A Short and Simple Definition of What a Videogame Is


Esposito Nicolas
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Videogames have been studied seriously only for a few years. So, we can wonder how we could use the recent academic works to approach new design methods. This article proposes a first step: a short and simple definition of what a videogame is, this definition being connected with existing academic works about game, play, interactivity, and narrative. The definition is: A videogame is a game which we play thanks to an audiovisual apparatus and which can be based on a story. The article also shows what the videogame heritage teaches us about what a videogame is.