The crux of the arguments floating around in this thread is that there is no wrong definition. The term means anything we want it to be, so long as it makes sense within the context of the acronym.
When I play Doom, I assume the persona of the marine and interact with the world as such. Primarily by blasting monsters back to the netherworld.
Anyway, I am in agreement with KaVir. The result of these arguments is that RPI, RPG, and any other categories such as 'Action' or 'Adventure' are essentially useless terms. We could abandon them and think up new terms, but they would likely also be as ambiguous as these, leading to similar problems. Can anyone think of an unambiguous, non-cumbersome term for the sorts of "role-playing" environments we're talking about?
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