one game that doesn't get enough credit, I think, for being an amazing narrative experience, because it usually gets credit for being an incredibly hard experience, is Dark Souls. So, I think, for me, Dark Souls is almost kind of finding this - picking up this kind of thread that Looking Glass dropped in a lot of ways. Because, for me, even though that game is, I guess, an RPG, uh, it's doing so many interesting things with mechanics, that a lot of other games aren't doing. And, it really embodies the, uh, theme of the game. At least, the first - well, it's not Dark Souls, it's Demon Souls. Which was the first game. But, that game is a Faustian statement about religion and politics, where all the ideology of the statement is in the system's design. It's like, you have to discover what the - the "miracle system" is in the game, to understand what the game's perspective on God is. And, uh, you know, some people say that miracles don't exist. Well, so how can you learn them? You know, so there's all these kind of - there's all these kind of arguments going on in the game. About what the meaning of the systems design in the game is. Um, and then there are just these - there is one particular moment that is amazing to me, where, um, so it's a game where, you know, everybody is kind of - it's a story where everybody is attacking everybody else, um, for their spiritual energy. For their - they call it souls. And, um, there's a bit - so, there's this mechanic where other players can enter your game, and attack you. Uh, and actually kill you. Your - your player. And, take all your souls. And, because the game has, um, it's not perma-death. But, death has a lot of consequence. You lose literally hours of play. So, you don't want to die. And, it's very traumatizing to actually get killed in the game. So, um, but if you're like me, I - I vowed to never kill another person. I'm like, no matter how - no matter how, uh, bad things are going for me, I'm never going to look at another human being playing the game, and say, I'm just going to kill you. Because, for me, that would just be like killing a person on the street. Um, but then, and this is an example of a moral choice unlike anything I've ever seen in a video game, there is this part of the game where you find this room. And, there is what appears to be a wizard in the room. And, uh, the wizard waves his wand, and he makes this knight appear. And, the knight has this mask obscuring their face. And, you're like, okay, whatever. You know, I've seen bosses in this game before. So, you're like, I have to fight this knight. And, when I fought the knight, the knight ran away from me. So, I was like, okay, that's weird. Um, and then the knight was like, running around, and running around. And, then I finally caught up with the knight, and just killed the knight in like, one hit. And, I was like, well, that was weird. That was easy. Um, and then I was - and then I won the boss. So, I was like, okay, that was strange. And, then later in the game, I got caught in some kind of magic field. And, then suddenly, I appeared in someone else's, uh, game. In another player's game, and I was the knight. And, I had the thing obscuring my face. So, the other player couldn't tell that they were attacking another player. And, I had told myself the whole time I was playing this game, that I was never going to kill another human being, um, no matter what the consequences were. But, I had a lot of souls. And, in that snap second, I actually killed him. I defended myself. It was the Roman Coliseum, right? I was put in the Roman Coliseum, and I had said I was a pacifist, and I found out I wasn't. And, I was like, wow. This game showed me that I am actually a bad person in real life. So, for me, this was fascinating. For me, this was like, um, and I guess, some people might not even call that narrative. But, I don’t know, you look at what - what other games do with "moral choices," and, uh, it's not that they aren't interesting. Like, in, you know, Bioshock or Mass Effect, or whatever. But, for me, this was so much more interesting than anything those other games were doing. And, it was totally fascinating. And, the way that it used the fiction of the game to make me just reflect on the meaning of - and, the meaning of my own behavior. And, the desire of me even wanting to play the game, was something that - it's not that no games have done it. But, there was something that was so subtle and unexpected about the way the game did it. And, there was something so - there was something that was so, and this is the difference for me. About this game in particular. There was something that was so nuanced about it, about the world of the game, that, um, really struck me. And, you know, I don’t know, in 50 years, maybe we won't do stuff like that anymore. Or, maybe there will be something else that will make games, I don’t know, that will just make that seem irrelevant somehow. But, I don’t know, I mean, what is - what makes art real, right? It's because it - it speaks to you, you know. And, what we care about, I mean, I come from film originally. Will human being really care about Hitchcock's Vertigo in 400 years? Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Maybe they will, only because people have said they should, and there's a lot of institutional power behind that. Um, maybe that's why we care about Shakespeare now. Or, maybe we care about Shakespeare now because he really is that good. Maybe both are true at the same time. I don’t know. But, this is what I think of, when I think about this question, you know, are games art? Do games tell stories? Have we succeeded? That's sure as shit, succeeded for me. That succeeded for me in a way that, um, films that have won Academy Awards haven't. So, which medium is better? I don’t know.
