I don’t know if a lot of people would identify a connection with literature and video games. Who knows, though — some might. Either way, there’s a lot to notice about the two and how they can do a lot for people and their well being. What is ‘a lot’ ? Let’s take a look.
Both literature and gaming give people the ability to escape. Whether it’s another person’s story or a complete different world, both have the ability to take a reader or gamer a few steps outside of their personal reality and into something different. Who says the Halo universe and Tolkien’s Middle Earth both don’t take people into a new world that is just plain fun.
Both literature and gaming give authors and artists the ability to express themselves. We saw in one of our readings, Roger Ebert’s Video games can never be art, that the subject is a little disputed, as to whether video games are, in fact, art. It goes without saying that literature can be considered a work of art. It takes time, creativity, imagination, and skill. I don’t know about some of you out there, but I would like to think that same criteria is met by those creating the Grand Theft Auto games that I spend all night playing. Game developers are passionate about their work, the same way novelists are.
Both video games and literature create opportunities for a “better world.” Sure, both literature and gaming receive a lot of criticism for what they do. Think, banned books and censorship and age restrictions with gaming, but, as the video highlights, there are some real positives. We just have to be willing to accept that fact that the different kinds of arts and imaginations all produce different kinds of outcomes. What good is a world if we put guidelines and regulations on the way we express ourselves and the way we use our own imaginations?
