I think Candy Crush qualifies as a video game, if only by the most technically narrow of definitions. But it's a pretty hard sell to put the stereotypical Candy Crush style game player in the same category as someone who owns and regularly utilizes a console. There is overlap, obviously, but that's also clearly not what we're discussing.
At some point the casual application of "video gamer" will make the term meaningless--especially as we move toward almost ubiquitous electronic interfaces and devices for even the most mundane of life's activities.
I'm fascinated by this opinion. Is Hearthstone a video game? Desert Golfing? Good Sudoku? Words with Friends? Clash Royale? Angry Birds? The Arcana? Wii Sports? Pokémon Go?
I don't know most of those, but I think the point is whether video is being the defining feature of the game. Chess played on a computer is primarily chess, not a computer game. Same with poker.
A golfing or racing game isn't similar to golfing or racing, it's clearly primarily a video game. It gets somewhat blurry when you have a high-end setup with a cockpit that's being shaken while you drive a rally. Is it still a video game, or a simulator? I'd say the latter, but it's an edge case.
Angry Birds is, to me at least, closer to a video game (though I'd say it's a different genre "mobile game"), because there's obviously not a directly transferred real-life version.
I don't understand why it's apparently controversial that we can break a category like computer gaming into a spectrum of activities and styles.
We do it in many other areas without such issue, e.g., recreational vs. amateur vs. professional athletics, cooking, artistry, etc. If a report were published that said "250 million adult Americans are cooks" I'd find it objectionable. It's not a meaningful number, either in terms of market segmentation or as a description of the actual activity that is purported to be engaged in.
You are using this argument in a thread about whether Candy Crush is a "video game". Not whether it is, shooter, RPG or racing game. Nor whether playing on subway counts as e-sports.
The problem here is that the breakdown is completely arbitrary based on "how much I feel related to people who play it". It is not based on hours played, someone who plays on console less of time can count. It is not by effort spent, someone who plays repetitive grinding games on console still counts. It is not even per who self-identifies as gamer, that is not question in the thread at all. The thread is all about whether candy crush counts as game or videogame.
"250 million adult Americans cook" is perfectly valid thing to write in a report, even of those people don't do special French receipts.
So really, what it is about is that some self-identified gamers take offense on the idea that games which target different demographics can be talked about as a games. And while there are many cultural/emotional things that make it so, it still seem impossible to come up with reasonable definition that excludes candy crush. Candy crush is an insult to most gamers despite majority of them not knowing next thing about that game, except that it was huge success among people they, frankly, find inferior.
The origin of the report is a market intelligence publication about gaming. The controversy over "Candy Crush" is almost an irrelevant detail in this context.
Candy Crush and games like it are closer to https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-2796704/trademark-games-el... than https://store.steampowered.com/app/10/CounterStrike/. I wouldn't call the former a video game by any reasonable standard.
I think Candy Crush qualifies as a video game, if only by the most technically narrow of definitions. But it's a pretty hard sell to put the stereotypical Candy Crush style game player in the same category as someone who owns and regularly utilizes a console. There is overlap, obviously, but that's also clearly not what we're discussing.
At some point the casual application of "video gamer" will make the term meaningless--especially as we move toward almost ubiquitous electronic interfaces and devices for even the most mundane of life's activities.