Video Lit
There's been a fair bit of controversy over Roget Ebert's statement in his Q&A column that video games aren't equal to film and literature. And there have of course been many counterexamples given by various game fans. Aeris has been invoked.
Seems to me that there's a point being missed, though. If a video game contains cut scenes or canned dialogue that is of literary merit, does that mean the video game is of literary merit? If so, the task of elevating games to literature is pretty simple; just write a standard first-person shooter, but between every level you have to read a chapter of Anna Karenina.
Let's say we accept the notion that Final Fantasy VII contains a great, worthy storyline. I'm not arguing this, I'm just postulating it for the sake of a thought experiment here. Can you seriously claim that forty hours of wandering around getting jumped by Elfadunks and Garudas is contributing to that story? The gaming aspect of FFVII is a means to get to the story. Arguing that the game is literature because it lets you get to the story is like arguing that unwrapping a CD and peeling off the little protective label is music.
I don't buy the idea that the game part is literature just because there are two or three endings, either. Again, typically the gaming only leads to canned story. The gaming experience, in terms of story, is just an elaborate version of "chapter select" on a DVD menu. That doesn't satisfy me.
I think we may be skirting around the edges of gaming-as-literature at this point in the evolution of the gaming experience. Adventure games, bless their neglected souls, come at it from one angle. Instead of unlocking large chunks of story in a more-or-less predetermined order, adventure games like Sam and Max Hit the Road form a sort of pool of dialogue and action that is assembled by the gamer. Unfortunately, the pools tend to be limited and repetitive, and are typically themselves keys to unlock the "real" story.
Simulation games come at it from another angle. A game like The Sims 2 dispenses with dialogue and plot, and invites the gamer to fill in the blanks. Why is the man of the house suddenly smooching with the mail lady? How come their daughter seems to be obsessed with the telescope? Again, though, we're dealing with primitive and constrained story elements, and the literary result is similarly primitive and constrained.
Ebert seems to feel that the reason games are doomed as literature is that they give the player too much control. "Video games by their nature require player choices," he says. "Which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control." I think in order for video games to be literature -- as opposed to merely containing literature -- authorial control is precisely what needs to be abandoned. In the current market there's not much call for that; gamers typically want tight gameplay and well-rendered, well-acted cutscenes. But as the market expands and indie gaming heats up, we may see more room for experimental niche games that aren't so concerned with flying off the shelves at Wal-Mart. Maybe then we can see some progress on the literary side of the form.