define what a video game is. I looked in a couple of dictionaries and found no mention of the one true medium, wikipedia's take on it was so vague this web site or a cell phone counts so I sat down and thought what makes a video game a video game. Well here's the answer: it requires these two criteria be met, 1st it must have game play; by that I mean it has a set of tasks/activities with clearly defined goals (points, destroy this base, capture their flag, etc), 2nd it must be either impossible in real life or ridiculously dangerous.

Now that means there are titles that get labeled as video games but aren't really. nearly every sports title to date isn't a video game, more they're just simulators. Everything Will Wright has produced isn't a video game either, even Spore may turn out to be just another simulator. Now three other well known developers have created games Peter Molynux (last name probably miss spelled, we can thank him for fable and balck and white), Sid Mieir (we can thank him for the Civilzation series), Brian Reynolds (we can thank him for Alpha Centuari and Rise of Legends). Their titles fit the defination, not to mention they are actually fun, but other titles that try and claim they're video games is an afront to real video games. Oh and the US army has made a couple but try and call them simulators, for PR reasons of course, even though they fit the definition.