>>1942448
Even if you were to clasify the chess board and the chess pieces as toys, the act of playing with those pieces with a set of rules, objectives and a win/fail states, makes chess a game. You can also play other forms of chess with those pieces like chess 960, or just use the pawns and play a form of checkers. Again, a soccer ball is a toy, but soccer is a game. Same with a tennis ball, and tennis. You don't hear people saying that tennis players are playing with toys, or that chess masters are playing with toys, they are playing a game, even if said games can also be played by children. You can find a deck of cards, at a toy store, that doesn't make the game of Poker a toy. Games, don't necessarily have to involve other players, you can play Solitaire, or Sudoku or Crosswords all by yourself for instance, with the later two being challenges made by some Sudoku and Crosswords developers.
What does it mean to play most video-games? For single player games, you have a set of rules and tools provided by the devs, a set of objectives, such as completing a level, defeating a boss, surviving for 5 minutes, solving a puzzle, or destroying the enemies base, and a win/loose state. For multiplayer, it's mostly the same, only with you competing against some other player, similar to a lot of other games. Now, some video games, are closer to toys, like Second Life, Sims, Europa Universalis, as you don't have clear objectives or win/loose states, and it's more about fucking around for a set amount of times. You can make challenge runs and impose some rules, to make a game out of playing Sims, let's say, go from rags to riches in 100 in-game days, or with Europa Universalis to paint the entire map.
That's why I am saying that video games are games, and not toys, even if a game can involve toys(soccer, tennis, chess), the act of engaging with those toys with a set of rules, objectives, win/fail state is what makes them games. It's not just the act of playing with a toy that makes it into a game, but how you engage with it. Even if you were to say that the disc itself is a game, the act of playing it, in a certain way, is what makes it a game.
To further argue against, would be to say that Poker is a toy, Chess is a toy, Soccer is a toy, Tennis is a toy, Hide and Seek is a toy, Rock, Paper, Scissors is a toy, Tag is a toy, and so on.