That was an interesting read, and it's good to have discussions about these issues. I've actually been lately thinking of videogames as a media, and how incredibly underutilized the opportunities of conveying ideas and stories actually currently are. It's frustrating that most of the energy is put on developing ever better graphics/physics or even gameplay to an extent, while at the same time aspects of one's responsibility of one's actions and their consequences is all but totally neglected. If half of the resources put on graphics would have been put on development of an emotional AI, would we see game characters who react to our actions with emotional responses that don't feel out of place? Would we be able to model different personalities in games and interact with them in a way that would not let us escape the consequences of our actions? How could the concept of Execution be widened and applied in other games?
Drawing an analogue to movies, there are different kinds of movies for different purposes. Some are meant to entertain, some are meant to provoke thoughts, some are meant to just provoke. Others succeed better, others worse. Why can't the same hold for games? True, games tend to be fun, or rather we tend to like to play games, but honestly, how entertaining is it to play a game of chess or go? It's not such a big leap actually to accept that games in general, and video games in particular, can be used to convey any kind of messages. That would be a step into perhaps the teenage years of video gaming.
In my opinion, books and movies are on par, meaning that movie makers have learned to use the possibilities of the media to convey messages that are of similar quality, on the same level as books. The critical measure is the ability to provoke emotional responses other than momentary panic. The Adversary is one of the most depressing movies that I have ever seen, yet I consider it to be a great movie. I don't know if I would have the strength to see it again even though it's maybe 5 years since I saw it: the emotional response it evoked was so strong that it still carries to this day. In contrast, the experiences that even the best of games offer are just lame. Not a single game I have played has offered emotional experiences that would have lasted. Consider for a moment The Return of the Jedi, hardly a masterpiece of deep emotional and thought provoking storytelling, yet the moment when Luke understands that in order to defeat the evil he must give in to the evil within himself far surpasses pretty much anything the video game industry has to throw at the table.
I find that somewhat depressing, to be honest.
It is time for video games to mature, to grow into a media that can tell "respectable" stories and talk about issues that are neither fun nor easy. I believe it can be made in a way that retains the gaming aspect of the media, it just means that the stories told will have to be different from books and movies, just as movies are different from books and books are different from spoken stories.
