The phrase interactive entertainment also known as video games refers to the business of producing and distributing products and services, or the products and services, of which the entertainment value (or outcomes) can be influenced by users through direct feedback

Feedback

Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...

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Origins

Although Hal Halpin

Hal Halpin

Hal Halpin is an American computer game executive and entrepreneur, and is the president and founder of the Entertainment Consumers Association .- Background :...

 claims credit for coining the phrase with the renaming of GameWeek Magazine

GameWeek Magazine

GameWeek Magazine was a weekly video game magazine that was made by Cyberactive Media Group, Inc., a publishing company which specialized in business-to-business products serving the computer and video game industry...

to Interactive Entertainment Magazine in 2001, the phrase was in use as early as 1981. Halpin's official biography now claims that he "popularized" the phrase "to describe the convergence of the console, online, and computer games sectors."
Interactive Entertainment is a phrase used to describe entertainment that the guest or audience participates in. The guest is actually part of the entertainment. Some great examples of interactive entertainment can be found at http://www.interactiveparty.com/catalog

See also

• Game development
  Game development
  Game development is the software development process by which a video game is developed. Development is undertaken by a game developer, which may range from a single person to a large business. Mainstream games are normally funded by a publisher and take several years to develop. Indie games can...
  
  
• History of video games
  History of video games
  The history of video games goes as far back as the 1940s, when in 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a United States patent request for an invention they described as a "cathode ray tube amusement device." Video gaming would not reach mainstream popularity until the 1970s and...
  
  
• Video game
• Video game industry