When the playtester survey (that checks if I'm compatible for their paid study) asks me if I play mobile games, I always say yes (wordle and spider solitaire)
(1/?) I'm actually able to provide a technical answer! A 'game' has the definition, per Ralph Koster in A Theory of Fun, of an activity with player buy in, explicit rules, and a defined end. A electronic/video game is a game on a digital device. Therefore, a puzzle on a phone is a video game.
(2/?) A 'toy', on the other hand, has indeterminate rules and no end. A yo-yo, for example, has unlimited potential and no rule set and therefore is a toy. An art app, like the MS Paint app, is a digital toy.
(3/?) Fitbit is a toy because there's no end state and has no 'rules'. But you can make games off of toys. If you have a group challenge, using Fitbit, with other people accepting the challenge, with a defined rule set, and an end date or condition, you've a game.
I haven't interacted with BuzzFeed questionnaires, but it sounds like they're a game? You choose to fill it in, there are understood rules, and there's a defined end result?
Wikipedia says "Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction". There is no challenge in a questionnaire, and "rules", in this case, is not simply the existence of constraints, but the intentional increase/complexity of constraints (which may be the source of a challenge).
"Fitbit is a video game" is a stretch but otherwise. . .yeah I can't quite draw line between online word games and otherwise. It's a game requiring a computer to be played. . .
Candy Crush? Video Game.
Words With Friends? Video Game.
NYT Crossword Puzzle app? Not a Video Game. It's just text.
Zork? Also not a Video Game. It's basically just an electronic choose your own adventure novel.
If a game does not actually take advantage of any visual elements that otherwise would not be possible on paper then it can hardly be called a *Video* game. it can be called a game, crossword puzzles are absolutely word games
I don't currently have the energy and creativity to fill the whole thing out but I'll just leave this template here in case anyone reading this is tempted.
He's got a point. Hangman for the Commodore 64 was inarguably a "video game", and modern phone-based word games are many times more complex and varied than that was - so it passes the test in my book!
I may give you some friendly crap for your CHOICE of game, but I'm not gonna gatekeep gaming!
Let's not confuse gamification with video game. Adding incentives and rewards to stat tracking is gamifying someone, but not a video game. I'd argue a video game requires an electronic device as the main input for game actions. Yes including digital board games
A video game is any game played through video format primarily. So yes, online crosswords are video games. The Fitbit one I’m less sure on since the actual game is being played out in real life.
Just wait until Will Shortz releases an open world RPG about taking down a mysterious shadow cabal of anti-gaming and anti-word puzzle elites using a crossword based magic system that mixes in Wordle quick time events.
Comments
Words With Friends? Video Game.
NYT Crossword Puzzle app? Not a Video Game. It's just text.
Zork? Also not a Video Game. It's basically just an electronic choose your own adventure novel.
I may give you some friendly crap for your CHOICE of game, but I'm not gonna gatekeep gaming!
I say this as an avid crossword solver and someone who has put 1000s of hours into games on my Switch
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wurdweb/id1507350222
For the record, my go to first word is "Audio". Maximizes the vowels.