What makes a Video Game?
- a digital game is not a film, comic, or book
- what a digital game is, is intricately linked to computing, which in turn is linked to telling computers what to do, through coding
- a turing-complete machine can simulate any other machine given enough time
- of course that’s theory and in practice it looks quite different
- a computer can’t do much without embodiment
- a computer is a machine that can create good enough experiences [@birkenIllusionAlsVersprechen], that people enjoy, but the “good enough” changes with context
On these terms, the core operations of a computer do not reflect a universal “truth” about the relationship between the individual and the machine; rather, these operations offer a blank scaffolding that is designed merely to accommodate any specific user’s intentions. Much as a typewriter only produces what the typist wants to write, a computer only reflects the information that a user wants to process. If there is an essence to programming, it only emerges as a reflection of the user’s intentions, which they express by inputting information. [@phippsIfYouCan2024]