Plenty of it is definitions, yep. The way I define it, though, I don’t see any reason to oppose playing to reading. What I’m exploring, what I’m enjoying, is a written story. I’m exploring the characters and plots and setting – all things that people who like reading tend to enjoy. I’m enjoying the way that those explorations can reveal themes and subtext. That’s both playing and reading, not an either-or.
And it focuses on one particular aspect of gameiness. Some people who enjoy the “playing” are more enjoying the stat balancing and getting the best “win” possible. Nothing wrong with that – I’m happy that my game has ended up facilitating that kind of enjoyment by fans aiming to get different hard-to-reach stat combos. For my own personal satisfaction, though, I don’t care about stats and do care about interesting stories.
Some of the most interesting story paths to explore go through loss and failure, which brings the two ways of “playing” into some degree of tension with each other. In my game, for example, if you choose to lose your first major confrontation in XoR, it opens up options you wouldn’t otherwise have – a signal of how I mean to keep writing as the series goes on. “Losing” game one will open up new opportunities in game two.