Feature: Games Versus Media

Author: by Staff

In Gamasutra's latest feature, Tale of Tales' Michael Samyn (The Path) examines the video game medium from the perspective of what it's capable of and what users want: games with rules, or a new form of media. "It's not hard to imagine a medium radically changing under impact of computer technology," writes Samyn, in response to an argument made by Zynga New York co-founder Frank Lantz, who in the past has said games are not media. Video games are not the games of old, which sprung up as sets of rules, argues Samyn. Instead, video games are "a new medium, with new properties and new parameters. A new medium that demands a new attitude from the audience, a new way of interacting with it..." Writes Samyn, "When we open up to the potential of video games as a medium, we will automatically discover a much wider range of subjects and styles. As a result our audience will expand over the entire population, much like has happened with film and print, when they grew out of their geeky period. There will be video games for everyone. Because video games will be a medium." The full feature, Video Games as Media, which examines this question in depth, is live now at Gamasutra.