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Hmmm, this is lacking something. Seems to me that the key thing about "gameplay" in the video game world is that it is something which is subjective, yet can be rated: ie Poor -> Excellent. A review of game is likely to refer to "satisfying gameplay" - it's not the detail of how the game works (the mechanics), or the performance (frames/second, colour depth etc) but the overall effect. It's not easy to put a number on, or describe - or to produce.

Someone like to try to put this sort of thing into the article? Snori 05:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

From a player perspective, gameplay is primarily subjective when considered in the context of rating; however, in game development, gameplay is an entirely different animal. There are several usages of the term. The term gameplay as used by game developers is inherently technical. Adraeus 14:40, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry but the current definition of gameplay seems to be a POV. There are no references, and the article appears to make many assumptions.Dndn1011 13:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Two different contexts? 2 What is it? 3 Constructive definition of "gameplay" 4 Playability 5 Rename Gameplay to Game Play 6 Merging?

[edit] Two different contexts?

Seems to me that this article suffers because there's two different contexts in which the term is (apparantly) used.

One is something like "formal game theory", and the other is "evaluationg/reviewing computer games". Even if there's an area of overlap, I think it would be useful to split the article along these lines. Snori 19:21, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What is it?

The article lacks:

• a constructive definition of "gameplay",
• examples,
• an explanation why there are no references,
• pending the addition of defining references, at least some references that show that the notion is in daily use, as a justification for the article.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.180.158.241 (talk) 05:23, April 7, 2007

[edit] Constructive definition of "gameplay"

On one hand, the first sentence says "all player experiences during the interaction". This definition is too broad, it appears synonymous to "playing". In particular, this definition covers superficial aspects such as graphics and sound, which are definitely not included in gameplay. Such a definition should be moved to a separate section which deals with extreme points of view.

On the other hand, the article suggestively states that

current academic discussions tend to favor more practical terms such as "game mechanics".

In my opinion, the notion of "game mechanics" is defined better than that of "gameplay", but is not synonymous with it.

So, the current, implicit definition in the current article is: "Gameplay is the name for those game aspects that are less immediate (less superficial) than graphics, sound, or immediate controls, and more immediate (more concrete, less deep) than the storyline." This is a definition by exclusion. But what is it that is left between surface and depth? There definitely is something, but it is hard to describe indeed.

Attempted definition A: Gameplay covers the in-game means available and used by the player to achieve the game goals.

Examples:

• In a beat-em-up, the attack and defense moves are part of the gameplay.

• In a flight simulation, the way that a plane reacts to the control input

The aspects involved in gameplay may differ between different genres.

Attempted definition B: Gameplay covers the player experience beyond the superficial. How does it feel to be there? What can you do there? How can you do it? How does it feel to do it?

To be continued... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.180.158.241 (talk) 05:23, April 7, 2007

[edit] Playability

A related and sometimes synonymous term is "playability" (how playable a game is). Various sources (as well as existing computer game related articles on the Wikipedia) already use the term to mean more or less the same as "gameplay" in the practical sense. Maybe it could be mentioned in the article, and perhaps in searches it could redirect here, or have its disambiguation page that links here, as I've noted the word is also used sometimes for musical instruments (the ease or comfort with which they can be used). - Who is like God? 05:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename Gameplay to Game Play

Gameplay is a neologoism and shouldn't be on wikipedia. I looked in the OED and Gameplay wasn't even there! I suggest, therefore, that we change Gameplay to Game play for this article and all articles that mention game play. Thanks. Ask D.N.A.- Peter Napkin (talk) 21:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I really don't understand where all this fascination with the OED comes from. 52,600,000 Google results for "gameplay", including 4,510 results from Google Scholar, and you want to remove and ignore the universally accepted term because a manually updated dictionary somehow failed to include it into its modest quarterly update? The OED ratified the words "ecopolitics" and "retrovirus" less than two months ago, and the terms have been around since 1944 and 1974, for crying out loud! "Gameplay" is a valid and, again, almost universally accepted term in video game terminology, and the fact that the OED cannot possibly keep up the pace with modern language developments should be seriously considered in a case when a term gets more mentioning on the Web than "Hitler" or "intellect", "neuron", and "randomness" combined. I think we should save the neologism argument on actual neologisms like "e-upmanship", "bromance", "tumblelog" or "lolcat". Rankiri (talk) 17:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

"Gameplay" is in the New Oxford American Dictionary. Bubba73 (talk), 00:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

It's about time too. The use of the word gameplay is so widespread that denying it's an actual word is completely counterproductive. But shouldn't this go into the Wiktionary? 145.99.155.53 (talk) 13:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merging?

No! Definitely two different concepts.--ArkinAardvark (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2009 (UTC)