The terminology lost all meaning in any pure sense a long time ago. Stop trying to define it in some cookie-cutter way that excludes some and includes others based on personal preference because if you got truly puritanical about it no current video game RPGs would be considered RPGs in the sense of the original meaning of the term.

Just allow people to keep coming up with sub-genres all day long and call them what you will. It's such a silly debate when people get worked up over whether or not some game should truly be called something or other.

The need for us to pigeon-hole things may be why it's so hard for the gaming industry to do anything new and different. If you can't slap a solid genre that everyone can relate to as the label then you might as well toss the game in the can. If you're steadfast and get it out there then someone will have to come up with a label for it.

Thereafter everyone will start mass producing crap in that same new genre and before long the fanboys will get butthurt and say that every game that ever uses "x mechanic" is a "x game" clone.


*NERDRAGE*