Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Dear Esther, and Thirty Flights of Loving are poster children of a burgeoning genre which Wikipedia likes to call "interactive fiction". Lately, I've noticed some arguments being made about how these experiences can't be classified as games... and that leaves me a bit baffled, to be honest. All of them seem to be closely related to the adventure genre, with the main difference being a general lack of puzzles. Are puzzles really the only gameplay element in adventure games, then? Because last time I checked, exploration is a core tenet of adventure game design. Does exploration not qualify as a form of gameplay? I'd like someone to tell me why or why not.

I suppose Wikipedia might be onto something here by saying that "interactive fiction" is a genre that spans both literature and video games. I can understand labelling these experiences as a middle ground between literature and games, as opposed to defining them as one or the other. Why not both at the same time? As long as we distinguish graphical interatice fiction from text-based, it seems like a fine compromise to me.

I seriously wouln't consider something like Dear Esther to be a game. Really the only thing you do is walk around. And the path is pretty straightforward. Same thing for Thirty Flights of Loving.

Maybe an interactive novel.

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 the dev calls it a video game, then I consider it a video game. Non of these guys have called their work interactive literature instead so no clue why wicki is calling them as such.

In my opinion, exploration is a major asset in a game and paramount in aiding gameplay reach high standards. That does not mean, however, that a game cannot exist without exploration.

Actually they're labelled as "interactive fiction" and considered to be a sub-genre of adventure games.

But what if it focuses on exploration alone?

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.

A game is anything you can play with. A dildo can be a game. Throwing a rock can be a game. All you need is some imagination. Now translate that into videogame form. Playing with a dildo in a videogame. Using it on someone, stick em, smack em, Dead Rising style. Yes, a game. Throw a rock in a videogame. Yes, you just made gameplay.

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.