I don't disagree with your "games = interactivity"-sentiment. It works well. But while it is useful to distinguish games from other mediums, it doesn't classify games beyond, well, this very broad term. Both Oblivion and GTA are interactive, but they differ beyond that, and I'm trying to find ways to classify that difference.
As such, we need to find more detailed requirements for the different kind of games.
I agree that classification by genre is disappointing, as it does lead to fewer "genre crossovers". What can one do about it?
Maybe that marketing paragraph blurb on the back of the box of a game is a better description in that sense. I mean, at least if it were honest. But if games are only describable by writing a paragraph on them, we'll never be able to compare them.
What about visual novels? Those often face claims that they are not a game, but they are surely interactive. Not anymore than "choose your own adventure"-books, perhaps, but it is an interaction. But then, at some level, any other game is also "just" a series of decisions. Only there, many, many small ones amount to something, but are individually not important, whereas in the visual novel-thing, few decisions have great impact and change a lot*.
How to distill games down to a few, common elements that manage to describe a game somewhat well in just a few words?
I mean, I'd have trouble accurately describing GTA in one sentence, even.
We should have a thread in which we describe games in one sentence.
"Mario Kart: You race or battle each other in karts and use an assortment of different weapons designed to destroy any bit of friendship and sympathy between you".
I suppose exactly that difficulty is why we end up saying "GTA clone" instead. But weren't there a lot of GTA clones? I'd say enough that it slowly used those "open world/sandbox"-terms. Which, however, aren't particulary descriptive.
lostclimate, can you elaborate on this? I'm not following game sales much these days -- but isn't it still the case that commercially succesful games are followed by lots of clones (or at least very similar games)? GTA had it, and even things like Minecraft have.
* I am aware that I previously argued that such a broad generalization is useless, and I stand by that. My point was back then, and still is (even though it may not come across here, as I'm just interested in pointing out a difference) that the KIND of decisions have an impact -- and the context given by everything else (that having a much larger role than most people give it credit for).
a game is something you play. end of story. and if you add cutscenes, a game is a game as long as the majority of the product is playing.
one could argue we have to define playing first but i think its pretty clear...
Are you not interested in discussion?
Or don't you see the value in having clear, defined terms - this thread should have made clear already what problems arise as long as you don't have those.
Plus: Well, what is playing?
And don't just quote the first paragraph from wikipedia, I can read that myself. The thing is, there are so many different ways of "playing" that it's hard to describe. A child pretending to be a superhero is playing, sure. Is an actor on a movieset playing? Probably. Even if he's not enjoying it, you know, if he's just doing it for the money, and hates his part and everything about it with a passion? The ACT may be the same, but the INTENTION is different. Can "play" be defined with just one but not the other? Must it be defined that way? 
