Blog: "What videogames lack: Deeper intent"

[hollowleviathan]

I just think there are areas that need a lot more work, or at least smarter people than me to work on them

Definitely. It took decades and decades of theory, practice and study for film theory to get to where it is now, and still many movies are made without those ideas. It's going to be a fair amount of time before videogame theory coalesces into something, ah, useful.

Half-Life 2 uses a lot of advances in player direction theory, how to direct the player advance the map and notice what to do next without them being aware of the direction. Their play on our emotions are much more subdued/primitive due to a mute avatar.

I think the meaning you are wishing for games is not achievable... like at all.

I suppose by this you just meant 'currently'? Again, you say that being tricked into feeling emotions means that the medium is not succeeding, but it's just terminology. We feel the same emotions that we see on others' faces, a fact often exploited in film. It works the same way in videogames.