Are games from XBLA or PSN counted as an actual game?

This poll comes from an argument that me and my brother have been having. He doesn't count games that I download from the XBLA Marketplace as an actual game and only counts games as games if they come in a box. Discuss because I think he is clearly wrong.

Obviously he's wrong, whether something's a game or not isn't determined by its packaging...

Definitely yes.
Why wouldn't they be "real"?

Of course they're games. The only way there's any real controversy there is if you're trying to determine whether you own them / whether they count toward you game collection.

"Of course they're games. The only way there's any real controversy there is if you're trying to determine whether you own them / whether they count toward you game collection."

Then it would help if you clarified in the initial post. :)
But unless you're concerned about the exact number of games in your collection, does it even matter?

Why wouldn't they be games?

Fuck yeah.

....Why not?

I also have problems explaining to him that The Orange Box is technically three different games and two sets of episodic content of one of them.

"I also have problems explaining to him that The Orange Box is technically three different games and two sets of episodic content of one of them."

Yes?....
They're not as grand in scale or anything and they're just not going to reach the same level of quality at each's peak, but there's no doubt that they're games....

Yeah......a game is a game; shouldn't matter if it's in a box or downloaded to a hard drive.

Banjo-Tooie, Mega Man 9, Marvel vs Capcom 2, Castle Crashers, N+, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, etc. are all video games. If not, then what would you call them?

Yes.  Even flash games are considered games.

What else would you count them as?

Most ridiculous opinion ever. I'm all in favor of boxes over digital copies, but that doesn't make them 'fake' or somehow inherently inferior.

That's dumb..

As Braid proved last year, XBLA and PSN games can be, indeed, better than the grand majority of retail games. Oh yeah, they're games alright.

Ofcourse they are I see them as a way to get games devloped by fewer people to market, take world of goo as wii ware 2 people made that game I doubt on it's own it'd have made it in stores, but steam and Wii ware helped it. Same for a fair few games.

It probably wouldn't receive as much acclaim as bigger retail games but yes, people who got a chance to play it would still recognize it as a great game.

Length, price, and method of purchase does not change the definition of a game. What does your brother consider a game to be? One that costs $59.99?

Sony has been putting up full PSP and PS3 games on PSN for a while now. WipEout HD, Burnout Paradise, Patapon 2 ect.