Quick, someone make a PC Games are dead topic. Look, if this is your opinion, then you are playing the wrong games.

MY COMPANION CUBE!!! WHY DID I DO IT?! WHY... WHY... WHYYYYYYYYYYyyy...

Wags. Neener neener.

I played Indigo Prophecy and Portal and FFVII about the only thing I don't play is the same damn shooter over and over, or movie wrapped in an rpg from Japan nyah nyah. I play all the right games. I know from what I speak.

As long as it comes down to buttons and winning, games won't move you like a movie. Maybe catch a corner of a similar echo of an effect, remind you of how a real story can move you, when it's not up to you to keep it moving.

Aeris died in a movie inside a game. Portal is funny, because of an audio track and a small pink heart piece of texture art, I'll grant you. Funny context, set pieces. Emotion from gameplay? Again, frustration and satisfaction, mostly.

Heavy Rain pretends to the throne.

Nothing inherent to the medium prevents games from having the emotional impact of movies. If a book, a medium that has many limitation compared to movies, can provide an emotional impact that is often superior to movies, then games should be able to provide experiences of a similar quality. The problem is game audiences are happy with incompetent storytelling, or are happy with storytelling that simply imitates books or movies and does not make use of the unique possibilities games present for storytelling.

I'd disagree. I can think of at least one interactive, tragic moment in COD4.

Games already excel at conveying broad emotions. Fear, for example. Silent Hill 2 and 4, and STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, scared me more than any movie I've ever seen, mainly because I had to keep going into these damn horrible environments in order to escape them. The interactivity added enormously to my experience, because I was not passively watching these events happen to someone else, as I would in a movie. Even though these games have cutscenes and viewpoint characters, I felt that these things were happening to me.

I'm confident that, as games attract more sophisticated audiences and creators, they will surely be able to provide emotional experiences that equal those of older media.

Somehow I just keep thinking of Ken Levine on GFW Radio exclaiming, "OH AERIS!"

Shadow of the Colossus, Mass Effect, Manhunt, there are more than a few games that achieve a 'stirring of emotion' in me. The problem with your whole argument is that you're saying games are objectively worse than movies at evoking emotion - a subjective state. Any one of us arguing against you is going to be arguing across purposes, because your real argument has "for me" tacked on the end, but you aren't stating it because stating it makes the opinion clear. I like how you capped "keep READING BOOKS", as if to say, "because you're currently not, and they are inherently superior, you philistines."

I like opera, because it stirs emotion in me. Other people do not, because it does not do the same for them. This does not make them bad at feeling emotion, and it does not make opera bad at stirring emotion. It's subjective. My background makes me look at opera in a different way from some people - neither better nor worse. I don't like reading mystery novels, but that doesn't mean they're a bad genre. I just look at them differently from those who do like them. That's how subjective things work.

Also,

I think the CODs by Infinity Ward does a great job of bringing emotion into games.

They love to put you in situations of overwhelming odds and you are fighting like hell to stay alive while the music cresendos.

I can think of defending the house against tanks in COD2 and tons of moments in COD4.
COD4 had me just staring at my screen dumbstuck.

So I think its the quality of writing that makes a big difference. Also, cgi/animation can't portray emotional range like a good actor can.

I think IW (and Valve) do a great job of writing though.

I cried when Pacman finally ate all the ghosts. You go, yellow round thing, you go ;_;

What about Floyd the robot from Planetfall? Or the cradle in Thief 3? There are tons of examples out there of games stirring emotion and doing it well. Better than some movies do it even. I think you don't see more of it because it's a game. The point of it's existence is different than for a film. (for the most part)

On the input point: I can't speak for everyone, but when I'm playing a game, I'm not just pushing buttons. Except for incredibly complicated RTS type games (which I don't like), there is no conscious "press space bar to jump" going on. It's just like walking, completely automatic. If I want to move forward, strafe right, or aim just a liiiitle more to the left, it just happens. So for me at least, there is no barrier to immersion there. Which is IMO what allows you to form any sort of emotional attachment to a medium.

Lack of immersion is why you aren't scared by a horror flick if it's noon with the windows open and people chatting in the living room next to you.

I felt quite strong emotion of guilt in Planescape - the murder investigation quest - I couldnt find any hard evidence to nail one of the three suspects so I just gave up one of them randomly just to progress. Quite some time later in the game I accidently found out who the real killer was.
I had no strong emotional ties to any of those involved in the murder but I was really attached to the world and protagonist and it suddenly all clicked and seemed real - I had made a rush judgement just to get over with a task and it had had consequences for those involved. And there wasnt even a reload possible, since I had gone a long way since then. The Nameless One just had to live with what he had done.

Games can evoke emotions, devs just dont work too hard to get there, at least to get to the more nuanced emotions. Even a frenzied roar of victory at the arcades is emotion, why nobody takes that into account. To get more nuanced stuff you just have to utilize more nuanced methods.

It's a very well reasoned argument, Imbarkus. I just happen to disagree with your conclusion.

I still believe that video games are emerging from their infancy in terms of a respectable medium for entertainment. Movies have had nearly a century to establish themselves as the de facto standard for entertainment, as it takes the thunder from both audio and visual art (two means of entertainment that are a millenia old) and combines them.

Video games now are light years ahead of video games 30 years ago in many aspects of their nature. You struck on a few of the externalities (graphics, sound, choice), but the posters above me have given a plethora of examples of games that tugged at heartstrings for multiple different reasons. Given another 70 years and I think you'll see interactive media replacing movies and television as the preferred choice of entertainment for our culture.

Yes, I am aware that I am (somewhat crudely) lumping video games in with "the internet" here -- but really what are video games other than an interactive multimedia experience? A well produced interactive web project in 2009 is exponentially more of a "video game" than aside scroller from 1985. And I expect that evolution to continue.

Your complaints with video games seem to stem largely from the complaints of attempting to tell a story in the first person -- and admittedly first person environments is an area that interactive media has met with its earliest success. But I don't find that to be constrictive; rather, it's a starting point. Look at game like Black and White or the Sims: the structure is there for some very powerful stories to be written, or some hilarious and poignant romantic comedies.

Video gaming culture has moved further, faster, than any medium before it -- but it's still a baby compared to movies. In 100 years, non interactive entertainment will be considered as niche and quaint as books on tape.

Why Aeris' death was so emotional was BECAUSE of the mechanics of the game. She wasn't an NPC or group guest. You got to choose her name. You determined how much play time she got. Her Limit Breaks had 4 levels like everyone else. The fact that she leaves the party shortly before her untimely demise is a source of worry, at least for me it was. She was a party member, why did she leave? I remember vividly that I had an accessory that nullified Jenova's attacks and I, being all of 13 (i.e. moody, depressed), watched for about 10 minutes as Jenova made fruitless attacks as a sort of perverse revenge.

I think the reason we get so emotional over certain movies and shows is because we can project a bit of ourselves in the characters. I believe that this is more consistant with movies and music because we're just spectators. And in a game its easier to distance yourself because, yeah, right before she died, I ran in circles to grind a few levels for the next boss. But the pendulum swings both ways and all of a sudden, a character that I thought was developing nicely was suddenly killed off. Yeah, I had strong emotions about that.

And God of War is no different. I f*cking hated every f*cking boss I strived so hard to beat only to have a cheap hit landed and get killed to try again. And that satisfaction of killing said boss in a terrible QTE way was immensely satisfying. Yeah, I had strong emotions about that. True, those emotions were kind of meta, but it was Kratos' win as much as mine. So, I respectfully disagree.

But this is a good topic.

I've gotten choked up over just as many games as I have in movies.

In movies it usually has to deal with a great loss of human life, i.e. Saving Private Ryan when they pan the grave yard at the beginning, then seeing the battle that took all those lives.

The only games I can think of that caused an emotional response on that level are:
1) Call of Duty: Modern War 1, ending of the Marine campaign and the end of the game.
2) Fallout 3, when I let Dogmeat die for the final time and didn't reload to bring him back
3) the movie at the end of Halo 3 (before the credits)

I don't by the whole "controlling being a limiting factor" argument. Maybe because I've grown up manipulating machines/computers with controllers, that they have become an extension of myself. I personally don't want to hold my hands up the whole 6 hours I'm playing a FPS, two analog sticks work just fine.

Well, the funny thing about emotion is that it's subjective almost by definition. I also bemoan my lack of emotional involvement in games, beyond thrill/frustration. But I was genuinely affected by Portal, specifically the disposal of the Weighted Companion Cube (whoops, spoiler warning, sorry).

Of course, like BioShock or Fatal Frame II (I hear, I'm too scared to play it), I have no control over how the situation plays out (so I guess that makes it art, Ebert?). But I'm still played by the game, psychologically. By identifying and personalizing the Companion Cube with something as simple as a heart, suggesting that it might talk to me, and describing its disposal as euthanasia, Portal creates this dramatic conflict in miniature between myself, and the game personified in GLaDOS. Because I don't trust GLaDOS, I wonder if the Cube might actually talk to me—I also can't trust Chell's ('my' diegetic) mental state, so I have reason to believe it might even talk, even if only in Chell's head. And since GLaDOS tells me to ignore anything it might say, I know it would be antagonistic towards her, and therefore my ally—though I'm entirely unclear how that might play out mechanically.

So now I spend the next ten minutes trying to defy GLaDOS and save the Cube. This is entirely an emotional investment on my part, because a) I know the mechanics preventing me from saving the cube (the energy fields); b) I don't know if there are secret mechanics for bypassing the field; c) I don't know if there would be a strategic benefit to bringing the Cube with me to the next levels; and d) I want to know if the Cube is going to be my friend, if it is in any way alive. When I ultimately concluded that there was no way of getting the Cube into the elevator, I reluctantly incinerated it. GLaDOS congratulates me on how fast I came to terms with 'killing' it, and I feel worst of all, despite knowing full well I've been manipulated and had no choice (just like in a film, if that's your barometre).

So even though you could argue the conflict occurred "outside" the gameplay (there were no rules or circumstances that provided the possibility of saving the Cube), it was certainly not projected to me linearly like a cutscene. Even if my only other choice in the interactive moment was not to incinerate the Cube, and therefore not progress, it was still a choice I had. And because I was psychologically invested in the process, emotion flowed from gameplay.

Maybe it also helps that I'm crazy. Colossi? f*ck'em. Completely inanimate object? I have to save it.