Videos, Games, or Videogames? The Interaction in Videogame Playing Experiences

Abstract: This paper defends the claim that videogame playing interaction (VGI) is a distinctive kind of interaction compared with other interactive practices. This claim is not grounded in the fact that videogame playing is a digital experience, nor the claim that videogame playing is a video example of gameplay, but rather in two unique characteristics of videogame playing experiences: the controlled identity of players and the temporal continuity. In my view, both Aaron Smuts (2009) and Dominic Lopes (2001)’s theories on interactivity have omitted to discuss these issues sufficiently. By distinguishing between three kinds of interactions according to involved participants and ranking them in the order from weakest to strongest we find: i) interactions between humans and interactive objects, ii) interactions between humans, iii) videogame playing interactions (VGI). In this paper I reflect on the theoretical framework of interactivity and forecast that the strongest form of interaction should be the interaction between human and artificial intelligence supported by technical devices in which human interactors lose overall authority of the continuous interaction.