What Is a Game?
Software is a medium, and as one, it can deliver Messages. Messages can be laughs, political views, social critiques, stories, feelings, tools, knowledge, news and nearly anything that can be virtualized. Virtualization is the transformation of things into pure Information.
A Game is anything and everything that can be gamed. Gaming something is manipulating events involving it towards a desired outcome. A Game is an abstract, virtualized or simulated representation in Function of one or more of the experiences that define Intelligent Life. I Think therefore I am. In counterpart, an experience of Intelligent Life can also be a Game.
Creation and Craft are experiences of Intelligent Life. The very act of creating a Game is a Game in itself. A Game of Creation. A Game of Craft. The Game of making Games.
Games can be virtualized, and as such they can be delivered through the medium of Software, in which case the subset of Software can be categorized as Entertainment Software. There are special characteristics of Software that Games inherit when being delivered through that medium. To the Games delivered using ES as the medium, we give the special name "Video-Games". This name informs us of what what they are, what they're made in, and what they can do.
Reducing Video-Games to the status of mere media is a disservice. A Medium is a Vehicle, but the term is limited to mean a Vehicle of Communication. Video-Games are more than that, they're also a Vehicle of Exploration, a Vehicle of Expression, a Vehicle of Socialization. They're also a Message of themselves, an extremely powerful Message we are still on the pursuit to decode. They're more than a mere tool. They're a fantastic compound machine that represents what our existence and life is like, not only in Form (as the Vehicles of Message are limited to) but also in Function, and that's what unique about it.
With the advent of the medium of Software, we can bring our creations to the next level, past the point our minds cannot keep track of every detail anymore, where the non-Software Games (while still awesome and extremely important) can't go, because we can't take them there. With Video-Games we can take Games beyond. We can boldly go where no human mind has gone before.
A message is a nail. A medium in a hammer. A Video-Game is the Enterprise. We can use it to hit nails if we want to, or we can use it to explore the Universe.
I just want to explore the Universe.
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