Are Visual Novels Video Games?

[Shauna]

For no other reason than to mix things up I'm going to have to... also agree. >_< Yes, they are video games. You have interaction, you have failure states, you have agency... visual novels are far more video gamey video games than the Dear Esthars of the world.

Some of them do. However, some of them are literally just reading/listening and tapping through the dialogue until you reach the end of the novel. This puts them on par with the (absolutely also video games) Dear Esthers of the world.