Dark Matter

"Television is to Media what Dark Matter is to Astronomy"

[A first draft]
Again and again, we compare Games to  Movies. At the last MIGS, Jason Rohrer did it again, asking will Videogame ever grow up and become, well, Cinema. The same question was ask by an angry, pre-Disney Warren Spector, again at the MIGS, in 2007 (?).  Questions are raised: how they compare, how they influence each other.  Will cinema ever be interactive? Will Games ever be an art form ?
It really feel like this is running in circle, trying to decide which captain is the best. 

I propose instead that we should compare Games with Television.

The format is much closer: think of one season of "Lost" - it's about 20 hours.
There will be a main story arc, established at the beginning. And each episode is a smaller, fairly contained, story aiming at extending the arc while "losing" time on side quest, filling the publisher need to have a product for a set number of hours, challenging the writers to keep the interest of the viewer, while moving the character through the main arc. One season of Lost on DVD would go for about 60$. And it is fairly easy to see how replayability fits in.

Television was born, well, between Cinema and Vidéo Games. I dare say that, as a media, it is only now coming of ages (the last 15 years or so), with products of high quality, challenging the movies in term of diversity, narrative, creativity, edgeness. Series like "X-Files", "Dexter", "Lost", Six Feet Under" and "Weeds" have capture the imagination of the viewers. J.J. Abrams is fast becoming a reference - getting as much recognition as Spielberg at the same age.

If you place Television in the equation right between Cinema and Video Game, just like Zwicky placed the Dark Matter inbetween galaxies, then suddenly, the equation make so much more sense. Cinema is blending seemlessly into television - the technology is the same, the micro-narrative is identical and the macro-narrative is similar. Television can be interactive: the whole idea of reality-TV is nothing less then a MMORPG with micro-transactions.

Warren Spector was asking: when will we get our "Citizen Kane"...
Rohrer showed a chart comparing Call of Duty" to "Gone with the Wind" - but they were no television product on this chart.  During his keynote adress at the MIGS,  Rohrer made the point that Comic industry miserably failed some sort of test of the ages. But he didn't reflect on television. I think here the answer is that television is taking the test as we speak, setting the benchmark for the videogame industry.

Right now, the videogame industry is probably making his "CHiPs", "Knight Rider" and "The Six Millions Dollars Man"... Along the way there will be a "Shogun"...    
[unfinished]