like this:
Is Buddhism a Religion?
i understand your first question, orge; the rest i'd need to understand better in order to reply. (i haven't played videogames, for one thing ... { are videogames a religion ? } )
& yr lead is a common question. gandhi once answered a similar one by answering with a question, "what religion is god?"
question: can it be a religion without a cosmogony, without any reference to god, or any immortal soul, or eternal afterlife? those are typically addressed and answered by religion, but not by buddha. (a religion with no creator deity?)
(you can practice the teachings of the buddha without giving up one's native religion; nothing to renounce, nothing to convert to. or you can be an atheist, or an agnostic ("without belief"), and still practice.)
you might also hear it called a philosophy (in that light, dogen and nagarjuna are so sweet!). some prefer calling it a science (empirical, first-person, real-time); a science of true happiness, if you will; a science of mind. others call it an educational system. others, a way of seeing and being.