ARTICLE/BOOK: Inside the Box / 'Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter'
A review of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter from the New York Times. "The best account yet of what it feels like to be a video gamer at a time when humanity is encountering a new form of storytelling."... for you to decide...
Inside the Box
By CHRIS SUELLENTROP
Published: June 9, 2010
Video games have created what must be the biggest generation gap since rock ’n’ roll. Sure, a generational rift of sorts emerged when the World Wide Web showed up near the end of the last century, but in the case of the Web, the older cohort admired and tried to emulate the younger crowd, rather than looking down on them with befuddlement or disdain. With games, a more traditional “Get off my lawn” panic has reared its head.
Take Roger Ebert, one of the most outspoken voices on the fogy side of this divide. In April, Ebert enraged a good portion of the Internet with a post titled “Video Games Can Never Be Art” on his Chicago Sun-Times blog. (To which one games blogger offered the rejoinder “Art Can Never Be Video Games.”) Acknowledging that “never” is a “long, long time,” Ebert wrote, “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”
Ebert was restating a claim he made five years ago that “no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.” And he’s right about that, for now. But I would happily accept a wager, and I imagine Tom Bissell would, too. Almost 30 years ago, Martin Amis wrote a book called “Invasion of the Space Invaders,” now out of print, about the dawn of the arcade era of video games — which Bissell nods at in the very first sentence of his new book, “Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter.” A mere blink of an eye later, video games (at least the kind Bissell is interested in) have evolved into ambitious works of narrative fiction. They are not yet, granted, what we would regard as literary fiction, but that’s one reason Bissell wrote this book. (Of early game designers he writes, “These men’s minds were typically scattered with the detritus of Tolkien, ‘Star Wars,’ Dungeons and Dragons, ‘Dune’— and that was if they had any taste.”)
By CHRIS SUELLENTROP
Published: June 9, 2010
Video games have created what must be the biggest generation gap since rock ’n’ roll. Sure, a generational rift of sorts emerged when the World Wide Web showed up near the end of the last century, but in the case of the Web, the older cohort admired and tried to emulate the younger crowd, rather than looking down on them with befuddlement or disdain. With games, a more traditional “Get off my lawn” panic has reared its head.
Take Roger Ebert, one of the most outspoken voices on the fogy side of this divide. In April, Ebert enraged a good portion of the Internet with a post titled “Video Games Can Never Be Art” on his Chicago Sun-Times blog. (To which one games blogger offered the rejoinder “Art Can Never Be Video Games.”) Acknowledging that “never” is a “long, long time,” Ebert wrote, “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”
Ebert was restating a claim he made five years ago that “no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.” And he’s right about that, for now. But I would happily accept a wager, and I imagine Tom Bissell would, too. Almost 30 years ago, Martin Amis wrote a book called “Invasion of the Space Invaders,” now out of print, about the dawn of the arcade era of video games — which Bissell nods at in the very first sentence of his new book, “Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter.” A mere blink of an eye later, video games (at least the kind Bissell is interested in) have evolved into ambitious works of narrative fiction. They are not yet, granted, what we would regard as literary fiction, but that’s one reason Bissell wrote this book. (Of early game designers he writes, “These men’s minds were typically scattered with the detritus of Tolkien, ‘Star Wars,’ Dungeons and Dragons, ‘Dune’— and that was if they had any taste.”)
Full article can be found here.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Darci Sosa on
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It's funny you have this book here. It was featured on NPR a bit ago. While I couldn't find that podcast, I did find this review on NPR's "Books We Like" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127597416
This book is on my summer reading list. I did my masters Thesis on gaming in the classroom so I am curious about his slant on this topic -
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Permalink Reply by Ryan Goble on
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Sounds like an interesting thesis - I have to say gaming is one area of media I'm a total moron at - Super Mario Brothers was too complicated for me in 1989 - that was when I hung up my joystick. I'm more rooted in PacMan & Space Invaders :) You know it may just be one of those NPR stories where they just posted a transcript and no audio. It was an interesting review - thank you for sharing it!
Ry:) -
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