Are Visual Novels Games? Discussion

Off-Topic
#9

Before I start, let me clear something up: “Single player” in Game Theory does not mean the same as “Single Player” in video games. A “player” in Game Theory is an entity, whether human or artificial, nature or co-player, whose decisions affect the outcome of the game. Now to continue.

Actually, a lot of your examples differ greatly from each other. Let me tackle them one by one.

  • Fire Emblem: I believe that Fire Emblem has adversaries during the game. If you follow a walkthrough that tells you to go to this square, does it completely determine that you will succeed in defeating your enemy? Or will your AI adversary make enough variations in his movement to force you to change your play style. Hence, it is a game.
  • Mario: I will take the classic Super Mario Bros as basis for this. While there are adversaries in Mario, in the strictest sense, the way they move is quite predictable. In a sense, they do not actually make decisions, rather, they follow a pattern. Therefore, I may consider these enemies to be “obstacles” rather than “adversaries.” In this case, you may be guided by a walkthrough all the way and succeed pretty easily, even with the boss battles. Of course, it takes skill and timing to get the jumps right, so I would consider it a Game of Skill and, thus, shouldn’t be classified as a game :stuck_out_tongue:
  • Professor Layton: Puzzles in themselves are considered Games of Skill, so that kind of answers the question.
  • DanganRonpa: While the bulk of Danganronpa is like an adventure game/VN, the other minigames (like shooting those words that move around) can be controlled by “nature”, and the decisions that “nature” makes can affect the outcome of your decisions. So I guess it’s a not-game that contains games hahaha

Again, this is all from a Game Theory perspective, and Game Theory is a field that relies heavily on decision making. If there aren’t at least two players whose decisions affect the outcome of the game, then it isn’t a game, in a very strict sense.

That’s something I can honestly agree with :stuck_out_tongue: Which is why my only goal in this topic is to introduce people to the wonderful world of Game Theory, which does list off a series of properties that a game should have.

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#10

I think people are thinking way too hard about this. I think its rather simple, a game is defined by the creator whether or not it is a game or not. Whats the difference between taking a test at your school and playing who wants to be a millionaire? The players perspective of game is more of, is it fun? taking a test isn’t very fun but taking a test to win tons of money is fun. It’s as simple as that. minecraft in creative mode or garry’s mod don’t really have any goals or really a fail state… how can you fail if there isn’t a goal? In schools they play “games” there but really in the teachers eye’s they are teaching tools. Whats the difference between math and a math game? the math game is defined by the creator as a game and is intended to be more fun than just math so the player will define it as a game as well. some of those are just math problems with funny aliens running across the screen every time you get one right or something.

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#11

I prefer to refer to visual novels as books over games for two reasons: 1) All you do (with some exception) is read. Even if I could logically call it a game, I still tend to think about it as a novel, because novel is in the name. 2) When talking to (or showing) people who either don’t know about or are not fans of visual novels, it makes so much more sense to them and seems much less weird if you say your reading a book rather than playing a game. A game raises questions like “whats the objective?” and “why is all you do talk to those weird cartoon girls?”, while a novel is just a story and doesn’t need to be explained due to its nature.

But as this is a discussion, here are my arguments, disregarding my above preference:

I would like to counter the whole "Kinetic/Sound Novels are not games argument by agreeing with and adding on to:

[quote=“Mow, post:10, topic:585”]
a game is defined by the creator
[/quote]I think not only by the creator, but also by the player(s). Who’s to tell you that you can’t make anything and even everything a game? To quote two show/characters who seem to know games best: “Reality(or “this world”, depending on which show you prefer) is just a crappy game.”

Also using @Mow’s argument, we can say that this:

[quote=“Pepe, post:6, topic:585”]
This seems to describe VNs right on the dot, because the single player has complete control over all the outcomes based on his decision. Therefore, if we use this author’s words, then VNs “should not really be classified as games at all”.
[/quote]Is false because the creator(s) could also be considered “player(s)”, as he/she/they certainly have control over the choice, outcomes, characters, etc., as they are the ones who set the rules. And speaking of rules, could you possibly consider that anything with “rules” could be considered a “game”? Because that would lend itself to the argument that everything is a “game.”

AND (I’m sorry but this has to be said) there is always the opposite question of “When does something stop being a visual novel and requires some other form of classification?” (For example, VNDB has a list of borderline VNs, such as the Phoenix Write series, School Days series, etc., and a list of games rejected for inclusion such as To the Moon (I’m looking at you @rune_devros)

#12

Of course. Most things could probably be seen as a game, or something that could be adapted into a game, depending on who views it. What makes a war different to a game? Your view of it.

Eventually this whole debate devolves into a discussion on what defines a word, which then leads to the ultimate conclusion that a word isn’t something that exists, it’s just a concept, and that what we understand as “correct definitions” are just the definitions that are largely agreed upon.
Of course, a discussion like that is stupid and pointless, so for the sake of sanity, let’s just focus on the majority. What would the majority define VNs as? Games, Novels, or a mix of the two worthy of it’s own label?

This is a good question. To me, a VN stops being a VN when the text segments are just a cut-away from gameplay. In a VN, it will mainly be text. For most there’ll be no gameplay. For some, there’ll be 20-60 minutes of reading in-between small sections of gameplay that break up the story or expand on the events of the overall novel.
It becomes a game when the interaction, navigation, or other gameplay forms are evidentially the core of the product. In something like To The Moon, the text is constantly interrupted and broken up by rpg-style navigation to the point where I would no longer call it a VN. It could be considered as a Text-Based adventure game or something, but not a Novel.

#13

They can’t really be considered as players because they are the ones who make the rules. Their decision does not affect the outcome of the game, rather, their decisions affect the rules of the game. In a more mathematical sense, they do not have a utility function given their actions as their actions change the whole function.

Under a Game Theory sense, not everything that has rules is a game, but everything that has two or more decision makers is a game. Falling in line at a counter is a game because the players can decide to obey the line, or cause chaos by trying to get to the counter first at the same time. And that’s the beautiful part of Game Theory! You can gamify things in the real world, and use mathematical equations to get if not optimal, balanced results!

#14

Ah OK I understand now. The mathematical analogies really help. Here is a question then: You said that under Game Theory, nature is counted as one of the “players.” Could the emotions one feels when playing the game also be considered another “player”?

Here is what I’m thinking. The emotions you feel when, reading a visual novel for example, cannot be controlled by the author. But truthfully, they are not really controlled by you either. You cant really say: This game/VN is going to make me feel sad, no matter what. And if you were to play it again, you could once again not guarantee that the game/VN would make you feel the same as the previous time. In the same way, no other person when playing that game/VN will feel the exact same way you did.

This also relates back to @Bonecuss’s idea that:

In fact, now that I think about it, if you go by what we all seemed to agree on in the Is There Real Meaning in Visual Novels Discussion, emotions felt during the game are pretty much the effect of nature. Nature in this case being each person’s sum total of individual and unique experiences throughout his/her life leading up to the experience of the game/VN, causing him/her to feel/think differently than any other person.

Sorry Im getting a little abstract here :smile:

#15

The definition of a player in game theory is an entity that makes a decision that affects the outcome of the game. Nature can be counted if it makes decisions that affect the outcome, no matter how random those decisions may be. For example, nature can affect the outcome of a dice roll, which, in turn, affects the outcome of the game. We can’t predict what number nature will “choose” in the roll, but we must factor that into the game.
Emotions, on the other hand, seem more like the outcome themselves. Emotions don’t even have actions that can be put into the utility function.

So I think emotions is part of the outcome. And having negative emotions would result in a negative value for your utility function. But as you said, you can’t really predict emotions, people don’t really factor that into game theory much ^^;

#16

I would also disagree with this, simply because I regard the process of creating something and the process of consuming it (playing a game, reading a book) to be two completely separate things. Cooking and eating are far from being the same thing, and “producer” and “consumer” are two different roles, even in cases where both are taken on by the same person.

Well, definitions of a game vary from person to person. Personally, I regard a game as a pastime that is not necessary for your survival. In cases like ‘war’ or ‘professional sports’, I’d say that while those things can be viewed as games by an ininvolved third party, they aren’t games for the participants anymore, because they can’t decide to not participate in it without facing severe consequences.

I’d keep emotions completely out of the equation because those aren’t even part of the game. You can win or lose a game regardless of your emotions. Emotions exist on a separate plane. They may decide how much you like or dislike a game, whether or not you will play it, etc. Emotions are the qualities of a ‘human’, but they are not properties of the abstract entity ‘player’, and thus they don’t change the ‘options’ available to the player in any way.

#17

Bumping this old topic in hopes of getting some fresh discussion and opinions.

#18

I’m not educated on visual novels in general but I’ve never not considered them a type of game. If not a game, what would it be? You make decisions that affect the direction of the story and there’s a way to beat it or lose.

But there are also visual novels like Dangan Ronpa, which is clearly a game because of the class investigations, trials, and freetime events. There’s a lot more to do than just read text.
Still, I think as long as your own decisions are contributing to how the story turns out, it’s a game.

#19

Interactive: :heavy_check_mark:
Entertainment: :heavy_check_mark:
Winnable: :heavy_check_mark:
Loseable: :heavy_check_mark:

From that, if someone asked me if it was a game I would say “yes”, but if I were to go into more detail I’d describe them as a game/novel hybrid.

#20

On first glance, VNs seem to be games by all rights, but it’ll get tricky if you take a closer look, for example at special cases like kinetic novels:

So, should we rather define games as something that requires decision making? But there are plenty of simple games (simple board games for example) out there where the players can’t make any decisions.

#21

I would treat Kinetic Novels separately, since they don’t fit three of my “criteria” from above. They’re not interactive, you can’t win them, and you can’t lose them. They’re much more akin to books than games.

#22

I don’t consider a kinetic novel a game either, since it’s basically just a book with pictures and music.

As for board games, that’s an interesting point. I think since video games and board/card games are different, I’d use different criteria for them.
I’m curious though, what board/card games don’t require any decision making? I don’t play them very often so none are coming to mind

#23

For example, there’s games where you just cast a die and move according to the result, like this one and its variations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_and_Ladders

#24

What about games like Umineko?

The game aspects are entirely inside your own mind - can you solve the mystery? - while the game itself has no interactions to speak of.

#25

Well, are walking simulations, where you walk along certan paths and get told a story as you go, or just see nice things games? THings like Firewatch forexample.

Most would say yes, and how about adventure games? Modern ones, like those made by telltale involve very little actual gameplay, and the gameplay is hardly why any one playes those games. Infact the gameplay is usually a drag! What it’s all about is a story, and one you have interactions with, even small one like choosing a route, or saying a thing to a girl.

I think Visual Novels are perfectly good as games, and trying to call them books, movies or comics is just wrong, because they don’t really act like any of those. Now wether they should join an existing genre of games, or of VN should be it’s own special genre is not up to me, though I lean on it being a genre in it’s own rights, that’s my opinion on this.

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#26

Would they? That’s been a pretty big debate in the games industry, most likening them to stories you walk through. On the topic of Firewatch I say it isn’t a game, for the reasons outlined in my original post back at the start of the topic.

I’ve never played a Telltale game as I’ve heard bad things about them, but I do know some have QTEs you can mess up and get a game over from, and a rare choice that leads to a bad end.

#27

Many VNs have that too. Especially F/SN. That VN is riddled with bad ends.

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#28

I consider VN more of a book than a game, it’s like the goosebump books which had different endings you could pick from