Simon T. Kaye

‘Game‘, noun.

1. An amusement or pastime, eg: children’s games, party games.
2. A scored, competitive activity or sport between two or more players, often played before spectators.
3. An activity which is played in strict accordance with a set of rules.

My name is Simon Kaye, and I am not a ‘gamer’.

I play many ‘computer games’, and ‘video games’; more often than not, on a PC with a microprocessing core. I have been playing these ‘games’ since I was twelve. Indeed, I often read a magazine entitled PC Gamer.

But I do not consider myself to be a ‘gamer’. Because the word ‘game’ in ‘video game’ or ‘computer game’ is desperately misapplied, inadequate in describing the sheer breadth of the industry.

Type ‘Game’ into an online thesaurus, and what do we get back? Amusement. Distraction. Diversion. Festivity. Frolic. Merriment. Piddly.

‘Game’ is a dismissive word, and it allows others to be dismissive and condescending of our hobby. Some might point to Deus Ex, others to System Shock, again others to the simple beauty in certain arcade classics. Ours is a truly interactive medium, a collaborative art that is the first to involve the direct collaboration of its audience. It deserves, in cases of excellence, to be taken very seriously indeed.

‘Game’ is an immature word, and it allows others to assume that our hobby is completely immature, or played by the immature. Which, admittedly, it often is. LOL n00b headshot haX WTF? etc. But this is an age of 18-rated releases. It is an innate feature of our hobby- our ‘gaming’- that allows the Daily Mail to claim that it is destroying the ethical framework of a generation, or Hilary Clinton to take cheap shots at it on the campaign trail. If our hobby’s noun did not directly imply a youth audience, how could such ill-conceived, nannyish positions remain viable?

‘Game’ is a word that brings with it connotations of childishness, of unreality, of cops-and-robbers. Worse, it linguistically implies competition and scores, rather than experience and spectacle. Who, precisely, am I competing against in Bioshock? The computer itself isn’t an adversary, it’s a platform. Too often do I hear talk of someone ‘beating’ a new ‘game’. Yes, there is a competitive element: online, or multi-player, we are often vying to display the greatest skill or attain some vaunted position or score, and against other human beings. Yes, even single-player ‘games’ usually involve an element of tactical or physical conquest over ‘enemies’ which are controlled by the software’s AI. But this by no means covers the whole gamut of modern video-’gaming’.

And yes, I’ll say again: there’s a whole load of crap titles out there. And after that, there’s a lot of titles that are good, or even brilliant, but are still essentially ‘games’. But every time the word ‘game’ fits a new release, it fails to apply in another case. What about super-realistic simulations? What about strategy titles with many, many times the complexities of chess or Risk? What about plot and dialogue-based titles like Planescape or Dreamfall? And what about the masterpieces of emergent interaction - modern or ageing - like Deus Ex or Bioshock? 

In these cases, the word ‘game’, as a label, is simply wrong. Describing Half Life 2 as a game is like using the word ‘cartoon’ to describe the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Except more people worked on HL2, and arguably for longer.

It’d be very easy at this point to simply accuse me of linguistic snobbery. What does it matter, after all, right? It’s just a fucking word. A game by any other name would play as sweet.

If only this were true.

Firstly, ours is a hobby under siege. In Britain in particular, as the press and the politicians begin their latest frenzy over youth violence and gun/gang-culture, out hobby is clearly in the firing-line. And, for a moment, let’s be fair: computer games have been full of violence from near the very beginning. They are stuffed with killing. The problem here isn’t with simulated violence, it’s with a public assumption that the violence is designed for the consumption of children. Children who buy and play games.

Secondly, and more essentially, our words make our reality. Our labels are half of our perceptions. For a growing but still minority medium, video ‘games’, thus labelled, are set up for a fall. People cannot help but approach with a preconception of silliness, of lightness. God help anyone who picks up Bioshock expecting a ‘game for Windows’ and is given an intensive, horror-driven, beauty-filled art-deco romp instead. Along with a strong critique of Ayn Rand and absolutism in ideology.

Of course, all this leaves me without a new term for one of my favourite pastimes. Suggestions welcome.

But whatever we opt for- isn’t it high time we re-branded?