Legitimizing Games as Literature

I like to say this not just to anger art students, professors, and parents alike, but because I really honestly believe it is true: video games can be a form of literature, and in fact may be the final frontier of literature. I want gamers to know that it’s ok to think this. I want to end the shame that comes down upon us for having even the slightest bit of respect for games as a medium.

The industry as a whole is realizing this new potential and it’s mainly because of the new and unprecedented rise of indie developers. What’s really phenomenal is that we’re now seeing this realization move up into the minds of larger companies. The ability of a small team to do at home what was once limited to a large company has allowed for the creation of avant-garde games, because small companies do not need to pull a massive profit to keep themselves going. They can create games that aren’t hyper-central on genre expectations or brain-frying pure entertainment.

Literature is About Stories

I am a fiction writer (this won’t take long, I promise). A younger me may have once said that words are my tools and stories are my trade. I use words to craft stories, to relay thoughts and feelings, to create people from thin air, to spawn entire worlds into existence. These stories sometimes have a direct purpose, and other times may just exist to give you that tingly feeling you get when you read something sufficiently vague enough to feel profound and meaningful.

But I was wrong. Words are not my tools, not always; they are just a single tool, and stories can exist so far beyond words (see, getting to my point already, that wasn’t so bad). I have always had a love for video games beyond pure entertainment, and back when Journey came out I finally realized why. With only images and sounds, Journey managed to do to me what I wanted to do to others with my stories; it humbled me, gave me a glimpse at something so profound that it cannot even quite be put into words. I recently had this experience again with Hyper Light Drifter. There isn’t a single word of dialogue in the entire game, but nonetheless the story comes through loud and clear.

It was a huge surprise to me to find out that Journey was developed by a very small team. It was then that I realized: I can do this too. I didn’t need to land a job at a big company to contribute to the industry. The very meaning of “literature” and “fiction writer” was changed for me. Anything that speaks to the human soul is literature. And these games are speaking to people.

Here’s where it all comes around: now that professional storywriters like me can enter the industry, as well as any kind of artist who dedicates themselves, and because we are corroborating with the scientific half of the industry as the technology moves forward, we are creating new ways to build and explore narratives. We are creating new experiences. And people love it; every year we hear of new hit indie titles selling millions. People love literature.

Why is this Happening Now?

So now the larger studios are seeing competition from the indie industry continue to rise. Are they in any danger? No, not yet. But as this new industry grows and as these small companies get bigger and continue to release more games, the big industries are going to have to change, if only a little. This change is already starting to happen in a surprising way; many developers are leaving big name studios to form smaller ones, either due to conflict (like the whole Hideo Kojima issue) or because they feel it will give them more freedom from the corporate holds that many large studios suffer from (look at Jade Raymond, Keiji Inafune, and Ken Levine for examples). Meanwhile, small studio stars like Notch and Toby Fox have not joined larger companies. They may sell their product to a larger company once they feel they’ve done all they can with it, but they are not joining larger studios.

So, what exactly does all of this rambling come down to? This: games are shedding their corporate skin and are more and more becoming what they were always meant to be, works of literature. Large companies are slowly losing ground. They aren’t necessarily losing profits, which is what makes this change so shocking, because that’s usually what causes companies to fall. Instead, they are falling apart because the art of the video game is becoming more important than the product.

What about the Big Guys?

They are adapting, and finding clever ways to bring even entertainment-core games into a literary perspective. Look at one of the newest crazes: Overwatch. The game on its own isn’t necessarily literary, except for remarks made by characters in passing that reveal bits of hidden pasts. An example: once while waiting for a match to start I heard Genji say to Hanzo,  “What would our father think of what we’ve become, brother?” And Hanzo reply, “It’s hard to say who he’d be more disappointed by.”

As a new player who had yet to look into the lore, I did not know then that they were brothers. I realized then how much story was behind this game. The game boasts a series of comics and intricate stories weaved into game events, character interactions, short animation releases, and setting details. It is a game that coordinates with literature. And that’s why it’s created such a craze; certainly, it has fantastic gameplay and visuals, but these characters are so lively and fluid that they create and reveal a literature in the game. Not only video games but literature itself is now on the brink of a revolution.

Is this the end of the stigma against games as senseless? Will we finally see the industry garner widespread respect as an art form? Only if we continue to revolutionize the field and respect it ourselves. So long as we give power to the people to create, I’m sure I’ll continue to be impressed and touched by this new and exciting experience. I hope to join in on the creation myself. To really, truly be at the fore of literature. So come with me into this new world, a world where literature needs no words.