Gaming, is it so different from books?
I am the first to admit that I am not a gamer. I prefer to spend what little free time I have on reading. But, as my gamer boyfriend points out, gaming and reading are very similar. Video games often build expansive worlds, creates rich characters with backstories and have plots filled with conflict, resolve and everything in between. The more I see him play games, the more intrigued I am with the parallel I seen between video games and books.
My boyfriend recently backed a desktop game called Star Citizen which is currently still in production and over the course of the past six months or so, he’s been watching and listening to the podcasts and watching vlogs about the game development and it is really interesting! They interview different developers working on different parts of the game all around the world including an archivist, Cherie Heiberg; a staff member specifically in charge of archiving information about the planets, star systems and the lore behind the game ensuring that game developers are creating “historically” accurate content.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 is a trade fair for the video game industry with a number of HUGE announcement from game systems, software developers and is streamed online on a variety of platforms including YouTube, Xbox and Playstation. And although I don’t follow a lot of what is happening in the gaming world, this is a huge event and is exciting for everyone in the industry!
Like I said, I’m not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but I won’t deny games and books have a lot in common. I’m also putting together and posting booklists on Thursdays each week this summer highlighting a videogame and five books that I think would be great for kids and teens! Check them out and look for more all summer long!
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Kate @ Mom's Radius
I completely agree. My husband is a gamer, and I think his video games and my books are VERY similar. Both offer escape from reality and tell a story. He plays a lot of role playing games or story-based games. I’m not sure it would be true of fighting type games. My 6 year old is getting games as well, and many of them require reading dialog between characters, so he even gets reading practice while gaming.
P.S. I have been enjoying your video game/book series. Keep it up! 🙂
literacious
Thanks! A new post will be up tomorrow about the Lego game series!
Becky @ Disney in your Day
Jason talks about this all the time too. He always tells me how much he learned from video games growing up – vocabulary, random facts, but also logic skills. In college he actually did his honors project on “Video games as educational tools”.