But the real answer is that videogames are where all the interesting work is being done because that's where we have the most holes in our knowledge.
I think the complete opposite is true. Lots of video games have come out in the past few years. Some have been fairly entertaining. I can think of very few that I would describe as truly "interesting work".
Meanwhile, tiny independently-produced pen-and-paper games keep blowing my mind on a fairly regular basis. Not bad for a niche-within-a-niche that probably numbers in the low thousands at best.
If you want to force-feed your brain until it pukes, you could try reading up on Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist theory, where players are described in robust terms that define them according to why they game. A couple of roleplayers can talk to each other for a minute or two and immediately have a pretty clear understanding of what sorts of things the other person is looking for in a game. Some people want to take part in and help weave an epic tale, to inhabit a deep and authentic world of lifelike characters. Other players just want to pit themselves against an endless series of cunning challenges that test their strategic mettle.
Contrast this with how videogamers are divided up: Hardcore. Mainstream. Casual. So instead of identifying players by what they look for in gaming, we end up sorting players by how much they play or how skilled they are.
GNS isn't really where it's at, though. It's just a first draft for "the Big Model". And the weakest part of the Big Model? Why, the creative agendas, of course! Fundamentally, GNS is only a few baby steps away from "rollplayers vs. roleplayers", which is just as weak as hardcore/casual/mainstream.
Here's the most important and (I hope) most lasting thing about all of GNS theory: RPGs are about shared fiction. There were categories before G, N, and S; there'll be categories afterward -- probably better ones. We didn't need more categories. What we needed was more people pointing out that not all "storytelling" is the same, that
every participant in the game is a co-author, that the "munchkins" or "rollplayers" actually have social and narrative goals, and that the community was shooting itself in the foot by talking about "roleplaying" as one specific act (and
especially by equating it with in-character dialogue or backstories or "immersion").
....
We have some pretty good theories and player typologies and the like for video games already, I think -- as good as pen-and-paper games', at least. They're just not widely used by the community of people who play games or, as far as I can tell, by the community of people who make them, either. I think that's really the commercial nature of games at work.
Video games are big business. Spending millions to create a product that lots of people will buy necessarily involves a lot of risk-reduction -- which translates to sticking to certain formulas artistically. Because video games also kinda straddle the world of games and cinema, a lot of experimentation seems to be diverted into the "cinema" side because it's, well, a weird-looking game with familiar gameplay is less of a business risk than a game that changes up how players actually interact with it and each other.
Pen-and-paper RPGs aren't big business. Or, if they are, it's only for one or two companies -- and they're not the ones coming up with big new ideas or highly-focused games. D&D is still marketed as being just as one-size-fits-all as it was ten or twenty years ago.
On top of that, hobbyist production of video games is a pain in the ass. Any design for a video-game requires tons of programming and artwork to become an actual playable
thing, whereas with a pen-and-paper game or board game, refining your design and writing it up nicely on paper means you've already done 90% of the work.
-- Alex
