There's definitely a respect that comes with books. I think it's mostly because they're the oldest medium, and in some ways the least accessible. Sure, there are crappy pop novels. But then there's *literature*, which is more intellectually difficult than watching a movie or playing a video game. From one point of view, you have to be smart to read books. Flip that to the point of view of people who like reading, and you have to be dumb to play video games.
The distinction begins to vanish when you realize that you really love reading, not for the artistry of the writing, but for the stories and the characters. Sure, nice writing helps, but that's just the same as a well-made game or movie or whatever. But the people who realize this are people like you and me. We're not pretentious, and we don't give a damn how our stories come to us - we can appreciate a good anything equally. For everybody else, people who like entertainment but don't *get* it, there's still the stigma of books being a more worthwhile form.
Whoa, that was a rant. Basically, I think there's a cultural tendency to think that books are more worthy, but they're really not. There's a spectrum for everything. A really great video game, in my opinion, is just as good as a great book.
The distinction begins to vanish when you realize that you really love reading, not for the artistry of the writing, but for the stories and the characters. Sure, nice writing helps, but that's just the same as a well-made game or movie or whatever. But the people who realize this are people like you and me. We're not pretentious, and we don't give a damn how our stories come to us - we can appreciate a good anything equally. For everybody else, people who like entertainment but don't *get* it, there's still the stigma of books being a more worthwhile form.
Whoa, that was a rant. Basically, I think there's a cultural tendency to think that books are more worthy, but they're really not. There's a spectrum for everything. A really great video game, in my opinion, is just as good as a great book.
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