There are a lot of entertainment media out there in the world today. Books, music, film, comics, you name it–if we’ve got technology to make it a communication medium, we’ve made it into one. As technology grows and changes, we’ll create new ways of entertaining and enlightening ourselves, because that’s what we’ve always done. It’s in our nature, and right now, video gaming is one of the newest major communication mediums out there.
Somewhere else, someone’s having an argument about video games, and they’re being shot down because “it’s just a game. Stop taking things so seriously.”
I’ve been playing computer of video games on and off since the 1980s. I also read lots of books, listen to lots of music across many genres and enjoy watching movies. But, unlike literature, music and cinema, there does still appear to be a stigma associated with gaming. “It’s not art”, according to many influential people — it’s just “playing around” or “wasting time”. But I do think in time games will become accepted in the same way as other art and cultural forms. I’m not talking about games like Angry Birds, but rather groundbreaking games like Braid, Journey, Myst and even Portal. As the article suggests, maybe we need to call them something else to earn a little more respect?