Image by Flickr user: daveoratox (cc)

What about a video game actually makes a video game? This might have been an easy question to answer back in the glory days of arcades and Atari, but in our modern era of gaming it’s a question that many of would probably rather shy away. Electronic entertainment comes in so many shapes in forms these days that even determining criteria for a definition could arguably be a task unto itself. However, this amorphous state in which gaming currently resides has presented us with a wonderful opportunity! Indeed we have set before a chance to define them ourselves, and not just games in general, but differences between game and interactive movie, where RPG ends and action game begins, or even what differentiates a “casual” game from a “hardcore” game!

There’s so much to cover here, so, from today through the first week of March, we at UWG have decided to issue a challenge to our fellow game-blogging enthusiasts: define what a video game is to you! We’re asking that they be published with the hashtag #whatisagame, so that it’ll be easier to spread the word and enable readers to find participants’ posts.

What is a video game? Right now it’s exactly what you say, and we can all hardly wait to find out what that is!