Video Game Literacy

In his 2009 speech at Dartmouth, Jesper Juul argued that the list of games people choose to play is itself a form of self-expression. His “video game literacy” really does exist. People read, experience and cite games like they do printed text. Yet we don’t consider gamers to be 'well-read' just quite yet. Why we don’t spend more time playing games? Why is experiencing games viewed as less beneficial than spending the same amount of time reading a book? For many reasons. I think that the graphic nature of virtual games, games that hand visualizations directly to the reader, make “reading” a bit easier; players don’t have to imagine anything, and rarely have time to apply what they are visualizing to their real lives. The frantic pace of most digital play leaves little room or time for reflection.