User:RandomMonitor


 * A newcomer in Wikipedia: first posts in 2006. Enthusiastic about the idea of a free encyclopedia, but damned lazy to contribute himself.
 * Born January 15, 1979. Lives in Helsinki, Finland, with a girlfriend.
 * Master of Arts (psychology), graduated from the University of Helsinki. Post-graduate studies in psychology.
 * A researcher, specializing in psychophysiological research of digital gaming.
 * Has an opinion that the cumbersome term computer and video games could be sufficiently accurately and more elegantly expressed with term "digital games" (see below).
 * Personal fields of interest include roleplaying games (lately especially of indie variety), digital games, comics and graphic novels, and scifi and speculative fiction in general.

More information coming every now and then.

Digital games
Concerning the games terminology: Some call them "video games", some others "computer games", still others (or even the same people) combine those and use "computer and video games" to refer to the same set of things. (Also "digital games" is used, which is in my opinion the best one, see below.) My concern is that they are often used as synonyms, but equally often they are used to denote a specifically limited set of games, and there is no way one can conclude which is meant unless it is separately clarified.

The problem seems to be that "video game", which to my understanding has first been used to mean console games (games played solely on game consoles such as Nintendo, or more recently, PlayStation2 and others) in the '80s before there were any notable computer games, has been later extended to include all kinds of games that are played via any kind of video screen. This is all fine and well, because the "video" does not refer to consoles as such but to an act of looking or watching. But as time passed by, the computer games (games played solely on home computers such as C64, or more recently mainly on PC) emerged, and to some people (probably mainly gamers who wanted to make a distinction between computer and console gamers) "video games" still meant only the original video games, i.e. console games (as seen in the often-used term "computer and video games"), whereas to other people (probably those who didn't care for the distinction) it included any games played in apparently same way (i.e., watching a screen and using a separate input device).

Whether my historical analysis is right or wrong, however I see that this is the case today: if someone says "video games" it is not clear whether he means "solely console games", "computer (referring mainly to PC) and console games", or "any games played by means of video screens (including mobile games)", or even "only computer games".

I tried to find conclusive definitions from Merriam-Webster, FreeDictionary, Wikipedia, and Wiktionary, but as the field is still quite new, there are only separate, and often conflicting, definitions. Most official dictionaries define "video game" as a cover-all term despite the prevalent use of "computer and video games" which clearly does not follow that definition. The Wikipedia talk page, for instance, has a years-long debate on this.

My proposition, therefore, is to use a the term digital games as umbrella term in all those contexts where games are played on a digital device, such as console (including both home console and handheld devices), computer (including all home computers, i.e., PCs, Macs, and older C64's, Amigas, and like), mobile (meaning cell phones, PDAs, tablets, and such), arcade, and potentially any new, emerging digital platform. The term is somewhat new, so it does not have any ambiguous meanings, it covers all it is meant to cover and does not include games that are not wanted (probably?). It is also already used in research context, such as in the name of Digital Games Research Association. Furthermore, I propose that console games and computer games are used strictly to refer to their respective game types (see above), avoiding the problems with ambiguous term "video games" and also avoiding the accurate but clumsy term "computer and console games".

Interesting wikipedia articles (related to work)

 * Yerkes-Dodson law
 * Situation awareness