What is a Video Game anyway? Gaming 101

So what is a video game. What’s there to know? Its not rocket science, and its for kids anyways. That’s what an totally ignorant, hapless, stupid, idiotic living under a rock for ages person would say before he gets his face punched in.

A person who knows that gaming industry was worth 80 billion dollars last year (that’s more than the film and music industry combined) will say, “What are video games all about? Enlighten me; the one they call Mr. Know It All” or something to that effect.

If you are the latter, sit back, put on your reading glasses and scroll down wherever required. 

What is a Video Game?

Everyone who is going to read this article, would have at least in one point of time in their life played a video game (if they haven’t, they just don’t know it yet). But for argument’s sake, lets assume you haven’t.

Wikipedia defines Video Games as “An electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device.”. Search on Google and you would find the definition as “A game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or display.”

Done with the theory, good, lets do a practical. Click on the link below, and follow the instructions on the screen.

www.FreeMario.org

Back, great, now if you were an obedient reader, you would have just played a video game. That’s right, now wasn’t that easy. And fun? Now you know whats a video games is.

Types of Video Games?

Video games are categorized according to genre, platforms, playing model and much more. We will discuss each of them seperately as we go along, but for starters let us look at the 3 most basic types of video games.

PC Games:
As the name suggests, this includes video games that can be played on Personal Computers and Laptops. The game that you played above is an example of a PC game. So is Mafia wars and Farmville, Counter Strike and World Of Warcraft (which btw has 8 million people paying to play the game each month), Minesweeper and Solitaire; basically anything that you can play on your PC is a PC game.

Console Games:
Machines specifically made for playing video games are known as video game consoles or just consoles. Remember that shady shop in your neighborhood, where you spent most of you pocket money playing Tekken. Or maybe you remember that greyish box that attached to your TV as you played Mario and Contra. Both examples of games being played on consoles. X-Box, PlayStation and Wii by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo respectively are 3 of the biggest names in consoles today. Owning a console automatically makes you a gamer, owning all of them makes you hardcore.

Mobile/Handheld Games:
Where to start. Temple Run, Angry Birds, Heavenly Sword, Snake, Pokemon XY, Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Any game that you can play on a device which can travel with you is a mobile game. Initially this was restricted to devices like Gameboy and PlayStation Portable (think of them as small consoles with their own small screen and speakers)which allowed for gaming enthusiasts to play certain games on the move; albeit of a lower quality than what you can find on consoles and PCs. But with recent times, mobile phones and tablets have also become popular options, allowing the gaming industry to tap into hundreds of casual gamers.

With Gaming 101 over, some points to remember:
1) Games that run on Laptops are PC games and not mobile. Similarly games that run on tablets are mobile and not PC.
2) High scores on Temple Run or Angry Birds doesnt make you a gamer, just like boiling water doesn’t make you a cook. But its a good start.
3) Owning a console, home or portable, automatically makes you a gamer. On the PC, its your configuration that will define you.

Hope we have made some head way into the realm of gaming. Next time we will take a look at FPS, Simulation, Isometric View and other such obnoxious terms. So that you can hold your own in an internet flame war.