video games, you use arrows or directly pull the pages (depending on what software you use) to interact with it.

When it comes to the latter text you posted about, I'd say it's more about what people define as "hardcore" and "casual" instead of what is not a game and what is. Which is just another argument with both sides having no real grounds to stand on.

I do dislike Depression Quest, but not due to what it is presented on. It's a very shallow view on depression.

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Nikke:

Originally posted by wraith_magus:

Books in general are non-interactive, unless they are Choose-your-own-adventures, in which case they are games, as well.

So what it boils down to is that everything that is interactive and brings us an experience is a game. With this logic books could be considered games, as you interact them physically. E-books are video games, you use arrows or directly pull the pages (depending on what software you use) to interact with it.

That is very specifically not what I said.

Books are a passive medium, whose outcome you cannot effect, and hence are not games.

Even something like Candyland, however, where your choices are so constrained as to be functioally meaningless, is still a classic game.

Besides, this is all just a facade because all anyone is really trying to do when they say something is "not a game" is to have an intellectually dishonest way of saying they just don't like it.

Here's the more honest part:

Originally posted by Nikke:

I do dislike Depression Quest, but not due to what it is presented on. It's a very shallow view on depression.

Saying that you don't like it is perfectly fine, although without a supporting argument, is without much weight. Feel free to extrapolate on why, precisely, this game's view on depression is shallow. (Probably best to do so in a new thread, as such a thing would be off-topic for this one.) I may well still criticize what you have to say, but at least then we're going to be having an honest discussion on the merits, instead of this intellectually dishonest smokescreen. I've agreed with at least portions of what people who have gone into such arguments have said before on this forum.

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by Sharcman:

Oh well, I suppose we all look at games from different points of view. Personally, I don't see this as a game simply because the "gameplay" consists of nothing but reading large blocks of text. Whether you consider this a game or not, Steam is not the place for it.

Valve would apparently disagree, what with the fact that they not only have allowed multiple Visual Novels onto Steam before. (Just to dig up some examples from the top of my head...

http://store.steampowered.com/app/248800/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/209370/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/239700/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/269250/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/211340/

Oh, and hey, for a kicker, they're actually starting to put what are essentially hentai VNs on Steam (although apparently, it's a bit in flux right now... And hey, if you want to have giant ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ arguments about what does or doesn't belong on Steam, then oh boy does this game's forums ever have you covered!)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/313740

Then, there is something like, say, Dear Esther, which is honestly on much more shaky ground when it comes to whether or not it is a game, being as the only actual choice you have is whether you move over specific narration-triggering areas on the map.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/203810/

Beyond that, there are now outright movies on Steam
http://store.steampowered.com/app/207080/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/293820/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/288290/

If you want to talk about what does or doesn't belong on Steam, you probably have better places to go than this one game's forums (which, I assure you, are NOT read by anyone who is making decisions for Valve) to try to argue for how Steam should be kept "Pure".

[Abby]

Anything can be on Steam thanks to Greenlight, and I don't think there's an exception if the community upvoted it enough

[mconway001]

Originally posted by wraith_magus:

Oh look, someone else who needs an education on what a game is...

How are visual novels "not games"? I just had this same argument over in two other threads (and I'm just copy pasting here to save time,) and the only argument that anyone put forth that actually excluded visual novels from being games was "I don't enjoy playing it". As I said there, what's to stop me then from saying that FTL is not a game because I, personally, didn't enjoy playing it?

The attempt to make this "not a game" argument strikes me as just an intellectually dishonest way of saying you don't like a game rather than an argument made on its own merits.

I don't think you can call depression quest a visual novel. Visual novels have large illustrations taking up the majority of the screen. Depression quests seems more like an e-choose your own adventure book, which I don't mean as an indictment.

[Knuti]

Originally posted by Sharcman:

Oh well, I suppose we all look at games from different points of view. Personally, I don't see this as a game simply because the "gameplay" consists of nothing but reading large blocks of text. Whether you consider this a game or not, Steam is not the place for it.

If it was a game (in your eyes) then it would have the right to be on Steam, wouldn't it?

[Woodgrain]

Wouldn't a 'game' require some sort of fail state? A way to win and a way to lose? Just clicking your way to one of a few endings isn't necessarily a win or lose situation. I do agree that this is more of a choose your own adventure e-book than a game but Steam has developed past just distributing games recently and I suppose that gives this every right to be present on Steam.

[Vforvienetta]

Saying that you don't like it is perfectly fine, although without a supporting argument, is without much weight. Feel free to extrapolate on why, precisely, this game's view on depression is shallow.

Do you know what extrapolate means?