The study of interactive electronic entertainment typically equates to the study of video games. In fact, we routinely use the term "video game" as a synonym for electronic entertainment even though we suspect that forms of the interactive digital medium exist that don't fall neatly into the category of games.

Interactive electronic art and digital toys are two clear extension of the interactive into spaces that refuse quick classification as video games.

During the 2003 Game Developers Conference Academic Summit, Brenda Laurel raised a point about opening the notion of video games up to more than goal-oriented conquests and exploring social play experiences.

What I think she sees, and a lot of people in the game development industry understand, is that a digital game is only one aspect of the interactive digital medium. Titles such as the Sims Online open up our thinking about games as non-objective play while a title such as Res makes us consider that interactive digital artworks could have a mass appeal without requiring any of the usual apparatus of a game.

Of course, the interactive digital medium was built upon video games, and video games remain the foundation for exploring other areas. Just as cinema has resigned itself to the fact that boilerplate action pictures and comedies might be the price for sustaining an industry that can, from time to time, produce a Citizen Kane or Unforgiven. Similarly, the electronic entertainment industry needs its Doom's and Splinter Cell's to plow the way for what hopefully, will be future waves of innovation, exploration and artistry.

On this site, I have added a new category of links titled "Digital Toys." As I come across links that feature non-objective interactive entertainment--digital toys--I'll post them. For starters, I have linked the fabulous and amusing zefrank.com. This site provides a wonderful playground filled with digital toys and interactive art experiments. Frank is a talented graphic designer and multimedia artist. His site is filled with creative gadgets that explore possibilities around the kinds of entertainment digital objects can provide. Of special note is his game section. By combining his playful sense of design with the objective structure of the video game, Frank's work shows that the ideas interactive art, digital toys and video games are dimensions of the bigger interactive digital medium.