2025-12-18 A Game That Is A Game

There's a phrase that I've used a couple times recently that I keep returning to. "A game that is a game." Or, "games that are games". I don't think I got it from anywhere, and I feel it sort of cuts to the heart of things. Over the last year or so I've been let's playing exclusively some of the best games of all time. We've been doing Resident Evil, we've been doing some Silent Hill, SHODAN is around, Doomguy has come to play. One effect of that is that my tolerance for bullshit has really plummeted. In much the same way that Twin Peaks made me look at the the rest of TV with a scornful eye. I have never really enjoyed the trash that modern games are. The skins, the loot boxes, the DLCs, the everything. But I was a lot more willing to look past it if I felt there was some nugget of gold worth taking a look at. That's really starting to no longer be the case.

When I say a game that is a game, what do I mean? I feel it's largely self-explanatory. The sort of thing you can say and people around will nod their heads, immediately getting what you're going for. But to belabor the point. A game that is a game is a game where you purchase it, you play it, it is video game and nothing else, and it is enjoyed and then put away. The gacha trash that are glorified slot machines are about the farthest away you can get from a game that is a game, to demonstrate the opposite. Because those are games that are slot machines. A game that is a game has no bullshit. It is a video game that you play and enjoy, it is home-grown, organic, free of impurities or sulfates.

Any game with an online component has a very strong attractor force away from pure game-is-a-gamism. It is possible, but it's much rarer. I would put forward Journey as an exemplar. That silly lil indie game from forever ago where you're a scarf fella and can run into other players. No bullshit is present. I don't know that you need to be that pure uncut indie to pass the game that is a game test. But I do struggle to come up with examples. Pretty much the majority of modern online games do not pass this test. And they fail it pretty hard. Even in games that I would largely say that I enjoy. I guess I would wheel out a Warframe perhaps to give an example of something I kind of sort of enjoy but most certainly is not a game that is a game. If there is ever an asterisk to me recommending a game to someone, that's an immediate failure. There should be no asterisks.

But why am I being so hard on games? We can't all be perfect, right? Well no, but we do have a pretty large number of games that are perfect or nearing perfection. So why are we wasting time playing games that are really far from that perfection? You do not have enough time in your life to play all the games that you would love. If you completely swore off trash, knowing full well that meant you were cutting off a pretty significant portion of all new games coming out. And you promised yourself that you were only going to play truly magnificent games, you would never run out of them. Too many already exist and enough new ones are coming out that, I promise, you would never run out.

I'd like people to raise their expectations. A frequent refrain I see on the internet is "just let people enjoy what they want". That sounds nice, but it totally misses the real world context. The more successful trash is, the more trash gets made. The more people buy shitty vile garbage lootbox trash, the more companies will put money towards those endeavors. There isn't an infinite pot of money. Only so many games can get made each year. So no, people should not just be allowed to wallow in filth without being openly judged for their poor taste. We are a society. Have some self-respect. These shit multi-million dollar companies are not your friend and they do not need defending. There is so much room for reasonable people to disagree on great games. To have actual conversations on how well they do or do not execute on their themes. Things that could be done to improve them. But it should no be so controversial to say that we can in fact have a low-water mark of acceptability and should not accept lower. Stop buying garbage! Always prioritize games that are games.