Games designer, author and all-round very smart man Raph Koster has written a rather interesting piece on his personal site laying down some framework for just when you can call something a video game (or a game in general) and when you canāt.
Spurred on by the likes of Dear Esther, which I thought was pushing the limits of what we can reasonably call a āgameā, and Farmville, which loads of people say is not a real āgameā, he offers up a clear definition for the term and a super-handy venn diagram illustrating it.
https://lastchance.cc/dear-esther-the-kotaku-review-5884520%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Itās not a universal rule of course, just one manās opinion, but if this kind of stuff floats your boat itās well worth a read.
āXā isnāt a game! [Raph Koster]
