In an article from The New York Times

“Well, books tell you something. Movies show you something. But games let you do something.”

Dan Houser, cofounder of Rockstar Games

I believe he’s trying to say, the medium is more interactive and puts you in control of where you go within the game.

However, taken at face value, he seems to be implying that the games are somehow superior to books and movies.

I’m a big fan of books because I love to learn and inspire my imagination and creativity. I like a good movie because it can be a great entertaining experience and connects with me emotionally, especially when the production and filming is superb. I have to say though, that I find video games to be addictive. When I play them for more than a half an hour to an hour, I find myself a bit burnt out. I don’t feel that they get my imagination going, and they don’t connect with me emotionally and make me feel better, or sad, or inspired. If anything they seem to suck a bit of energy from me; my mind seems tired if I play them for too long

I’d propose that in terms of overall value, going from least value to highest value, it would be video games, then movies, and then books. I’m thinking that video games engage the more rudimentary stimulus-response parts of the brain; movies (at least the good ones) tell stories and show you things. There is more going on in movies, and they affect more intellectual parts of your mind. Books go further by telling you the stories in more detail, and let your imagination exercise. You picture what’s going on and create the scenes in your head. If you’re reading a book to learn something, you’re building your knowledge, you’re empowering yourself with information, and then you’re really preparing youself to do something.

Dan Houser wants to make the point that doing something is better than reading a book or watching a movie. I agree, as long as what we’re doing results in something really positive — a sense of accomplishment. What is accomplished in a hours of gameplay? The next game level? I feel a great sense of accomplishment when reading a book. I get a bigger sense of accomplishment when I take the knowledge that I’ve learned from the book and apply it in the real world somehow. Learning can be addictive to, once you feel the high you get from that feeling of real accomplishment.

To be fair, I think that video games can be fun, but I don’t want my kids thinking that they’re more valuable than books, and I’m not about to let videogames offset the important time set aside for reading and for participating in the real world.