It does when you are using the term in order to communicate with other people. I try to avoid using terms with multiple definitions when I'm trying to communicate effectively.
I bet if you really looked at your vocabulary, you'd find you're using a LOT of words that have more definitions than you think.
Allow me to channel my inner "dwarf."
I've always been a bit of a rock-hound, and now, I design jewelry as a hobby, so I know a bit about rocks.
A lot of people know what agate, garnet, jade and opal are, and can use them properly in a sentence. And a lot of those people are wrong.
Agate, garnet, jade and opal are all terms for families of semi-precious and precious stones, some of which vary WIDELY in appearance. But most people aren't rock hounds or jewelers or gemologists, so the additional precision simply isn't needed.
Why then, is additional precision needed for "videogamey?" We all know that its a pejorative. We all know it refers to electronic games. Additional precision would only serve to give an exact spot for someone to rhetorically attack the assertion.
And that, as I've said, is a waste of time because you're not going to convince someone who thinks a game is videogamey that it isn't.
Terms like "too big to fail" work because they are short hand for one thing and one thing only(or at least one major thing that everyone assumes when they hear the term). There ARE other definitions of it, but there is one commonly accepted one.
Every time the term "videogamey" is used, its referring to one thing- a perception that the user has that his personal interface with the P&P RPG reminds him of electronic gaming. The details beyond that are immaterial.
Terms like videogamey don't even have one commonly accepted definition. It could mean anything between "Awesome, and I love everything about it" to "The stupidest thing ever".
Show me one incidence of a person who has used "videogamey" to describe 4Ed in a non-pejorative term and you may have the beginnings of a real point.
You probably can't. Every time someone throws out the term, 4Ed lovers rise to defend against the indictment, asking how so (prepared to refute), not whether that was an insult or not. The insult to the game is understood.
It's possible to admit an association isn't logical without removing the association itself.
Therefore the discussion can still happen. It's possible for someone to say "Alright, I see that healing surges and Tekken have nothing in common at all, I don't know why I associate them, but I do. That will never change, but I can see they are two different concepts." Of course, it's possible to say "They are exactly the same thing and I'm not changing my mind no matter what you say. Let's not even have the discussion."
True.
The problem is that while a certain connection may only be slightly logical, it may nonetheless still be strong.
Lets give it a shot.
For me, the healing surges of 4Ed remind me of the way characters in certain arcade fighting games- Tekken and MK being the most famous- can heal within a combat by performing certain maneuvers.
(Now, I can assure you that no matter how tenuous that is to you, that association is VERY strong for me.)
You can then assert how rare that ability is in characters in arcade fighting games, and that even in the strongest examples, its not nearly as strong an ability as it is in 4Ed.
I'd respond, "So what? It happens in the games I play and with ALL of the characters I play, so even though its rare (and thus, a weak association) its common (and thus, a strong association) for ME."
And we'll go back and forth on that, and others will jump in and...
NOBODY'S position will change.
I'm not saying that using the specific objections rather than the catch-all term "videogamey" doesn't make the debate more possible.
I'm saying that
the debate itself is pointless.
Just put "videogamey" in a little glossary of terms in your head- "A pejorative term that some use to associate with arcade fighting games, 2) that some use to associate with..." WHATEVER, and move on.
Debating the finer points of
why someone feels that way gets us nothing but ticked off people.
Especially considering the problem they are pointing out isn't "videogamey" because it's also boardgamey and cardgamey as well.
I personally haven't seen anyone put forth that particular assertion.
Just because something is videogamey doesn't mean it can't be boardgamey and cardgamey- they're not mutually exclusive. A particular game element may be one, two, all or none of those things.
If I could draw Venn diagrams here, I'd show you the how & why.