My first radio broadcast. (hopefully)

I’m sat in the lecture theatre and it’s 3.00pm, although it feels like early morning, with the groggy-haze of sleep still firmly gripping my consciousness. We’re covering the idea of narrative: a simple idea at a push, yet, at 40 minutes in, they really are pushing it. We’ve covered 1950’s Hollywood. The lecturer’s way of making sense of the idea of the impact of culture on media: presumably so that the insects on the walls can also understand the concept. But I don’t know, maybe he thinks we’re all idiots.

I hear him phase back into my conscious thought, catching his most controversial statement (outside of his joke about masculine breast cancer): ‘can videogames also have a narrative?’ My mind flashes back to the moment of Dom Santiago’s martyrdom in Gears of War 3, yes it can; not only can it do so, it can also do so in a way that is vastly superior to most ‘blockbuster’ films (anything with Adam Sandler in it comes to mind). Another example of the dismissal of videogames by ‘cultured’ society.

The videogames industry didn’t become bigger than television, film and books without being in some way a superior form of entertainment, did it? Some of the biggest directors, screenwriters and actors didn’t turn to videogames because they were random and pointless repetitions of the same thing did they? Or am I missing some philosophical development that completely overrules logic?

Sure, you could argue that early games such as ‘Pacman’ and ‘Space Invaders’ were repetitive and without a storyline, but imagine for a second that Pacman was to be looked upon through the same ‘cultural’ glasses that art is: then Pacman becomes a poignant insight into the mind of a person on LSD running from the ghosts formed by the drug!

My mind has wandered, the doodle I started has now become fine art and I think we’re now being told that Soaps are examples of ‘fantastic!’ story writing. I beg to differ, but I’ll hold my tongue, I don’t care enough to stay in this lecture any longer than I have to: which, judging by the expressions on everyone else’s faces, is the real ‘key concept’ shared today.