[LurkingPresence]

I'm glad someone is finally saying this. Gaming seems to suffer from a serious inferiority complex, where they hope by mimicking the dominant art forms they can gain legitimacy. So a game like Bioshock is seen as superior to a game like Ms. Pacman because it has all these "movie-like" qualities. It has nice production values, and a narrative, a soundtrack. In reality I think 20 years from now you will still have people trying to break high score records on games like Ms. Pacman and Donkey Kong whereas Bioshock will be seen the same way we look at games like Night Trap today.

I think the most damaging idea to ever enter gaming is the myth that it's primarily a 'narrative' medium. That is horribly reductionist and limiting. Games are about narrative generation, not narrative delivery. That's the beauty of it. Each starcraft match is a narrative in the same way a professional chess match is a narrative. I think this is why let's plays are so popular. You aren't watching to get the game's story, you are watching to get the specific narrative that is created by a certain person playing the game.