Games vs. popular media: the debate
Gamasutra reports on a panel held this weekend in Austin entitled "Games: the bastard children of popular media". Responding to Roger Ebert's comment last year that video games don't measure up to the standard set by other popular media, the panellists' debate covered movies, youth culture and even the moral situations of Ultima IV, pointing out that:
Games, being interactive, are meant to tell stories in a different way, by giving their audiences a participatory experience. Instead of watching a movie about the horrors of war, a gamer can play Civilization and see what happens to an area of the world.
An interesting point brought up in the report is that of longevity--will we be playing the games we play now in 500 years' time, just as Shakespeare's plays are still studied and performed? It's unlikely; printed paper, unlike today's consoles, probably won't become obsolete. Perhaps what survives of today's games might not be code and sprites, but characters, stories and concepts, with Mario becoming as time-honoured as Hamlet and Macbeth.
