[danbolt]

Games like SimCity, Animal Crossing, and Minecraft are good examples where the experience of "playing" isn't necessarily about translating the game from an "initial" state to "end" or "win" one.

I think the parent comment makes a good point that if you do define games as the mentioned, this and a few other things certainly doesn't necessarily fit with the definition. Still, games are often a fill-in word for many interactive things that use a computer.

[kibwen]

Where it especially blurs the line is when the sandbox/toy is sufficiently advanced that one can invent their own games. For example, Garry's Mod is not a "game", but millions of hours have been spent playing games in it. Does the game need to impose the rules, or is it sufficient to allow the players to impose their own? If the former, then what of games that normally impose rules strictly, but include cheat codes that allow players to flexibly circumvent the rules and invent their own games? In practice, nearly every video game is all of a toy and a game and a toolkit for games and even a sport (any game can be speedrun!) simultaneously.

[tokyodude]

I guess it's all just semantic but by that logic anything is a game. I can make a game from dinner. "who finishes first", "who can balance the most peas on their fork". "how many bites can you eat while balancing your chair on 2 legs" But that doesn't make "dinner" itself a game.

But whatever, people use words the way they use them. For example RPG, based on the logic of how the word is used, has almost meaning. Zelda is often called an RPG but it's got almost zero in common with say FF7 and more in common with Ratchet and Clack. And the word Role Playing Game. Well, by that logic any racing game is an RPG. I'm playing the role of a race car driver. Or FPS, I'm playing the role of a soilder. Or flight sim, I'm playing the role of a pilot. Or God Sim, playing the role of a god. RPG in actual use seems to mean "game about character with sword" at best.

The latest atrocity is "roguelike" which is applied to any game that has randomly generated levels. For example Galax-Z is called "roguelike" even though it's basically Asteroids.

The word "game" people use it interchangeably with anything you can fiddle with interactively on a computer and see some graphics change even though that describes photoshop and ms paint as well.

[hyperpallium]

If a user imposes their own rules, to make their own game, that would be a "game", just a user-defined one.

Will this user-defined game need to have an objective (i.e. a win condition) to be a "game"?

Or, is just making up rules, without any direction, purpose, objective or "win-condition", enough to make it a "game"?

[seventhtiger]

If Animal Crossing and The Sims are games, then so is a doll house or a bit of play dough.

I subscribe to Chris Crawford's definition. Games are competitions between multiple players and they must be able to interfere with each other. A painting, a toy, a puzzle, a race, are all not games. The difference between taking a stroll while carrying a ball and playing a game is keeping score.

The most controversial result of that is that God of War and Dark Souls are actually puzzles, and not games, and although it's unintuitive upon reflection it rings true to me.