This is a fine way to distinguish between "game" and "not-game". But it's binary at it's very core. How do we differentiate? Is there a way to abstractly categorize games beyond genre? Genre as in "FPS", "RPG", etc. characterizes on certain traits of game mechanics (that interactivity), Genre as in "fantasy", "Sci-fi", etc. characterizes via setting. The latter is, almost surprisingly, less often used. Mostly as a way to further differentiate ("Sci-Fi FPS" vs "Fantasy RPG", perhaps).

Can we think of a way to characterize games beyond that binary input, so that we are able to actually differentiate between games? After all, we did originally wonder what differentiates Minecraft and Diablo (or if they do at all).
Is there even a need to do this? Is the combination between the Gameplay/Setting-genre already good enough?
But both Oblivion and Gothic are "Fantasy RPGs", yet, they're radically different.


Is this all maybe an endeavour doomed to fail? And why am I asking so many rhetoric questions?

The answer, in the next post, below! ...