Videogames Doomed for a 'Comics-like Ghetto'?

At the Newsweek blog LevelUp, journalist N'Gai Croal wrote this week about the sometimes-precarious position of videogames in popular culture. The frustrations of legislators, lawyers, and 'pro-family' groups aside, the popularity and record sales of the gaming industry would seem to indicate rising stock for gaming as an art form in the US. And yet, there are some folks who see gaming as just another fad, which in some time will be equal in popularity to comic books or tabletop roleplaying. N'Gai starts to form his response by noting that learning to play videogames is considerably easier than developing an appreciation for literature of any kind. He then goes on to note that the (oft-cited) lack of weighty subjects in gaming is more due to the 'pop culture' nature of the hobby than the medium itself. "Popular fiction generally outsells literary fiction. Summer blockbusters generally out-gross arthouse films. Is this any different from, say, Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat out-NPD-ing BioShock last year, or Madden doing the same to Shadow of the Colossus in 2005?" He discusses some ways to address that, but do you have any solutions? Or are games doomed to be the playthings of adolescent boys for the rest of the century? (And yeah, I resent the 'comics ghetto' label too.)

Not a chance

Every male in my high school played starcraft, no matter what social group they came from. The same could be said for halo. Gaming should be thought of as a medium or a category, like comics are a subcategory of literature, and RPGs are a subcategory of card/board games. I don't see the popularity of Halo or of Guitar Hero-type games fading.

Re:Not a chance

I think you've missed the point. While gaming may be a medium that doesn't mean that it can't have high quality. Literature has Steven King but it also has William Shakespeare. Music may have Britney Spears but it also has J. S. Bach. In the first case you have simplistic pop culture phenomena that is just for brief entertainment and in the later you have works that will enlighten you. So where is the Shakespeare or Bach of gaming?

Re:

Literature has Steven King but it also has William Shakespeare.

Ooh, flamebait! Not everything Stephen King wrote was terrible...or are you suggesting Shakespeare was rubbish (not that I'm a fan myself).

Re:Not a chance

Shakespeare was the Stephen King or maybe J. K. Rowling of his time. It's just that because he wrote plays his stinkers weren't distributed.

Re:Not a chance

Noone gave a rats ass about J. S. Bach's work when he was alive.

Well, there goes your credibility in this discussion.

He was well renowned as a performer, but his compositions were not considered anything special until well after his death. (Early 19th Century)

You might want to educate yourself [wikipedia.org]

Re:Not a chance

Tetris. 'nuff said

When The Tetris Company screws with Tetris

Tetris. 'nuff said

Apt analogy. As Shakespeare had Bowdler's edition [wikipedia.org], so has The Tetris Company been screwing with the game's formula, producing things like

• infinite spin [ytmnd.com] (explained [tetrisconcept.com]),
• spin triples [ytmnd.com] (explained [tetrisconcept.com]), and
• a randomizer that lets you play forever [ytmnd.com] (explained part 1 [tetrisconcept.com] and part 2 [tetrisconcept.com]).

It's a good thing that there are still fan games that let the player screw back [pineight.com].

Re:Not a chance

So where is the Shakespeare or Bach of gaming?

OK I'll bite:

The Bard's Tale
Wasteland
Pirates!
Nethack
Dune 2
Master of Magic
Warcraft
Civilization
Tie Fighter
System Shock 2
Half-Life
GTA Vice City

Re:Not a chance

Literature has Steven King but it also has William Shakespeare.

Bear in mind that Shakespeare was not writing solely for a sophisticated, intellectual elite. He's rightly remembered as one of the crowning glories of human cultural achievement, but when he sat down to write his plays, a large part of his thought was given to how the material would play in front of the half-drunk crowd in the pit in the Globe.

Shakespeare's genius was to create superlative works of art which still appealed to the mass market. He blended in cheap puns and sight gags along with his sophisticated plots and deep philosophical allegories, and made it all work perfectly. That's something we've yet to see in games - we have the occasional Planescape: Torment, but when we do it's never a hit - but then, we rarely enough see it anywhere else. Shakespeare is the kind of thing that happens once a century or so, and gaming's only been around for thirty years.

Re:Not a chance

Have you played Bioshock? It's a commentary on Objectivism and the fault of pride, a whole city of people ruled by visionaries who felled the society with their hubris, leaving the normal folk who came in hopes of a better life either dead or insane, pleading to God to forgive their sins. You can also shoot lightning from your hands and set people on fire by snapping your fingers, and you get to kill evil mutants and killer robots with grenade launchers, electric shotgun rounds and napalm flamethrowers. Seriously, it's an impressive game.

Re:Not a chance

WoW will go down in history as a classic game.

I would be curious to see a comparison of total man-hours spent enjoying WoW or EVE vs total man-hours spent watching a production of a Shakespeare play. Wow has about 6.5 million players, [arstechnica.com] if we assume a safe average of 100 hours played per player [parc.com] WoW has been played for 605 million man-hours. Meanwhile, In 1600 the population of London was 200,00 by 1700 the population of London was about 600,000 [demographia.com] So assuming every single person in London saw two productions of Shakespeare every year, that's only about 200 million man-hours of Shakespeare enjoyed in 100 years. I would say that by some measures WoW is already a greater cultural influence that Shakespeare.

I really roughed in these numbers (but do have sources), if someone who is better at figuring these things would be so kind as to try to supply some better total estimates I appreciate it.

Re:

I would say that by some measures WoW is already a greater cultural influence that Shakespeare.

Well we'll see if people are referencing and playing WoW in 400 years, then we can compare it to Shakespeare.

Personally I don't think that millions of people mindlessly drooling at a screen like zombies playing a game they probably hate and only play because they're addicted and just have to get that next sword/armour/scroll, counts as cultural influence, but that's just my opinion.

WoW won't go down as a classic,

Re:

I doubt (and maybe hope) that people won't still be playing WoW five hundred years from now

So what would you propose doing while waiting for Duke Nukem Forever to come out?

Re:Not a chance

Comparing video game to literature is spurious to me. They are two completely different mediums. If a video game ever had the complexities and subtleties of a Shakespearian play then maybe we could talk.

Like the old joke about watching movies; I'll wait for the book to come out.

Re:Not a chance

I've only read a couple of Shakespeare's plays (Macbeth and R&J). While the archaic language made a couple of the jokes require an explanation, the plots themselves weren't exactly mind bending. There have been a fair few videogames with excellent complex/dynamic plots and subtle references - Deus Ex is a big one, if you've never played it then go give it a shot (unfortunately my dad deleted my save by mistake, and since I'd been playing through on 'Realistic' mode, where basically one shot kills you, I didn't have the will to start all over again, partially because I have a good memory and get bored easily when replaying games.. partially because it took me hours of loading up save points just to complete some of the more difficult scenarios). Half-life has a pretty good plot, and was hailed as one of the most revolutionary games of its time for the storytelling and gameplay, as well as spawning hundreds of excellent mods - both some very good single player expansions and extremely playable multiplayer mods (Counter-Strike! The Opera! 'The Ship', which I never actually played but sounded also like it could be the kind of thing that you'd enjoy). Video games are often much more complex than books because their outcome doesn't have to follow a set path - especially if it is a multiplayer game. And while subtlety is usually out when it comes to pleasing todays gamers, that's not to say that it doesn't occasionally show up. The MGS series and its stealth'em'up clones involved some good puzzle solving skills, though I tend to find the 3rd person view isn't to my liking. Anyway, while I agree that they are two completely different mediums, I wouldn't say that either is superior. Both have their place, and both can be as in depth or as shallow as you choose to make them.

As another thing I just remembered.. try out a decent MUD sometime. A MUD (Multi User Dungeon) is a multiplayer text based RPG, a few of them aspire to be roleplay oriented (as opposed to combat oriented), and have some nice prose in their world descriptions that make the game world feel like a living book.

As far as the premise of this article goes.. what a load of crap. People have always played games. Humans enjoying leisure time not a fad. Games have opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for our leisure time, and their scope keeps widening (look no further than the Wii for example, though then look at Grand Theft Auto IV and be amazed at the way a whole city has been modelled and the amount of different activities you can do, from just driving around admiring the view, to playing pool, delivering pizzas, yada yada..). But meh.. if you want to close your eyes to the possibilities here then go ahead, keep to your linear little books, keep letting someone else do your thinking for you ;)

Re:

Deus Ex is a truly great game with a great storyline,but how can you bring up the Half Life mods without mentioning They Hunger [moddb.com]? Truly a game you shouldn't play with the lights off.

As far as games being art,we are still in the mediums infancy.How many movies from 1900-1930 could truly be considered art? We are just NOW beginning to reach diminishing returns when it comes to throwing more effects on the screen.I believe when it settles down in the next two to three years we will be seeing amazing new game

Re:Not a chance

Even in single player games, there is usually some sort of competition.....whether it's a new high score or just to complete the game, there is some mode of competition.

Not everyone wants to compete in a game, either....or at least not in the fashion you are referring to. I play games to see EVERYTHING. I love RPG games because of how much there is to see. I do every side quest. I save and pick various paths to see how they are different. I don't have a problem with walkthroughs and cheats (in single player RPGs - but only when stuck) because I'm more interested in seeing all of the content than I am in feeling like I "beat" the game.

Layne

Re:Not a chance

Games have always been about competition, one way or another. Those games which are only single-player are, in a way, an aberration--sure, Final Fantasy games are wildly popular, but the people who buy 'em tend to like the 'interactive movie' aspect.

Yes, this is true. I'd rather play a game like Mass Effect than sit through any kind of passive entertainment. The interactivity adds a level of entertainment that no movie can match.

People need the social aspect of games. They need to compete against each other. If you don't have some sort of socialization and competition in a game, it's not going to sell nearly as well as one that has those aspects.

I think you're projecting. You may need the socialization and the beer and pretzels aspect to enjoy a game, but if I'm playing a game, I'm doing it to avoid people, not to spend more time around them than I already have to. I've been there and done that w/r/t being a socially oriented person and it just doesn't interest me anymore. Different strokes, etc.

Re:

Starcraft and Brood Wars both install and run fine under Wine ;)

Just in case you needed a fix. I'm not trying to exacerbate your addiction, honest...

supply and demand

Of course, it's really pretty simple. If there's a demand for games, more games will be made. If there isn't, there won't. We can go around and around on whether X is as popular as Y or is it as popular as B? Who cares?

Right now, the gaming industry is moving a lot of units. There are also a lot of really good games out there now, too. Is this because it's a lucrative market or is the market lucrative because of the good games? Again, an argument that really doesn't matter to anyone that's not trying to get ad clicks.

In summary, if you like to play games, play them. If you don't, no one's forcing you to. No big deal. Life's short. Get some fresh air now and then too...

Re:supply and demand

Actually, a pretty good sign of "art" is that it gets created irrespective of commercial demand for it. So a bust might be good in that we might see video games created for the sake of creation.

Art

Remember, it's not art unless it takes eight or more years of expensive (and exclusive) education to enjoy it.

Everything else is just "folk art". But we just call it "art" to make the simpletons feel better. They aren't good enough to begin to understand Art.

Re:Art

By that consideration games could be considered art. Some of my friends have spent 8 years mastering the zerg rush and camping creeps for loot and they're still in college!

Violence

Only if videogames learn to use gameplay mechanisms that don't involve violence. Right now, the majority of videogames are violent, whether that be shooting, punching, or stomping enemies. If the games industry were hollywood, this would belike having 70% of the films be action movies. Of course, 70% of movies are not action movies. Video games need to diversify.

Not everybody is even good at the gameplay mechanisms required. Portal is intellectually challenging with its puzzles, but the coordination required makes it hard for a lot of people to play it. I think adventure games had this right all allong: a simple interface, gameplay that involves puzzle solving and curiosity, and the opportunity to create a good story driven by the player. Instead we have shoot shoot, a cutscene with story here, shoot shoot more shooting.

It's gettign better, but it's not there yet.

Re:Violence

Not true.

The majority of games are of the puzzle/Tetris variety. Bejeweled was far more popular (in terms of users, and hours played) than the top-rated FPS, and I'd guess that MS Solitaire comes pretty close behind it.

Re:Violence

You think a game that came with Windows 3.1 and up is less popular than Bejeweled, a flash game?

I bet the 2 most popular games, in terms of man-hours spent playing it, are minesweeper and solitaire.

video games as art?

Last year Roger Ebert responded to Clive Barker's comments on Ebert not considering video games art:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001 [suntimes.com]

There are some good thoughts in there even though Ebert is definitely in "Get off my lawn" territory.

I love the Half-Life series. I think there's a lot of wit and intelligence and creativity there that you don't see in a lot of other games. But every time I sit down to play a new episode I inevitably think: "It's just a First Person Shooter." Portal gets even higher marks for creativity. The way they develop the GLaDOS character and the use of plot twists and the out-of-left-field use of music is brilliant. But is it art?

I guess I tend to think of video games being "artful" rather than "art".

At the risk of sounding elitist...

... American Comics deserve every bit of ghettoization they have. The vast majority are of the superhero type, which are mindboggingly complex in their timelines, crossovers, retconning and super powers galore. Compare this with European comics (specifically Belgian and French), and you'll find everything from High Art to Low Art, super heros, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, surreal, spy, WW2, funny, serious, story-driven, art-driven, and anything else you can think of.

As an example, after hearing so much about the Sandman chronicles, I browsed through one. I found the art disappointing, and the story mildly interesting. However, it was still miles beyond any of the DC and Marvel comic books next to it.

Yes, there are great examples of American comic artists - Frank Miller comes to mind. But they are the vast exception in a sea of mediocrity.

This is also why I think that videogames will escape ghettoization - they are a worldwide phenomenon, and this alone will prevent them from sliding into a state that is as narrowly focused as american comics. To some extent, I think they already have. I can think of a number of games that are more art than game - Psychonauts, for one. Okami, for another.

Re:

Compare this with European comics (specifically Belgian and French), and you'll find everything from High Art to Low Art, super heros, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, surreal, spy, WW2, funny, serious, story-driven, art-driven, and anything else you can think of.

Of course, you can find these in American and Japanese comics, too. The difference is that they only bother to import the good stuff from Belgium, so when we see Belgian comics, we think they're all great.

You can extend this argument to classical music BTW:
The ba

there's no feeling

a friend of mine who is a fellow bookworm were talking several years back, and i told him about how i hadn't been touched by the plot of final fantasy 7 in the way that a lot of other people had (there's a touching bit where the female lead character dies and i had heard from several people who had said they'd been deeply moved by it).

he looked at me and said "maybe you and i aren't as affected by it because we actually read".

the cinema, theatre, and music can all be as deeply stirring as a good novel. comic books don't seem to get it most of the time, but there are "graphic novels" that attempt to speak in an adult way about adult situations.

games are just another popular art form, for better or for worse.

Re:there's no feeling

games are just another popular art form, for better or for worse.

Moreover games are an EMERGING popular art form, most emerging art forms are effectively shunned by the mainstream art world until they BECOME the mainstream. Video games as a medium are only a few decades old, and as a MASS market medium only a decade or so.

Look at the history of movies and movie making for example, how many directors, actors or script writers were recognized as artists in 1920 or 1930? Compare that with the explosion of the art form in the 50's and 60's. Note also the parallel between the censorship that occurred then with film that is now beginning with games.

People who DO look at the best of the gaming world as an art form and appreciate it as such are becoming more and more common, and as that progresses so will it's recognition by the mainstream art world. This is probably not something that will happen overnight, I expect it will take years or decades... but I wouldn't be at all surprised if 50 years from now there was not a gaming equivalent of the academy awards where some otherwise unknown will get the "Best Rendering in a Simulated World" and getting a script writing credit on the "Game of the Year" is as valued as much as one for a major film.

Patience Grasshopper, waiting is... you grok?

Welcome to 1936!

I think you're right on the money about games being an emerging form, and you're right to compare games to film as well. In fact, the more you know about film, the more striking that analogy becomes. So if you'll forgive a film geek for drawing the analogy in even more detail:

When film first began, it was a widely accepted fact that it would never be an art form. To a large degree, this was because people mistook temporary technical limitations for inherent artistic ones. "Film is silent and in black and white, and theater is in color with sound. Film will therefore always be an inferior version of the stage, at best." Indeed, film was generally seen as nothing more than lowbrow entertainment for illiterates, immigrants, and other types deemed inferior by meanstream society.

But then technicians solved more and more of the technical problems--allowing filmmakers to tell longer stories, and to film in more settings--and meanwhile, filmmakers were learning more and more about the possibilities of this new art form. Even before sound and color, you were beginning to have masterpieces that were recognized as works of art. Birth of a Nation was the first one, although it seems crude (and horribly racist) by modern standards. But by the time you got to the 1920s, people were making films that can still move modern audiences. Yet it took another decade or two for highbrow literary critics to catch on to this explosion of creativity.

The comparison to games is pretty obvious, I think. Technical developments are allowing better and better visual effects, and game makers are getting more and more sophisticated about exploiting the strengths of the form and working around the weaknesses. I would say that Doom was the gaming world's equivalent of Birth of A Nation--a work of tremendous energy that synthesized a whole lot of already existing elements into something that felt new and exciting. And I would say Deus Ex and Thief were like the films of the early 1920's--one day they will be classics, but when they came out, they were still part of a particular artistic ghetto. And now videogames are catching up to the films of the late 1920's/early 1930s--they are very sophisticated, and the outside world is just beginning to wake up to their merit.

One last thought: if commercial gaming began in 1972 with Pong, then the medium is 36 years old. If commercial film began in 1896 with the Lumiere brothers, then it would have been 36 years old in 1932. Which means that videogaming is evolving right on schedule. This means we can expect the Citizen Kane of the videogame world sometime in the next five or six years...

Re:

My first reaction was to protest that the Citizen Kane of videogames has already appeared... Planescape: Torment.

But I can admit there are some problems with that comparison. Torment had classic characters, a fascinating story, and important themes. But it was still held back somewhat by technical limitations and a little bit of a clunky game engine. Maybe it is the 'Birth of a Nation' analogue... a promising glimpse at what might someday be done.

If that game had been done today, with the technical

d) All of the above

Full disclosure: I worked heavily on the production of Bioshock's voiceover, so I have a bit of an opinion on this topic.

My own take is that gaming is a very broad medium - possibly even beyond film. We see in the film industry a single medium containing both Requiem For A Dream and Dumb and Dumberer. Miller's Crossing and Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit.

Games (not "entertainment software", games, damnit) cover a similar spectrum, even if the high-brow fare is a bit thin on the ground right now. Such was the case for film when that industry was gaming's current age.

At this point in time much of the gaming industry occupies the same functional niche as pornography - people go home after an exhausting day at work, have a beer, demolish noobs on Team Fortress 2 to relax, and then go to bed. But the existence of pornography in film does not prevent that medium from providing works of real intellectual and artistic substance. Neither does gaming as pornography - both literally and metaphorically - hinder the development of deeper experiences.

I think if anything gaming provides the potential for experiences of greater power than film because we can develop both narrative-driven and sandbox experiences for our audience. We've seen the promise of the latter in GTA*, Oblivion, and I believe we'll see more of it in Spore. We've witnessed an outstanding achievement in the former named Call of Duty 4 - and my hat is off to Infinity Ward for such an amazing work. Beyond the singleplayer, massively multiplayer games can also provide a great range of experiences - from Ultima Online's open-ended fantasy simulation to Planetside's extremely structured gameplay.

We will get gaming to the level where it can be taken seriously as a work of art. We are getting it to that level. Right this moment. Your patience, please. :)

*I am a Take 2 employee, blah blah blah the opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of my employer etc. etc. ad nauseum.

Lack of weighty subjects? PSHAW!

The lack of weighty subjects ceased being a problem in the video game industry many years ago, when Tomb Raider's Lara Croft gave us not one but two weighty subjects to consider.

The Perfect Setup

Games are different. There will always be games in one form or another. Which form will they take? Well, if convenience and accessibility have anything to do with it, then how about in my living room, on my pc, my cell, or a portable device in my pocket? Coincidentally, these all fall under "video games". So unless these mediums go away, video games are here to stay.

As a species we've been playing games far before we started reading, and surely we will continue far after we stop.

Maybe If Kids Learned How To Read...

Video games may be a hell of a lot easier to learn than literature appreciation, or even basic literacy, but I do have one question about that...

So?

My son is so incredibly happy that he's picking up reading skills that the Nintendo and my wife's computer are almost growing dusty from lack of use while he spends his time reading dinosaur books, and Calvin & Hobbes. True, hardly great literature, but the fact is just because something's easier to do doesn't mean it's going to win outright.

Then again, maybe the issue isn't the kids... let's face it, movies with substance, with a message, with depth and meaning don't tend to make a lot of money, and thus either don't get made, or only get shown on select screens for two weeks, and then fade into obscurity. Transformers made HOW much money?

Just ask grandma...

Just ask yourself these questions.

1) Does grandma read comics?
2) Does grandma play the Wii?

Translation...

learning to play videogames is considerably easier than developing an appreciation for literature of any kind.

Odd - since quite young children seem to enjoy being told stories (which sounds like "developing an appreciation for literature" to me).

So, perhaps the translation is "The videogame industry has yet to fully develop a parasitic industry of critics who 'appreciate' video games by writing pretentious deconstructions of them".

Currently, so-called "reviews" of video games are just descriptions of what the game entails, whether the gameplay is compelling and the quality of the technical execution. Anybody who has "developed an appreciation for literature" knows that proper reviews are smug little essays designed to impress upon the reader the reviewer's extreme wit and cleverness while scrupulously avoiding saying anything informative about the actual work under review, but citing myriad other obscure works in the clear expectation that any worthy reader will be familliar with them all.

Once the videogame industry has evolved such critics, all that remains is to ensure that all 5th graders are forced to write 1000 word reports on the influence of the depiction of dwarves in "Colossal Cave" on the works of Scott Adams then videogames will be accepted into the pantheon of true art.

Comparison to chess.

I'm going to argue that video games are not art, and may never be. But this is not a criticism of video games. The fact that I do not see games as "high art" is not to look down upon games. For example, I consider chess one of the finest achievements of human kind, something of cultural and political significance, and the worthwhile past time of some of the greatest minds that have ever lived. Maybe a goal of seeing video games as high art is not a good standard to judge them by.

Games can be important, of interest to all people, and held in respect. Their "artistic" role however is generally to act as an inspiration for, or a metaphor within, a work of art. You'll be able to find references to chess in every art form humankind has ever devised. A game of chess could be animated, delivered in 3D with incredible graphics and audio, with chess pieces designed by a world class sculptor moving on a board designed by a reknowned architect, against a backdrop painted by a famous artist, to a soundtrack written by a talented composer, orchestrated by a genius and performed by a philharmonic orchestra. You could devise some sophisticated plot that is reflected in the almost infinite variety of moves the game allows.

And yet, most would still call it a game rather than a work of art. All the "art" mentioned is simply window dressing for the game itself. The chess pieces may be sculpture, but are not part of the game of chess as such.

So what would video games need to achieve recognition as a serious art form? I don't think we'll know until we've reached the point they've earned that status. Then we'll look back with hindsight and go, "This is what it means for a games to become high art". But I'll take a stab at how we'll know we've reached that point. Once lead game designers start to achieve general recognition for their games and their meaning, just as everyone's heard of Shakespeare, Dickens and Hitchcock (insert locally relevant artists here...) then video games will have achieved the same status as "art".

Once they have, we'll be able to look back to now and consider where it all started. But currently, it may just be that even examples of great art direction (I liked the atmosphere of Thief, personally) is really just great interior decoration for a game. Current technology does not allow for the finesse of expression of actors in a film, or oil paints on a canvas, after all, and rarely do you feel the game has been designed to tackle complex dramatic themes - most plots and scripts are fairly cliched, frankly. This could all change however as technology advances and designers / directors are freed up to work on the art rather than the mechanics of their creations.

Re:Comparison to chess.

I think the thing to keep in mind is that there isn't just one type of video games. Video games are by far the most flexible medium of all. Take a text adventure with easy puzzles and a linear story and you have something that is very similar to a book, take some 3D game with heavy focus on cutscenes and you have something that is very similar to a movie and you can even completly move away from books and movies and do a game like Tetris, which is something completly different again. You can also create interactive worlds that don't have any fixed narrative at all, but which turn the player into the story creator or explorer.

Video games simply can be so many different things that there really is no limit in what they can do. They can be as linear or as flexible as you want them or as playful as you want them. They can be a toy or a teaching tool or both or something completly different. They can even be a social meeting place.

Well in that case...

Videogames could be the cultural equivalent of a ghetto filled with thugs, whores, crack dealers, derelict housing, corrupt cops, stray bullets, overflowing sewers, the homeless, broken glass, and gun-toting radioactive giant sewer rats and I'd still be happy as long as games are fun and stimulating.

I'll leave determining what and what isn't art to the professional intellectual masturbaters :)

Re:You know what the best games are??

Wait wait wait...you get a bunch of friends together and play (mostly) older games....and yet you don't play multiplayer Goldeneye, Masters of Orion, or Diablo? A curse upon your house...

Entertainment, and education

More than just entertainment for the whole family, video games can become a great teaching tool. Imagine learning about history in an RPG, witnessing historical events first hand. I still remember Oregon Trail. I wonder why more educational games haven't been released? Textbooks are huge business, why not textbook games?

Re:Entertainment, and education

Okay, but for instance, Oregon Trail wasn't rubbish and it taught a lot about the day to day life of a pioneer. I've learned a lot from games that didn't even really try to be educational, for instance, Civil War games, or Civ. Imagine learning about the Magna Carta by role playing King John. Or learning about physics in an interactive virtual physics lab. There are so many possibilities, and so far, they are mostly unrealized. I don't think we can say that about comics.

Re:Label maker.

Maybe you should be asking "How many people under 30 read comics?". One of the reasons why the comics industry is doing so badly is because there are few new readers, and the existing readership keeps getting older.

Ki