Questions
Video games have long been regarded by many to be frivolous excursions with little to no educational/artistic/literary value. Now, however, we have inserted video games into the genre of electronic literature. What, if anything, makes a video game literary? As a combination of the visual enterprise of film and the innovative structure of graphic novels, video games are able to do things with narrative that no other medium has done before. For many, the very appeal of video games lies in the sense of control that the player holds. What you can read from the pages from a novel, you can instead moderate for yourself in a story-based video game. This provides players with a new relationship toward the characters and story that cannot be experienced through written means—they feel as if they have some governance over how the story progresses and what happens.
But can all video games be literature? This I am still trying to decipher. Jason Nelson’s “game, game, game, and again game” is at once literary, for juxtaposed against the drawings and animations are written excerpts that underlie the gameplay itself. Likewise, Juliet Escoria’s “Into the Woods: A Moving Picture Book” constitutes both a video game and piece of literature as it is interspersed with text, moving images, and player controls. But what about "Call of Duty?" Is there anything literary about flipping through menu screens to customize a sniper rifle? Or joining a massive multiplayer lobby where trash-talking abounds? Or getting rewarded for killing an enemy with a triumphant headshot? Wouldn’t I like to know…
