"So what have games given me? Experiences. Not surrogate experiences, but actual experiences, many of which are as important to me as any real memories. Once I wanted games to show me things I could not see in any other medium. Then I wanted games to tell me a story in a way that no other medium can. Then I wanted games to redeem something absent in myself. ... I learned that maybe all a game can do is point at the person who is playing it, and maybe this has to be enough."
-Tom Bissell, from his book
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
Read the book, then listen to Michael Abbott's most excellent interview with the author here.
2 comments:
That quote, which I think he wrote in the article that lead to the book, is the quote.
Nice to see that in my RSS reader, around all the E3 trailers, news about Playboy's new role in videogames and all the other bric-a-brac.
What's the famous line from the girl who played a RIFTS game where her dead fellows-in-arms had their brains uploaded into her gear for a lengthy trek through a desolate wasteland? Something like "I have all these vivid memories of events that never happened..."
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