Ian Bogost is one of my fave figures in the entire industry, because he always challenges the way we think about games. He recently gave this lecture at the SIEGE developers' conference in Atlanta, using poetry as a device to discuss why games can be culturally important to us, excerpted in small part here:The whole lecture is online and very worth your time. Check it out!Videogames will not be important because we say they are now, in this room, with all the hubris and import of professionals bearing credentials and affiliations as validation. They will not be important because of novel new mechanics that pique occasional, temporary curiosities. They will not be important when they make Steven Spielberg cry over them or Roger Ebert review them. They will not be important when they find their place in Entertainment Weekly or in the New Yorker. They will not be important when they become a regular part of gradeschool curricula, and they will not be important when they help government agents identify terrorists, and they will not be important when they teach burger flippers how to apply pickles to charbroiled patties.
No, they will only be important when — and if — others can point to our medium — to particular examples of it — and locate moments of individual insight that mattered in their lives. This is a charge for which we have only indirect control. We cannot insure it with transistors and pixel shaders. We cannot will it, we cannot even expect it. All we can do is live as people, as flawed, confused, aggrieved, dismayed joyful, surprised, hopeful people like everyone who came before us, like all who will follow. And like them, all we can do is record those flaws, confusions, grievances, shocks, joys, surprises, and hopes.
We might choose to do so in videogames because they are a medium uniquely built for simulating life, for constraining actions, for creating roles others can embody. We might choose to do so in videogames because they are a medium of our moment in history. We might choose to do in videogames so because it is hard to do, because unlike the lyric poem they are a medium with more raw potential than proven triumph.
