Why Mixtape Shouldn’t Be Classified as a “Game”

For decades, the word “video game” has carried a certain expectation. Challenge. Failure. Skill progression. Systems to master.

But every once in a while, a project comes along that blurs the line between game, film, and interactive art piece. Mixtape feels like one of those projects.

That’s not necessarily criticism. In fact, it may be exactly what makes it interesting. The problem is the label itself.

Calling Mixtape a “game” may actually undersell what it’s trying to do.

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Over the last fifteen years, the medium has evolved far beyond points, lives, and scoreboards. Experiences like Journey, Firewatch, and What Remains of Edith Finch proved that interactivity alone can carry emotional storytelling in ways movies cannot.

But Mixtape appears to push even further into cinematic territory.

From its presentation, pacing, and structure, it seems less interested in testing player skill and more interested in making players feel something. The gameplay often looks secondary to the atmosphere, soundtrack, editing, and emotional flow of the scenes. At times, it resembles a playable coming-of-age film more than a traditional game.

That distinction matters.

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If pressing buttons during a narrative sequence is enough to qualify something as a game, then where exactly is the line?

Is an interactive Netflix episode a game?

Is a virtual museum a game?

Is a music visualizer with movement controls a game?

Mixtape seems designed around guided emotional participation rather than mastery or agency. The player is not necessarily solving problems or shaping outcomes in meaningful ways. Instead, they are being carried through a curated emotional experience.

That makes it closer to interactive cinema or digital art than to what most people traditionally understand as gaming.

And that’s okay.

Not every interactive experience needs to fit inside the same box.

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One reason this distinction matters is because labels shape audience expectations.

When people hear “video game,” they expect systems, mechanics, challenge, progression, or replayability. If an experience is primarily narrative-driven and heavily scripted, some players may feel disappointed not because the project is bad, but because they expected something fundamentally different.

We already saw this happen with many so-called “walking simulators.” Players entered expecting gameplay-heavy experiences and instead received emotionally driven interactive stories.

Mixtape may face the same issue.

Marketing it as an “interactive experience” or “playable film” would better communicate its actual strengths. It would also free it from comparisons to mechanically deep games that are trying to achieve completely different goals.

The term “video game” has become so broad that it now includes everything from esports shooters to meditative art installations. At some point, the category stops being useful.

Mixtape may belong to a growing class of experiences that sit somewhere between:

And maybe that’s the real conversation worth having.

Not whether Mixtape is “good” or “bad,” but whether our old definitions still make sense for modern interactive media.

Because if every interactive experience is automatically called a game, then eventually the word itself loses meaning.

-Foures