Poll: Are MU* video games?

[faraday]

@thenomain said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

Nobody can define “game”, and nobody can define “play”. We can feel it, we know the shape of it, and we know what we accept, but the best we can do it agree on a rough definition, or clarify when that definition doesn’t meet our own.
Q: What is art?
A: I don’t know, but I know what I like.

This. We can ramble on about our own opinions all day long for fun, but you're never going to get a definitive answer to "is X a Y" without having an agreed-upon definition of what a "Y" is. And we don't.

[Tinuviel]

@faraday said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

We can ramble on about our own opinions all day long for fun

I mean. Ordinary people, maybe. But us? We have opinions.

[Thenomain]

@tinuviel said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

@faraday said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

We can ramble on about our own opinions all day long for fun

I mean. Ordinary people, maybe. But us? We have opinions.

[insomniac7809]

Oh, are we posting comics? >_>

[Tyche]

@misadventure said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

I MIGHT accept a MUD as a "video game", especially a real time one. This brings into question whether any game, presented via a program, automatically is a "video game". It still carries the connotations of real time, reflex and accuracy based games, which may not be a solid guide.

I first played a mud game on a teletype machine. I imagine you still could. Video seems optional for many mu*.

[Griatch]

Of course it is IMO. Even a text game is played on a video display.
.
Griatch

[Tinuviel]

@griatch said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

text game

Not all MU* are games.

[Thenomain]

@tinuviel said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

@griatch said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

text game

Not all MU* are games.

Not all games are games.

[Too Old For This]

@thenomain said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

@tinuviel said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

@griatch said in Poll: Are MU* video games?:

text game

Not all MU* are games.

Not all games are games.

[insomniac7809]

@too-old-for-this

[Rinel]

Given where MUDs fall into the development of pc gaming, and given the increasingly (awesome) automated systems of games like Arx, it's hard for me not to justify calling Arx at least a video game. The fact that you can more easily Chinese room it through accessibility isn't very persuasive. Online chess and other board games can be rendered into audio form (and in the case that someone protests on the grounds that those are merely board games ported to PC, we may hypothesize a similar but original game made exclusively for pc).

This isn't a particularly interesting semantical argument, though.

[Apos]

I think it's only interesting in so much where you can say, "Hey want to play a video game?" to someone completely unfamiliar with MUs and it doesn't come across as misleading.

[Tinuviel]

@apos Aye. Usage is moderately more important that written definition. I don't think a MU* fits the "average person's" idea of a video game.

[surreality]

Have to agree here. To folks of a certain age who grew up with text 'choose your own adventure' style games and similar, sure, even if it's still probably a bit of a stretch.

For younger folks, who have always had non-text graphics as an available part of the experience? It's going to feel like a bait and switch, most likely. Whatever the technical definition, this is pretty key. What we do is not what the majority is going to be thinking of when they think of video games. Would they consider it one? Maybe. But it's not what they're going to picture, and it's going to be as much of a stretch for them as envisioning something like the Wii as a real, actual thing you'd have in your house was for us in the days we feared the grue.