Is exploration a form of gameplay?

[F0X]

Boutros said:

F0X said:

Then we have different standards. When something has a game mechanic in it, even if it's  merely one, I'm inclined to call it a game. Am I wrong? Is advancing through a digital world no different than turning the page of a book? Is exploration a form of gameplay? You didn't really answer my question, cy the way. You restated the kind of argument I'm addressing in the OP.

If by exploration you mean moving around using arrows on a keyboard then yes that's a gameplay feature but only if it has a greater purpose. To be a video game it needs some sort of interaction and some sort of results to the action the user inputs. If you can't have any true impact on what happens then I can't call it interaction (essential to be called a video game). I need to be challenged or be given choices. And so walking around for the sole purpose of seeing the progression of a story is not very video game like.

It's like considering Google Street View a video game.

What a funny thing to say. I couldn't tell you how many times I walked around in a game looking for a way to progress. And what is this "true impact" you speak of? The only example I've listed without any other sort of interactivity is, in fact, Dear Esther. The other games allow players to interact with objects, at the least.

When discussing choice, I can't help but think of The Stanley Parable, which actually lampoons this notion of choice in video games. It centers around a series of simple decisions: do what you're told, or do not. And it uses this gameplay to hammer the main points of the story, which is itself an extraordinarily clever examination of choice in video games.