Wow, this take really surprised me, coming from someone on a video game enthusiast forum and especially coming from you, knowing that your really like VR. No book (and I studied literature by the way) has ever made me feel dread and horror as much as the first moldead in RE7 standing up from the bath tub. Doing the things yourself is always more impactful to me than reading about them. And I always feel butten presses are closer to the action than reading. Letters and reading are more abstract to me than a control scheme of a game, especially in VR, where you have way more fine grain control over your actions and way less is lost in transition.

Spoilers for MGS3, 4, Journey, Flower, The Last Guradian, Shadow of the Colossus:

I know you said you cared about Yorda because of the games structure and mechanics (having to go back and defnding her). But caring about an NPC and feeling artistic merit coming from interactivity are still different. So I am curious if any other sort / moment of interaction with a game had artistic merit to you. You mentioned both MGS and exploration: Part 4 and coming back to Shadow Moses? Or part three the gunshot at the end? Or in The Last Guardian, controling (trying to control) the creature, having to send it away? In Flower, flying into the city? In Journey, overcoming the mountain? In Shadow of the Colossus, trying to fight the pull of the light?

And making music did it for you? Really surprising stuff. Cannot remember if we ever talked about it (I think we did). Have you ever tried "dreams" from Media Molecule? Creating music and everything else that could have a place in a video game. That game is really special to me (even if I created dreadfully little).

I think it's the fact that with video games you're in control, while in books you can't change the story. And while I read I do feel like I'm in the story. I savor the stories, let them live on in my mind while reading maybe an hour a day.

However movies have far less impact on me as well even though the story is set in stone. Books are the only medium that has actually given me nightmares (which I seldom have). The scene in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo where Stieg Larsson describes how she got buried alive, I still start sweating thinking about it. I later watched the movie of it, no impact. In the book, that scene was tough to get through, but couldn't stop reading.

In games I feel no danger. Maybe it's because the first thing I always do is find out what the 'punishment' for dying is. Let myself get killed to see what happens. I let myself get eaten by the monster baby thing in RE8 for example. Just to get a closer look.

Maybe I'm weird, my fear of heights also completely disappears once I'm clipped into a safety harness. Stories in book live in my mind, while on TV or even in VR, there's a 'barrier'. I know I'm watching content, while the story in my mind is without a safety net. Getting high helps to feel fear in VR horror games, but still little compared to reading.



Hmm impactful moments in games. Hard to say, I tear up at the end credits of ICO, remembering the journey while listening to the music. Same for SotC, thinking about the majestic landscape, the desolation and betraying those amazing creatures. TLG I find the weakest in the series. While beautiful I didn't really connect with the creature. The landscape / ruins were the hero to me.

I can't remember any specific events in games that had any emotional impact. For example the death of the girl in FF7 (ffs can't even remember the name) had no effect. TloU comes closest with its cut scenes, the expressions on the character's faces with the music cues sell the emotion.

Did I mention MGS? My 'emotional' memories of that franchise are all tied to the music and sound design. Death Stranding my favorite for the exploration of Chapter 3 and music by Low Roar.

Journey the same, it's a musical journey. I replayed it 20 times for the soundtrack. (And to have fun with random people). The slow death walk mechanic was my least favorite part of the game. Same in SotC, trying to fight the pull of the light. I played TLG twice, I can't remember having to send the creature away, that's how much impact that made :/ LotR which I read 35 years ago, the hike up Mount Doom they brutally shortened so much in the movies, still fresh in my mind.



I have tried Dreams, but I couldn't get on with the editor. There were some good user creations, but after going through a bunch of bad ones I never got back to it. I figured I would try it again with PSVR2 but it died with PSVR1 :(

Music is powerful, I listened to techno/trance mostly while going through my worst times. Getting lost in the music got me through it. Pixeljunk 3AM makes it possible to easily create your own techno tracks (plus I already love Baiyon from all the work they did on the other Pixeljunk games, which I mostly played for the soundtracks) Using the move controllers to alter and distort sounds by moving them around in 3D space was brilliant. There the controls truly had artistic merit, turning the controllers into real instruments.