It’s an easy enough question: Why do we compare games to films? And is that the correct perspective on which to judge gaming´s worth as an entertainment medium?

After reading recent reviews of games such as Uncharted 2, the general consensus is that “it´s like playing an action movie!” , which seems to me an unfair comparison. When I watch a film, I am an outside observer, watching tightly scripted events unfold in front of me, portrayed by (usually) skilled actors who bring life to their roles. However, as a gamer, I am expected to take centre stage and control events around me, bringing life to someone else´s vision, and this is where I think the comparison falls flat.

The more I think about this, the more it seems unfair: how can the game itself be judged to be good or bad if I am in control of it? For example, if I played Uncharted 2, and did nothing but keep falling out of the train at the beginning, I could argue that it is a bad game, as it would lack narrative and direction. So it falls on developers to introduce systems that walk a fine line between player freedom and scripted events (without which, there would be no plot), and generally if the sweet point is found, BAM!, we have a good game.

So, why, then, do we compare two mediums that work in such opposing ways? I think it is because of two things. Firstly, gaming’s relative infancy as an entertainment medium leads to a need to compare it to others, with movies being the closest (as compared to reading or music). Secondly, most modern games obsession with storyline draws the second parallel to be considered.

Luckily, this is a trend that is showing the first signs of abating (outside of popular journalism, at least). I am more likely to discuss an epic team deathmatch with my friends nowadays than the nuances of Batman´s plot, and with good reason: I am not Batman, but I am HippyDave. When I take out the entire opposing team with a well placed grenade, it really was my skill that did it, not a pre scripted event put in by the programmers.

And this, I think, is a demonstration of a shift in gaming: we are starting to be interested in getting given the tools to develop our own stories, as opposed to being lead by developers. I think there is still a place for a well told, scripted game, but it will become a genre as opposed to a defining part of a game´s quality. And this, hopefully, will lead to less comparisons being made between films and games, allowing for more diversity, and less emphasis on applying movie values on a clearly separate medium.

The views on the above article are solely those of the author and may or may not be the views held by InsightBits