My opinion is: a video game is what you take for it. When in 1977 I was at school I had a calculator SR 56 from Texas Instruments. To let the time go by during the boring school hours I invented a game:
1) take a starting float value, perhaps SIN(32.48552)
2) execute 1/x
3) take away the numeric part left from the decimal point
4) continue with step 2)
I found it fascinating to watch the sequences of calculated values, which often had one or two maxima and then come to a bordering value or become oscillating between two values. So the first console in my life came not from Ninendo or Sony but from Texas Instruments and the first video game in my life had no name - and no characters - at all;)
But I would not hesitate to call this a video game because :
-it is interactive (input of the starting value)
-it is based on a program
-it has a result (reach infinity, a border value or become oscillating)
1) take a starting float value, perhaps SIN(32.48552)
2) execute 1/x
3) take away the numeric part left from the decimal point
4) continue with step 2)
I found it fascinating to watch the sequences of calculated values, which often had one or two maxima and then come to a bordering value or become oscillating between two values. So the first console in my life came not from Ninendo or Sony but from Texas Instruments and the first video game in my life had no name - and no characters - at all;)
But I would not hesitate to call this a video game because :
-it is interactive (input of the starting value)
-it is based on a program
-it has a result (reach infinity, a border value or become oscillating)