Gaming Vs. Reading
For a long time, playing video games was seen as pretty much the polar opposite of reading. Whereas reading was treated as a high intellectual activity that stimulated ones synapseses, video games were seen as mindless entertainment, sucking the brain dry of creativity. Of late however, that idea's started to turn on it s head.
I'm not going to make the case that playing Dots for 16 hours straight will make you a genius (in fact, it may just give you carpal tunnel syndrome). What I will say however, is that there's an increasing awareness of the creativity that goes into actually writing and producing video games, and that they can be valuable sources of plot and narrative, be inhabited by rich characters, and inspire creative thinking- all that stuff that everyone says about books.
Case in point, Canadian author Jill Murray recently made the
switch from writing books to writing for video games. After writing two amazing YA novels about breakdance crews in Toronto, Jill got a job at Ubisoft in Montreal where she now writes the scripts for games like Assassin's Creed. Proof that her impressive writing chops have moved from novels to games, Murray won'the prestigious Writer's Guild of America prize for Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing for her work creating a script for AC III. (For more about Jill, check out this great interview from earlier this year on Torontoist).
Other authors have looked to video gaming for inspirations. A great piece of classic gaming-inspired Sci fi is Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, in which the main character (ironically named Hiro Protagonist) escapes his life as a pizza delivery boy to become the ninja king of a virtual reality community called the Metaverse. More recently, Ernest Cline has written the immensely readable Ready Player One, in which the survivors of a postapocalyptic world regularly escape their grim existence by logging into a huge sandbox game called OASIS. Cline has obviously spent a fair amount of time gaming, as he references pretty much every videogame from Pac Man to World of Warcraft in his well written, dystopic fantasy.
In other words, I think gaming and reading don't have to be treated as such oppositional activities. Gaming can provide inspiration for great fiction, and similarly, there are some very talented authors out there contributing to the world of video games.
So what do you think? Is playing a great video game the equivalent of reading a good book? What's your favourite video game, and how important is the plot and the characters to making it enjoyable for you? Share your thoughts!
15 thoughts on “Gaming Vs. Reading”
I think that playing video games and reading books are both great. I prefer books.
books are incredibly important, but i did love the first time i played grand theft auto. (the original) blew me away.
I will always pick reading over gaming, but I have been known to play DS games for the majority of a day. I even beat Tetris once. Good times.
Books > Video Games.. but don’t get me wrong, I do love a good video game!
I like books better. But I don’t really mind video games. My favorite video games would be Ratchet and clank, God of War, Jak and Daxter, and pretty much most other platformer games. They’re equal in a way, but books make your mind do the work.
Glad people still like to read books 🙂
I’m dating myself pretty seriously here, but some of my favourite video games are retro puzzle-adventure games like the Monkey Island series or Day of the Tentacle by Lucasarts. They’re really well written & hilarious and have plots that drew me in almost as much as a lot of books I read. I’d recommend them to anyone who likes a good story as much as playing games.
(my opinion)I like reading books better because your imaginations get bigger while reading them. as in video games your imagination does bloom but not as much.
I find that reading is still better than playing video games. Just like what Anika said, with books, your imagination broadens. Although, playing video games is quite fun as it stimulates you.
Playing a video game isn’t an equivalent to reading a great book, but it’s a close runner up. After reading for hours at a time I feel like I’ve waken up from a dream, but after I play video games for a long time I feel brain dead and completely out of it.
But, I do agree with the idea that both video games and novels involve a creative process that allows gamers and readers to enjoy playing/reading. Both video games and books need to have a plot, characters, a setting, a storyline, a goal etc. to be enjoyable.
Unless you play Call of Duty, I don’t even know if that has a storyline. I only like games with an actual goal and story.
What’s your favourite story-based video game, Asma?
Video games can deliver rich narrative experiences, just look at the Bioshock series or indie (independant) games like Journey, or the recently released The Last of Us, all of these games combine traditional game mechanics with compelling and rich narratives, some ambitious games even try to incorporate philosophical allegories into the narrative as seen with the commentary on Ayn Rand’s Objectivist movement in Bioshock 1.
Good recommendations, Affaan! I’d forgotten about the the Rand/Bioshock connection!
professor layton games are filled with puzzles and riddles and are anything but mindless. I like the games and the characters a lot.but i do like books better.
p.s. has anyone played The Last of Us? I love Ellie:)
Lets be honest, video games are fun. But too much of it? You’ll feel like you have been up all night. Also, you get a massive headache. And really, what is the point of games? True that it provides enjoyment, but only short term. What will you do when you have completed the game? Is it of any use to you? People should do other things like read books, play outside or take a walk. After all, these help you and they can be pretty enjoying too. Take a book for an instance. The more you read, the more you learn. But don’t just pick a boring book that you will likely never want to read. Pick a book that is educational AND interesting. Then, you will get smarter and enjoy yourself rather than getting massive headaches. 🙂
What about after you’ve read a book? Is it of any use to you then? Video games are still useful even after they’ve been completed since there are so many other things to do in them (in open-world games), eg. you can explore the open world, and do side missions, etc.