What does it mean a game feel "gamey"?

I've listening to bombcast and every time Ryan or Jeff says "it feels too gamey" or "is just feel mad gamey," I have no idea what that meant. 
 
How does a game feel "gamey"? 
 
Isn't every game "gamey"? 
 
What do you guys think? 
 
Do you guys know what it means? 

Just doesn't captivate you enough to make you feel about what you are actually doing. Immersive?

It's when a certain game mechanic is so unrealistic and janky that you are 100% aware that you're playing a video game... The antithesis of immersion.

It is a very subjective term, yes. Basically, it means that it relies a lot of typical gaming conventions and doesn't immerse you in the world as it should. For instance, like Ryan said in his Saboteur review, if stealth missions rely on standing in exact, pinpoint spots and waiting for a guard on a predetermined path to be out of the way, lacking any organic feeling to it, that qualifies as being "gamey." As an extension to the stealth part, if an enemy sees you and goes after you but then goes back to his regular route because an in-game timer expired, that is also "gamey." So "gamey" means a lot of things: reliance on cliches, poor AI, bad level design, etc.

John Davidson uses that word too much.
 
But anyway it feels and looks like a game. Like the new SC would be really "gamey" since it has your objectives on walls.

Prototype = your run around the corner enemies can't see you, you change into a military uniform now they don't know its you even though your still running up buildings.

Games that aren't that immersive and make you feel like you are just playing a game is what gamey means.

When there's no suspension of disbelief.

combos, unrealistic qualities, etc@Abyssfull said:

" Game-over screens "

I got a really good example from just last night, when finishing up Assassin's Creed 2.  Going to spoil it incase you haven't finished it.
 
It's more about when a game really feels like a game.  Taking multiple bullets to the face and surviving as a weaker example.
 
OK, AC2 spoilers : 

Being to "gamey" can mean a lot of things, but basically it is the opposite of immersive. Every game is "gamey" in some way, and some are much more gamey than others. Some examples to these are as follows. 
 
Fallout 3: Sometimes you will run into three characters in a row that say the exact same thing or have the same voice actor. This can interfere with your perception of the game as possible in real life. (I love Fallout, just that the game has so much voice in it, I can see it as impossible to avoid this to some degree.) 
 
In the Saboteur: The gameplay elements are not hidden at all. You can see a ring on the map, and that is what dictates a soldiers awareness to you. This tells the player "Hey, this is how the GAME you are playing works" A way to counter this is to have the systems in place, but make them a lot more definite. Make the player think "I hope they didn't see me. Shoot, do they know where I am?" The unknown here generates a more real experience, as people in real life won't stand there and repeatedly say what they think out loud. 
 
 
All games have some qualities that make it seem like a game, but the less it seems like a game, the more immersive it is. Movies do the same thing. Movies want you to think you are experiencing a story, not watching a movie. They want you to care about what is happening, and maybe even feel like you can effect it. 
 
Long post, but I wanted to give you some concrete explanation to the situation.

Pretty much everything in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

A game feels gamey when you are overtly aware that there a game mechanics at work.

When the underlying game mechanics are so transparent that you feel like you're playing the mechanics themselves, rather than what they're actually trying to represent.

Feeding you with too much abstract information about the undelaying game mechanics that you don't really need to know about, or could be integrated into the game world to better effect.

If a game feels "gamey" then it does little to integrate its own mechanics smoothly into the game in a way which doesn't break the realism. A "gamey" game is liable to leave the player disillusioned and give them a strong message that they are not experiencing anything real.

" John Davidson uses that word too much.  But anyway it feels and looks like a game. Like the new SC would be really "gamey" since it has your objectives on walls. "

" @SJSchmidt93 said:

" John Davidson uses that word too much.  But anyway it feels and looks like a game. Like the new SC would be really "gamey" since it has your objectives on walls. "

John Davison.  And I doubt many people would call that gamey.  From what I've heard, most people think it's a very interesting stylistic choice. "

i don't think "gamey" is necessarily a bad thing. 
 
it's just a way to describe a game that is very much rooted in what is recognizable as a video game. 
 
sometimes it can be a bad thing, like if there's a time limit to meet a certain objective that doesn't really have its urgency explained well by the fiction of the game. 
 
sometimes it can be a good thing, like if a game is doing something that--if too realistic--wouldn't be fun at all. 

"Whatever.   And because it's an interesting stylistic choice it's not gamey? "

" When the underlying game mechanics are so transparent that you feel like you're playing the mechanics themselves, rather than what they're actually trying to represent. "

" When the underlying game mechanics are so transparent that you feel like you're playing the mechanics themselves, rather than what they're actually trying to represent. "

A game may feel too "gamey" if its underlying game mechanics are in broad daylight, destroying any sense of immersion you may have in a game. And I think you're referencing their review of the Saboteur, right?
 
@DevWil said:

" i don't think "gamey" is necessarily a bad thing.  it's just a way to describe a game that is very much rooted in what is recognizable as a video game.  sometimes it can be a bad thing, like if there's a time limit to meet a certain objective that doesn't really have its urgency explained well by the fiction of the game.  sometimes it can be a good thing, like if a game is doing something that--if too realistic--wouldn't be fun at all.  "

The opposite of immersion.  Very naked game mechanics.  Call of Duty for example is extremely gamey with the unlimited respawning enemies.  Stealth games are oftentimes very gamey, relying on obvious guard patterns and silly "lines of sight" a la MGS.

A game is gamey when mechanics get in the way of the experience and make lose your fantasy that its real.

Its what everyone in this thread as said. I would just like to point out I do not think it necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes I enjoy a good arcady game with with ridiculous effects and scores and multipliers flashing all over the place kind of like 50 cent BOTS and the Club.

To have an exposed meta-game.  That is, to make obvious the game's underlying mechanics.

"

If a game feels "gamey" then it does little to integrate its own mechanics smoothly into the game in a way which doesn't break the realism. A "gamey" game is liable to leave the player disillusioned and give them a strong message that they are not experiencing anything real.

"

It was my biggest complaint with Arkham Asylum.  The boos fights, which are supposed to be the coolest parts, were totally gamey in that there was a very clear system at work behind the scenes (dodge the 3-hit attack pattern, hit him a bunch of times, wait for the next pattern).  The rest of the game's combat was a much more dynamic, free-flowing type of thing, and then when a boss appears, it suddenly becomes a straight-up video game again.  It really takes you out of the experience.

Uses aged and predictable game mechanics without any innovation.

The game isn't seamless and not showing a type of world but rather putting you in a game and your playing a game instead of using your senses. Take The Saboteur for example the GB crew said it was too gamey having the fact of you were just looking at lines and circles throughout the game instead of looking at someones face and seeing they're not happy.

" A game is gamey when mechanics get in the way of the experience and make lose your fantasy that its real. "

Unbalanced. 
 
So much like a digital entertainment it becomes stupid.

" It was my biggest complaint with Arkham Asylum.  The boos fights, which are supposed to be the coolest parts, were totally gamey in that there was a very clear system at work behind the scenes (dodge the 3-hit attack pattern, hit him a bunch of times, wait for the next pattern).  The rest of the game's combat was a much more dynamic, free-flowing type of thing, and then when a boss appears, it suddenly becomes a straight-up video game again.  It really takes you out of the experience. "

Sometimes it's a necessary evil (imagine playing Commandos without the guard 'vision cones' for example), but if a game becomes 'too gamey', it usually suggests that the gameplay itself hasn't been very well thought out or that the developer should have found a more elegant solution/s.
 
Generally the solution is to give you environment cues rather than HUD systems.  For example, having a guard in AC (or whatever) say "Huh?  I thought I heard something! ...  Oh well, I guess not!", when you stray too close, is an attempt at maintaining immersion without sacrificing gameplay, and without the need for another HUD system.  Unfortunately this can still be considered 'gamey' to some extent, because your mind (even if your disbelief is suspended) will instinctively reject the idea that guards are that stupid and all say the same thing, and you will be taken out of the game and see it for what it is - the game warning you that you're about to trigger the guard's attack routine.  It's a step up from a vision cone, but it still isn't great.  Game development is still in it's infancy though and these things will be figured out in time.
 
It's fine for a game to be mechanical so long as it's dovetailed in with the setting - it's when it's jarring enough to pull you out of the world they're trying to create that it becomes a problem.

Things that show that it's a game and not real life. Like yellow circles on a radar that shows how close you can be to Nazis.
 
I don't think this is that bad though. I often like the gamey aspects of thing, like collecting stuff and doing tedious things for achievements.

"It is a very subjective term, yes. Basically, it means that it relies a lot of typical gaming conventions and doesn't immerse you in the world as it should. For instance, like Ryan said in his Saboteur review, if stealth missions rely on standing in exact, pinpoint spots and waiting for a guard on a predetermined path to be out of the way, lacking any organic feeling to it, that qualifies as being "gamey." As an extension to the stealth part, if an enemy sees you and goes after you but then goes back to his regular route because an in-game timer expired, that is also "gamey." So "gamey" means a lot of things: reliance on cliches, poor AI, bad level design, etc. "

It means they need to remember what a game is. 

Everyone's answer is wrong. Gamey is a convention outside of the context of the story. It doesn't "get in the way" because normal people play games for the gameplay. Like Dead Rising. You have points and a timer, and obviously these are game conventions and it makes no sense in the context of the story, but it makes the game more fun to play. The only "gamey" convention that gets in the way are those retarded QTEs. "Hey look, you solved a preschool level puzzle and it made your dude rip some other dude's head off!" Yeah, stupid shit for simpletons. Normally, though, its just a game convention that sticks out from the context of the game's story in order to make the game work more as a game.

"Sometimes it's a necessary evil (imagine playing Commandos without the guard 'vision cones' for example), but if a game becomes 'too gamey', it usually suggests that the gameplay itself hasn't been very well thought out or that the developer should have found a more elegant solution/s.
 
Generally the solution is to give you environment cues rather than HUD systems.  For example, having a guard in AC (or whatever) say "Huh?  I thought I heard something! ...  Oh well, I guess not!", when you stray too close, is an attempt at maintaining immersion without sacrificing gameplay, and without the need for another HUD system.  Unfortunately this can still be considered 'gamey' to some extent, because your mind (even if your disbelief is suspended) will instinctively reject the idea that guards are that stupid and all say the same thing, and you will be taken out of the game and see it for what it is - the game warning you that you're about to trigger the guard's attack routine.  It's a step up from a vision cone, but it still isn't great.  Game development is still in it's infancy though and these things will be figured out in time.  It's fine for a game to be mechanical so long as it's dovetailed in with the setting - it's when it's jarring enough to pull you out of the world they're trying to create that it becomes a problem. "

Solve implies these are problems in need of a solution. If you want to play a realistic game, play Rainbow Six Vegas in real mode and die in a single shot. You don't want realism, you love game conventions. You love regenerating health and all that bullshit.

"Solve implies these are problems in need of a solution. If you want to play a realistic game, play Rainbow Six Vegas in real mode and die in a single shot. You don't want realism, you love game conventions. You love regenerating health and all that bullshit. "

" @ryanwho said:

"Solve implies these are problems in need of a solution. If you want to play a realistic game, play Rainbow Six Vegas in real mode and die in a single shot. You don't want realism, you love game conventions. You love regenerating health and all that bullshit. "

Well all I'm just saying is guards blurting stuff out is stupid. What I'm not saying is all games should play exactly like RB6/ "

Zero immersion, it 's not exactly bad or anything though. 
 
Like I'd say GTA 4 doesn't feel gamey, but Saints Row 2 or Mercs 2 does. Lots of menus and whatnot, not a bad thing mind you.