Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY GAMES?
Rather than start to answer our original question we will start by asking another. But
it turns out that asking this question gets right to the heart of the main one. So, what
do we mean by “games”? Even the terms are confusing; do we use the term “com-
puter game” or “ video game ”? What about more general terms such as “ interactive
entertainment” ?
We could decide to adopt the fairly rigid concept of computer games used by
game publishers and professional reviewers. This could mean, for instance, only
considering a game as a game if it gets reviewed at one of the professional review
sites such as Gamespot or IGN. This is good in one respect because it means we
have a coherent body of games which we understand as games; games that appear
on the shelves of game shops on the high street; that appear on the “shelves” of
Amazon and the like. This is exactly what we did when developing GIL. We will
refer to these as “big games” when we need a collective name for them. The down
side is that even playful games such as Electroplankton for the DS and other forms
of interactive entertainment, Second Life for instance, get odd reviews at the profes-
sional sites if they get reviewed at all. This is because the professional review sites
are written for and almost certainly staffed by hardcore players.
The alternative is that we consider a more fl exible concept which takes in other
forms of digital, interactive entertainment as worthy of study for our current pur-
poses. First of all, a lot of casual games are not reviewed at the professional websites
and therefore the whole casual player demographic would be excluded. As the casual
demographic is a very large one, this would not seem a good idea. Secondly, there
are a large number of people who take part in forms of interactive digital entertain-
ment who don't necessarily play games at all. Second Life did get reviewed at a
small number of professional review sites, such as Gamespot, for instance, as a PC
game, but most of the commentary on the game has emerged from mainstream
journalism in the form of documentaries and newspaper articles.
Thirdly, we might want to consider the huge, worldwide, social networking
participation: hundreds of millions of people who use Facebook, Twitter, MySpace,
Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, and the like for entertainment, relaxation and business.
Social networking has gotten under people's skins in a very big way indeed; and it' s
defi nitely interactive entertainment.
Finally, and even further from the traditional game market, there are TV shows
such as Big Brother for instance, which are not games at all; or so it would seem.
However, many people certainly use digital media to enhance their experience of
traditional mass media by participating in activities offered as core components of
the reality TV genre: websites, chat rooms, blogs, votes, and so on. The audience,
though audience seems an inadequate word to describe Big Brother's tens of millions
of daily fans, get involved in the show in numbers and fervor even a highly success-
ful MMORPG wouldn't dare to dream about.
Importantly, this more fl exible, more all - encompassing concept of “ game ” we
have been discussing will allow us to try and consider the preferences of people
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