Language is definitely up to interpretation, anyone who says otherwise either hasn't communicated with enough people or hasn't thought enough about linguistics. Almost every human interprets any given statement slightly differently thanks to their past experiences in life and with specific words. That's why we all have different senses of humor, and why different people react to different kinds of statements differently. Say the same phrase to every person and record how many people laughed, how many got upset, how many gave you a blank stare, etc. Language is a lot more malleable than you're letting on here in your post.
But linguistics aside, I interpreted your original post as saying that zombies being an infinite source of income pushes the game away from the survival genre, and "It goes against everything its zombie-apocalypse survival concept stands for, both thematically and in gameplay terms." which I think is a bogus claim. There is no irrefutable standard of zombie fiction or zombie survival video games that dictates that zombies can't be income sources, or that zombies can't carry valuables, etc. Which means that you are making assumptions (there's nothing wrong with that, we all make assumptions), based on what "zombie apocalypse" means to you. Which is why I made my post and the post after that.
And I'm not seeing how having loot would take away from the survival aspect. In Outlast you can find batteries and medical supplies around the world, does that mean it's not a survival game?
7 Days to Die has been touted as a lot of things. It's survival, it's crafting, it's building, it's an RPG, it's a tower defense. You're trying too hard to categorize it into what you personally determine makes a survival game. I'm posting because I disagree with that sentiment. If that's not what you meant by your original post then it's just a simple miscommunication.
Miscommunication indeed since what I said was:
Human language uses terms
which means that I am talking about terms, not language as a whole.
A term is, "a word or expression that has a precise meaning in some uses or is peculiar to a science, art, profession, or subject."
Language is a system that consists of the development, acquisition, maintenance and use of complex systems of communication
(wiki)
Of course language as a whole is malleable and constantly evolving and sometimes can be interpreted differently depending on culture, experiences etc. Terms not so much, since their very definition is that they have a precise meaning. Terms are one of the most primal language elements and without them we wouldn't be able to communicate. Imagine a world where terms were open to interpretation by each individual.
As for people reacting differently to different kinds of statements and receive the message in a different shade of color - that depends on a great many things like psychology, culture, education, intelligence etc, but the actual words, if literal, are still conveyed. If terms were open to interpretation communication would not be possible. Being painfully pedantic here, but conversations without accuracy aren't worth squat.
Again, who said that there is an irrefutable standard of zombie fiction? I already told you in the previous post, that if someone wants to imagine zombies having telepathic abilities, pink antennas or whatever, it is their irrefutable right to do so, since there is no irrefutable standard of zombie fiction as you say. But the whole "how we imagine zombie fiction to be" is completely beside the point - never brought it up, not sure why you made this assumption. The term "zombie apocalypse" at its minimum (in the video game context) implies that the game's antagonists are zombies. Nothing more than this was implied.
Doesn't matter if 7dtd has been touted as a lot of things, as long as one of these things it has been touted as is survival (not to mention it is the only genre-defining tag on steam). And "survival" in the video game context does have a clear term indicating a game in which, at the very least, the player has to survive - it is not what I personally determine it to be as you claim, otherwise steam tags would be completely useless and wouldn't convey any substantial information to a buyer.
So, after clarifying that to get to the point, the antagonists of a game (aka zombies in this context however they may be) that is considered to be survival or contain the survival tag, shouldn't be seen as farm-able crops/farm-able resources/zombie husbandry/chests of loot. Do you realize how all these characterizations contradict the word "antagonist"? And if the antagonist of a game is regarded as a loot (or exp) pile doesn't that also contradict the whole survival concept? That is the thematic reason which doesn't completely exclude zombies from having a small amount of thematic-friendly loot on them. The gameplay/practical reason though, because of which I believe that we are better off getting no actual loot from them, is that zombies are infinite, plentiful and easily farm-able en masses. Anything in their loot table will be common/abundant and one less reason for the player to explore and scavenge which hurts any survival elements the game contains. Pretty much this.
god dam one letter can make that much of a impact eh? well least its more worthwhile to mention then that snobby ponce on the other page. XD
