92: I'd Rather Game than Read a Book

The Escapist Staff

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"In a 2002 New Yorker essay titled "Mr. Difficult," author Jonathan Franzen of The Corrections fame argued that in the face of increased competition from movies, videogames and (oddly) extreme sports, fiction should mainstream itself. Fictional literature was under siege by figurative barbarians, and by perpetuating literature's difficult and inaccessible, the literary establishment was alienating potential readers. An intrepid reader might, at the suggestion of the literary establishment, pick up a "lyrical" book, only to trudge through page after page of unnecessary adjectives. For fiction to survive, according to Franzen, it has to cater to readers, the consumers who actually purchase and consume the product.

"I'm here as a Visigoth, banging on the gates of a doddering imperial Rome. Videogames have the potential to tell narratives and deliver experiences that fully outstrip those told by film, poetry and, yes, fiction. Yet, in terms of cultural respect, videogames are marginalized."

Vincent Kang sets his sites on the de-marginalization videogames.
I'd Rather Game than Read a Book
 
Apr 10, 2007
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This struck me as utterly idiotic. Using Star Wars adaptions as the frame of reference killed any validity the argument may have had. If Timothy Zahn is the best example of fiction you have to hand, then you obviously need to expand your horizons a bit. The problem is that you're using a crappy writer as a case study ("The TIE fighters pulled up like an exotic fountain.") and then using it to justify an argument that is actually based upon crappy writing.

It's not about using "100 adjectives in 100 sentences" to describe "every last pixel", it's about describing the situation as concisely as possible using the least amount of words to convey the mood and emotion that resonates with the reader. Mood and emotion are two things that videogames don't do well, apart from extreme ends of the spectrum (darkened rooms in Splinter Cell, histrionic character deaths in Final Fantasy, etc).

Basically, the article seems to be saying "I like to think I'm a jedi knight and I can do this better in a videogame than in a book. Therefore videogames are better than books". As I said - idiotic.
 

Dom Camus

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whistler77 said:
Basically, the article seems to be saying "I like to think I'm a jedi knight and I can do this better in a videogame than in a book. Therefore videogames are better than books".
That seems a very unfair mangling of the article's argument to me. There was no implicit claim that Timothy Zahn is at the forefront of modern literature. The question here is really: Could Heir to the Empire be rewritten to be, in some sense, better than Knights of the Old Republic ?

If the answer to that turns out to be "no", this then leads to the question of whether games are only good at addressing a very narrow class of story. Vincent Kang goes on to ask "Could there ever be a videogame that delivers the same impact as Franzen's The Corrections?". I don't quite agree with his answer, but I think he's asking absolutely the right question there.

In the field of writing it has occasionally been observed that one of the greatest weaknesses of fantasy and SF literature is the average standard of its writers. Whether or not we accept that claim, it is interesting to ponder whether games suffer from exactly this kind of problem.

Take, for example, the Broken Sword series. Could a game in this series have been an interactive Foucault's Pendulum ? It seems to me that it could - and I would certainly have preferred that myself - but in reality it comes nowhere close. Whether that is a failing on the part of the writers or a choice they made, I don't know.
 

drunkymonkey

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The comparison was between "a critically acclaimed" videogame, and a "universally loved" novel. This is inferring that they are equal in credibility as far as their respected mediums are concerned.

Because of this fallacy - comparing one of the best videos of all time to a book written for a franchise - the argument is weaker. Bioware vs Timothy Zahn; an industry leader vs a franchise writer. Surely it would have been better to compare KOTOR to something written by Iain Banks.

The fact is, you would not compare the game series Elder Scrolls and submise that it is narratively better than the book series Discworld. Where the characters and locations in Discworld are often full of life and charm, Oblivion's are mostly forgettable. True, Oblivion has a lot of things going for it, and the painting quest was excellent, but these only stand out because of the limited supply of other *gasp* events. Aeris' death in Final Fantasy is constantly talked about because it has very few peers. There are very few games that you can compare to books - Final Fantasy, Monkey Island, and perhaps Half Life 2 being noticeable examples, but even games that have tried so hard, such as Fable, end up coming tacked with a clichéd uninvolved plot and numerous cardboard characters.

I agree with the notion that video-games can be the ultimate media, but right now they are not, and if we truly want to get them there, then this kind of optimism really isn't helping. The best books are full of life and charisma, only a select few video games can claim that. The time-stop conversations and random babble that NPCs spew out to each other in Oblivion can't, nor can the standing-around-aimlessly, whilst-repeating-phrases-every-now-and-then characters in most story-led games can't either. Too often do games seem robotic and forced, and this is partly to do with technical limitations and also to do with the lack of imagination that goes into titles.
 

shadowbird

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The Article said:
Books are limited by what the reader has to draw upon in imagining scenes.
The limitation & disatvantage of a book is the fact that you have to excercise your own imagination? Oh my. I'll have to go a little grandpa-old-school on you here, but - put down that controller, sonny, and go read a book! Videogames imagine things for you - that's why they're easier to enjoy than a book. IMO pretty much every non-gamer (and some gamers) would argue that that acutally makes video games inferior to books. I don't agree with that, I think that trying to compare them is like comparing walking to driving. Neither is better than other, they each have their time and place.
 
Apr 12, 2007
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Shadowbird: your last sentence perfectly captures my main confusion about this piece. Games and literature are not a zero-sum game. The problem with the current system of delegitimizing games over other mediums is the assumption that we need some hierarchy of art in the first place. Nobody debates about whether painting or poetry is somehow inherently better, because such a debate would be absurd. It's equally absurd to compare books to video games--they're different mediums with different strengths.

The other thing that's absurd about the debate of games as a respected art (or entertainment) form is that it reflects the rise of pretty much every new medium. For a good time, check out the debate surrounding novels when they were first gaining broad traction. (The debate around the mid-to-late 1700s is a good example.) They were completely disregarded. People who read novels clearly had a defective intellect, a weak moral character, or both. The last of which is to say "were female." Much of the debate centered around the fact that lower classes and females seemed to like books, and pamphlet after pamphlet asserted that they would lead to social decrepitude. As a counter, critics held up poetry, didactic nonfiction, painting, and music. (I would imagine that the same held true for early film, an art that's still struggling for legitimacy in some areas.) I'm pleased to report that, since then, society has not devolved into brutal savagery.

My problem with this article is that it tried to take on a "books vs. games" debate on its own terms, when actually the foundation of the argument is broken. At its strongest, the article asked, "Could there ever be a videogame that delivers the same impact as Franzen's The Corrections?" Even that question reflects the assumption that an apples-to-apples comparison between mediums is possible, but it's a lot better than the argument that video games are somehow the apotheosis of art, that they will someday transcend all other art that has come before and create the perfect... what? Entertainment? Experience? Jonathan Franzen should not jump ship--he would make terrible video games.
 

te2rx [deprecated]

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(devil's advocate mode. I'm aware of the sweeping generalizations I'm making here.)

I think one of the points of the article is describing inherent shortcomings of the medium of written words. The choice of comparison (star wars franchise) is up for debate, but I think one of the points he is trying to illustrate is the inadequacy of words in describing visuals and action. It takes several paragraphs to paint a detailed picture -- with very little accuracy. Whether or not you see that as a virtue, I hope you can agree on that.
Videogames imagine things for you - that's why they're easier to enjoy than a book. IMO pretty much every non-gamer (and some gamers) would argue that that acutally makes video games inferior to books.
how? If it's more vague, more unnatural, and less immediate in description compared to a more direct, natural representation (art, photo, film, animation, sound/music) that makes it superior? This is the kind of argument that drives me crazy, as if imagining some "tie fighters pulling up like an exotic fountain" is inherently more intellectual, or inherently more engaging and stimulating than seeing a well-realized animation of it. IMO the only thing words handles well is conveying dry/intellectual information and well, dry language. This is why I largely don't bother with fictional narratives in the written word -- it's like hearing someone desperately trying to describe what could otherwise be a decent comic or movie. It's like a placeholder for artistic vision and production value.

And the way words rely on your mind's eye... I want to argue that that's less intellectually stimulating if all you're doing is wanking your mind's eye rather than being confronted with new images and stimuli coming from an external source.

There's also the issue of interactivity versus non-interactivity, but I feel that's where things become a little too "apples and oranges" (or generally too wide open) to discuss all at once -- as if the subject wasn't wide open enough :p
 

shadowbird

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te2rx said:
Videogames imagine things for you - that's why they're easier to enjoy than a book. IMO pretty much every non-gamer (and some gamers) would argue that that acutally makes video games inferior to books.
how? If it's more vague, more unnatural, and less immediate in description compared to a more direct, natural representation (art, photo, film, animation, sound/music) that makes it superior?
If it's "more vague, more unnatural and less immediate" for you, then - well, I'm sorry. When I read a book, the way I see the events described happening has never ever been surpassed by any visual medium - be it comic, movie or a book. The argument is that well-written word has unlimited potential and different (while still similar) for each reader. Also, imagination is basis of all "above basic survival" thought, meaning anything that exercises imagination also excercises one's ability to think for themselves. Not to say games don't do that at all, but in this specific area a good book beats a good game any day.

It takes several paragraphs to paint a detailed picture -- with very little accuracy
OK. Now tell me, how do you imagine this ONE SENTENCE shown in game: "Though none of the crew showed any emotion, a sudden cold from the feeling of impending death gripped at their hearts - and each knew the others were just as scared."
 

Ajar

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Exactly. Writing can get into the heads of characters in a way that games and movies largely can't -- text adventures excepted. They can capture and describe internal intellectual and emotional experiences, and, at their best, do so in beautiful and moving ways.

If the books you're reading are nothing more than visual and auditory descriptions of scenes, I submit that you're reading the wrong books. So, put down the Timothy Zahn, and pick up, say, Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet, or Peter Watts' Blindsight. No game comes close to the depth of experience offered by those books -- and I say that as someone who loves games, especially games that push the envelope in terms of exploring emotion and morality (e.g. Planescape: Torment, Shadow of the Colossus).

I want to argue that that's less intellectually stimulating if all you're doing is wanking your mind's eye rather than being confronted with new images and stimuli coming from an external source.
Processing visual and auditory stimuli is something the brain can do at a subconscious level -- do you have to think about looking left or right, or can you just do it? Do you have to decide to listen to the person standing in front of you, or do you just hear them? When you read, your brain has to create all of that context and then process it.

I realize you're in devil's advocate mode, though. :)
 

te2rx [deprecated]

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OK. Now tell me, how do you imagine this ONE SENTENCE shown in game: "Though none of the crew showed any emotion, a sudden cold from the feeling of impending death gripped at their hearts - and each knew the others were just as scared."
In a way this sentance also suffers from the "tie fighters pulling up like an exotic fountain" problem. If you were a filmmaker you could (and I know this is "cheating" in a sense) have some voice-over narration that simply stays "Though none of the crew showed any emotion[...]" -- but there are tons of ways to go about conveying this visually, and surely you've seen this kind of scene conveyed in movies previously:

The crew deadly silent and "emotionless" in contrast to whatever grim revelation that just came to light. Maybe to better convey their struggle to appear emotionless, grant a few of them some subtle nervous ticks. One crew member looks at the other and sees their hand shaking or their fingers twitching. That crew member looks back at the other and also recognizes similar signs of nervousness. With those exchanged glances, you can convey how "each knew the others were just as scared". All the aspects of sound, lighting, and cinematography can be used to further convey the subtext. The result can prove to be more emotionally gripping and convincing than simply reading a very direct dry description of how the crew was frightened. I used movies as an example because it's simpler. Re-imagining this scene in a game requires a lot more context -- like what kind of game is it, how does the game convey information, and in what ways can the user interact with the scene, and so on

But in general I agree that getting into the head of characters and straight-on showing their internal thoughts is a real virtue of written narrative storytelling. The only way to accurately convey internal dialogue in a movie or a game is still with words -- on-screen text or voice over narration. You can imply some of it by injecting your film/game with lots and lots of rich, layered subtext, but that approach can fail if what needs to be conveyed is far too elaborate and sophisticated to be described without words. That approach won't be as direct and tangible as reading the words themselves, "this is how I feel" and "this is what I think".
 

arrr_matey

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This opinion piece is a new low for unsubstantiated ranting at the Escapist. At least it was mercifully short.

Because visual media are so different from textual ones, there's no point in comparing them. It comes down to personal taste, which is the only argument that the author puts forth. He likes video games more, therefore video games are better. That's the kind of opinion one would expect a grade 2 student to have. I expect better from a paid writer.
 

Nordstrom

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Chocolate is better than baseball because chocolate gives me an experience that baseball can't match. Playing a game of baseball doesn't come close to the sensual taste experience of chocolate.
 

sharp_as_a_cork

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cthulhie said:
Shadowbird: Nobody debates about whether painting or poetry is somehow inherently better, because such a debate would be absurd.
Actually, from a recent biography, it seems that Leonardo De Vinchi and Michaelangelo had an argument, through a mutual friend, about which was superior: painting or sculpting.
 

Bongo Bill

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Literature is a highly refined and highly democratized art form. Not only is the barrier for entry very low, but its conventions are ingrained on our very civilization, making room for a true master's subtleties to be noticed.

I would bet that, among the designers currently floating out there, both in corporate-land and the indiesphere, video games already have their Isaac Asimov, Upton Sinclair, Hans Christian Andersen, Homer, Franz Kafka, and a few others. The difficulty is that as a medium, games are still so poorly defined and refined that the subtleties these people (and groups - don't think that literature can't be made by several people acting in concert) include are lost among the broad strokes which most of its fans value and in terms of which most of its creators think.

Games may have their visceral Hollywood thrills and their emergent Zen strategies, but they simply don't have the history to identify what constitutes this medium's avenue for transcendent greatness. And without that knowledge, you can't have a Goethe or Mark Twain to act within and explore that avenue.
 

Sarienn

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I have always thought that gaming journalism US and WEurope readers, and especially the Escapist readers, are a great community because, in Escapist's case mainly, they are mature and respectful and would never "byte? a new writer because they are wise enough to know that being bad will never help.

Although I disagree with the stated things, the article did make me ask myself interesting questions, such as, "Should we compare books with games now?" or "Will there ever be a time when we can compare books and games?" I personally believe that right now, the best thing to do is not to compare, but to combine books and games - as there are so many games with wonderful history and legend that would, in my humble opinion, deserve a "history" book for me to read from time to time - since I am starting to learn IWD and Warcraft and such by heart :). However the author stated he rather plays a game than read a book - and that's something that could very well characterize many of today's young people. Why? It's clear that games do have something books don't have, as it is also clear that the world of today - maybe - has changed too much to allow books to be one of the most important... entertainment thing to do. I think games could make young people read more, and books could make people play more. I think the immersion a book offers, in a story, is too different from the immersion a games offer, to make a sane comparison. But that in a world where free time is becoming so rare, there are people like the author of the article, who are forced to choose.
 

Nordstrom

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I don't think that the article was bad. I found it interesting. With a slight change in wording, the debate would have disappeared. For example, I agree that there are many things that games do better than books. You can't reduce a game to book format without losing something significant. However, it doesn't follow that games are always better than books. Try turning Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment into a game without losing something. Vincent did an interesting comparison between a book and a game -- I liked it -- but that result can't be generalized to all books and games.
 

aniki21

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te2rx said:
OK. Now tell me, how do you imagine this ONE SENTENCE shown in game: "Though none of the crew showed any emotion, a sudden cold from the feeling of impending death gripped at their hearts - and each knew the others were just as scared."
In a way this sentance also suffers from the "tie fighters pulling up like an exotic fountain" problem. If you were a filmmaker ... there are tons of ways to go about conveying this visually
There's other ways to do it than just visually as well; even without resorting to the visual tricks you specifically mention, you could use music to convey emotion pretty effectively.

I think there's a limitation on the ability of the written word to communicate because it's only got words to do it (let's leave out the potential of the reader's imagination, since that's outside the creator's control). In cinema and in games, you've got all sorts of visual tricks and audio that you can use to build tension, emotion or any other emotion you want to elicit in your audience.