Video Games: The Other Kind of Book.

I'm going to break down a fairly arbitrary list of "The Arts" (capitalized because they're all so very important) in order from high-brow to low-brow. Some of you may not like this list.

1. Books
2. Film
3. Music
4. TV
5. "The video-games"

Now, pretty much all of you will tell me that this list is bullshit in one way or another. You're probably right. I shouldn't have ranked them in the first place. But this isn't my personal list. It's the list I imagine most people who unironically call themselves "intellectuals" would make if asked. Snobs, all of them. you could make the argument that music is higher art than film or whatever, but what's important here are the ends: books are at the top, and video games are the bottom. Now, I'm sure you don't agree with this order (as I've said a bunch of times already), but would you agree that this is sort of the way the average person would rank them? Even people who love video games might rank these things the same way. But the "self-depreciating culture of gamers" diatribe has already been been written. I think.

I've always found it interesting that the bookends (pardon the loose pun) are what I'd call active entertainment. Film, Music, and TV all happen without your go-ahead; you're a captive audience, in a way. They will proceed without any action on your part. You can control the flow of narrative, but that's optional. And a recent development.

In both books and video games, you're forced to do the storytelling yourself. You have to physically engage yourself in the story to see it through. Both books and video games both have linear narratives. Now, games offer more freedom of expression in that regard, but most modern games have a set story, and your goal as the player is to see it play out. Many games have diverging storylines, but so do some books. Choose-your-own-adventure stories are one example. House of Leaves is another, different example, with its many diversions and sub-plot. 

The big difference in a storytelling sense is that it's harder to advance the story in game than in a book, and that brings me to my next point. When comparing games to books, we usually only see the storytelling side. But when you expand the point to all of books, you can spot another clear comparison: textbooks. Video games that don't focus on story (your Pac-Mans, Mario's, etc) focus on learning a system and using it to complete a challenge, the same way that a math textbook would; they introduce a concept, show you how it works, have you apply it in several ways. A review, and then a test. 

When you combine the two comparisons, you get a pretty good metaphor for what video games are: a textbook with a story. You know those "story problems" you encountered in high school that made you angry because you couldn't work them out, or because you thought Sally was an idiot for holding three apples in her hand when she was the supermarket because she could've just used a bag? Turns out, that's kind of what video games are.

I don't mean to degrade the quality of storytelling in games, but you see my point. Video games are much closer to Books than anyone gives them credit for, and maybe we could use this to shape our discussions in games. Video games take a lot from movies, television, and music, but their closest relative is actually the book. Maybe now we could move video games' position on that list I made up a notch.