Talk:List of fictional electronic games
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This article was nominated for deletion on 10 May 2006. The result of the discussion was keep. |
What was the boardgame from the movie Robocop called? The one advertised on TV, where a nuclear bomb goes of in the middle.
NUK'EM
Need the name of the arcade machine in Suburban Commando.
I call for the removal of the Trogdor game from Homestar Runner as the game actually exists, albeit not in an arcade cabinet format. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 18:19, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)
The games are fictional, meaning they exist in a fictional setting. They just happen to be playable.
Shouldn't all the WarGames entries be under simulation?
I agree with Dante. If a game exists and is playable, it's not a fictional game. I mean, what would you define as a real game? To me, games like Trogdor, Thy Dungeonman, and so forth are perfectly real, freeware games. Parodies, yes; growing out of a fictional, cartoonish setting, yes; but they're real games, just as much as the latest Simpsons-franchise console game is a real game. I will remove them from this list if no response is posted within a few days. --SatyrEyes 21:41, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- What about LightCycles from Tron? It began as a fictional creation but has since grown into dozens of incarnations. Andre Lamothe's Black Art of 3D Game Programming has a quick-and-dirty implementation, for example, using a Microsoft graphics library for DOS. And, of course, open-source versions exist with OpenGL graphics that look like the movie itself.
- Anville 22:09, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Videlectrix is a real video game company! Although they don't make a whole lot of games, and they aren't much of a company, they're still real and they're games are still real. Just look at their home page: they say "Yowza! We're a real video-game-making-company!" As so I've deleted them from the page.
Let me explain the use of "Fictional" in the sense of this article. It does not strictly mean "imaginary" "make believe" or "made up." Here, fictional represents anything that originally comes from some kind of story setting, regardless of whether or not it can be interacted with in our reality. Let's look at a few examples:
- In games such as Ultima or Baldur's Gate, the player can read several books in the game. These books exist within the gameworld. They are not published in the real world. But at the same time they can be read. In this case, something set in a work of fiction can be interacted with in the real world, despite its fictional setting.
- Fictional music in a game, movie, or TV show that can still be listened to by our ears, and may even be sold in a soundtrack. Yes, you can listen to it, so it is real music, but its origin or setting is within a fictional story context, i.e. non-existent characters created the music itself. From our point of view this is false, as real people created the music just as they created the work of fiction. From the perspective of the fiction, there is no "real world," and the music comes exclusively from the fictional setting.
- An actual physical object, such as Gandalf's sword in The Lord of the Rings, does exist as an actual sword available at various sword shops. However, Gandalf's sword is based off of a work of fiction. There is no "Gandalf" in reality. So who's sword is it? The sword of a fictional character. Therefore, the sword is fiction in this sense, but still exists in our world.
- Homestar Runner is a work of fiction. The people and places in it are fiction. Trogdor was drawn by the character Strongbad, and later adapted into an arcade game that the Homestar Runner characters looked at in a short. The game, in the world of Homestar Runner, is an arcade cabinet. In our world, there is no arcade machine named Trogdor. There is only a representation of this game playable through web browsers. The game itself can be interacted with, but you are only playing a representation of a game that exists in a fictional setting.
- Videlectrix is a fictional company. The idea was made by the Brothers Chapps. On the Videlextrix website, the company is given the appearance of a 70's or 80's era small game developer, working on early home computers. Their catalog consists of games created in the Homestar Runner setting, games that do not exist but are advertised as cartridges, and games that are playable. But there is no actual Videlectrix company developing and publishing games for PCs in our reality, especially not the outdated PCs they make games for. You cannot buy stock in an actual company named Videlectrix, whose target platform is 20 year old PCs.You cannot buy an old Videlexctrix catridge or disk and sell it on Ebay, because there are none. The company Videlectrix makes games for people who play them within the world of Homestar Runner. You can, however, play a bunch of flash games based on this fictional company. In reality, the games themselves are made by the creators of the Homestar Runner website.
- In the movie "The Wizard (movie)," Fred Savage is playing Super Mario Bros 3. Even though the movie is fictional, meaning it never took place, the game is intended for our own reality. It is developed and produced for us, even though it also exists in a work of fiction. Therefore, it is not a fictional game, but is used in a fictional setting.
- In an early e-mail, Strongbad plays a game called Temple of Apshau. Temple of Apshau is a real game. It was made by Epyx in 1985. It was actually made by an actual company, for actual people, not fictional characters. Yet it is being played by a fictional character. In this case, the game is real, despite being featured in a fictional setting.
The bottom line is that interactivity has little to do with whether or not a game is fiction. Of course it was really made by real people. All works of fiction are made by real people. In Friends, the character Phoebe makes up several songs and tries to sing them. Obviously the songs were written by the scriptwriters, not the character. But the point is the song is supposed to have originated from that character when looking at that setting, which makes the origin of the song from within a fictional setting. Characters can't actually just make up works by themselves (unless you programmed them to). A book, song, or video game whose origin comes from fiction, as if the characters primarily play or create these works, makes them fiction within fiction.
The fiction itself was made by real people. But within the fiction exists the concept of a character using or creating something, and this is not "real," because the characters do not exist in the real world, except as fictional concepts. It remains fictional if the author has made a fictional setting with fictional origins. You, as a real person, might be able to interact with it. The fact that you can read, listen, or play with it does not change whether it is fictional or not.
All right, I can buy that! I still feel that if a game is playable by me out here in the real world, it must be "real" in some sense; but I admit that the sense of "real" you outline seems more useful for this list's purposes. Thanks for taking the time to explain! --SatyrEyes 00:53, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Though as an afterthought, it's worth noting that this standard is different from the one used in List of fictional games, which explicitly states that games with an existence outside the fiction are not fictional. --SatyrEyes 00:58, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I disagree with the broad statement of what is considered 'a fictional game', although I do agree with a lot of the individual examples. A game is fictional if it cannot be played. A song is fictional if it cannot be sung. Take the 'Smelly Cat' example (Phoebe's song). There is no doubt that this is a real song. How could you sing it if it wasn't? It is a real song, written by a real person, even though in the show it is attributed to one of the characters. A fictional song is a song to which reference has been made, but where no such song exists, e.g. The Rutles' I Am The Waitress (as comapared to Cheese And Onions which Neil Innes actually wrote).
The same is true of fictional games. Any game that can be played as a game is real. In the examples above, you are correct in stating that Videlectrix is a fictional company, and that most of their games are also fictional, however the ones that can be played (e.g. Peasant's Quest) are not fictional. They may be spoofs, but they're not fictional. There is a slight grey area where games that were originally fictional have since been made into real games. My personal view is that once they have been made they are no longer fictional, however I think they still warrant inclusion in this list with a note indicating that they have since been created. --HappyDog 04:45, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Question about categorization
I was going to add Everlot from Kim Possible but I wasn't sure what category it should go under. It's a parody of Everquest which is an MMORPG so I was going to add it to Online Games, but the way it's played is more like a Virtual Reality game (helmets are worn, and later in the episode they are "trapped" in Everlot). What do you guys think?
[edit] Fictional and real simultaneously
The game "Head Kicker" from "The Brak Show" has been produced as a playable Shockwave animation at the Adult Swim website. It is, therefore, a "real" game while at the same time not being the console-based game in which Zorak once administered a "red-ass beatdown" to Brak.
These days, a game that begins its existence in a fictional context, such as "Cloak & Dagger" (in the movie of the same name) will almost certainly be "converted" into a playable version in real life, either by hopeful licensees (e.g., Atari with C&D) or resourceful fans (Tron's many light cycles clones).
("Light Cycles", by the way, was a fictionalization of a REAL game - "Surround", Steve Lisberger's favorite Atari 2600 cart.)
If all it takes to shift a game from "fictional" to "real" is that some Blue Fairy write a playable version, this page is going to empty out pretty fast....
[edit] Simpsons & James Bond
- there was a 'video game' in that James Bond movie where he's at the casino and plays the game against Largo
- there was an arcade game in the simpsons where the player mows the lawn (bart plays that after refusing to mow the lawn at home)
(21:13, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC))
[edit] Waterworld
- Waterworld - the game - The Simpsons
Wasn't Waterworld released for Super NES and Virtual Boy? Or is GameFAQs confused? --Damian Yerrick 02:15, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
- But not a coin-op. Read the section headings. --Gus N 02:21, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Homestar Runner
- Most of the Homestar Runner entries are very, very real. These should be removed from the list.
[edit] Aqua Teen Hungerforce
So I've verified that "OoGhiJ MIQtxxXA" is part of an empisode. But perhaps the extra info should be removed?
[edit] One more thing...
The "Pretendo Entertainment System" listed under "Muppet Babies" shares a name with a pirate NES console. Just a note.
[edit] Clamdigger node on E2 is a joke
For crying out loud people, E2 should never be used as a reference without corroboration. The author even admits it.matt kane's brain 18:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
