Video games have the potential to tell the most amazing and compelling stories. The interactive nature gives the player the ability to feel connected to a narrative in a visceral and powerful way. The best video games have made me feel a wide array of emotions, from fist pumping triumph to a kind of quite melancholy. However, these kinds of games are the exception, not the norm. Most games dont make the effort, focusing more on gameplay for gameplays sake. While there is nothing wrong with these types of games, it is a shame that not more of them try to do something different. More than any other medium, video games suffer from a lack of narrative diversity. Even some great games tell poorly written or clichéd stories. One of the biggest hopes for the future of video games is that they start to mature and tell more diverse and well written stories. Games are evolving beyond more gamey designs and are starting to focus more on making the player feel something. Gone Home, considered one of the best games of last year by many people, is just about exploring a house. There is no real objective or score keeping. Some have attacked it by saying its not a game, but they are limiting themselves by definition. If video games remain a medium that focuses on shooting and stats and end of the world plots, it will never reach its true potential, which is immeasurable. Instead of a passive observer, a video game player is the protagonist through action, and as a result, games have the ability to give the player an outlet to truly explore fascinating moral and social issues. You can learn so much about yourself through a game like Papers, Please precisely because of its subject matter, which forces you to make ethical decisions that effect people. Going even beyond the more philosophical, on a purely emotional level, video games have the edge over a movie or a book. From experience, I can say that there have been characters in video games that Ive cared about more than most from other works of entertainment. Games are personal, allowing you to form a more direct relationship with the art, and when it has something to say, the result can be quite powerful. Its why we get so upset about them so much of the time. Hopefully video games will continue to mature and someday reach their full potential.
