I really, really love going to see movies at the theatre. It's probably one of my favourite pastimes. There's something so amazing about a group of people, either large or small, coming together to experience a singular, defined piece of art, or piece of trash. The lead-up to a movie that I've been dying to see is really only topped by sharing that experience with other people, either in visceral responses in the theatre itself (few things have been as awesome as the collective "gasp!" heard throughout the theatre at the showing of Inception that I went to see this summer, or more recently, the totally unintentional throwback to grindhouse cinema etiquette while watching Pirahna 3D – that is, loud talking, guffaws, groans, and insults being thrown at the screen) or in discussing the film right afterwards with friends.
The sad thing to me is that I love videogames, but this just is never going to happen, at least not on the same scale that it occurs with nearly every movie, and it really is to the detriment of the medium as a whole.
Don't get me wrong. The solitary experience of videogaming can be rewarding in and of itself. Metroid thrives on this sort of intense connection between the player and the game, and there have been great strides in internet communication surrounding videogames. But a collective experience between a group of 5 or 50 people around a videogame just isn't feasible, not least because of the sheer length of videogames, but also because of a certain flabbiness in the presentation of core conceits, as well as most videogames' predilections towards offering thrills for the player – and the player alone.
I know that I enjoy watching other people play videogames, and that a lot of other people in the world do as well, but I think that from a personal perspective, this has more to do with being able to critically analyze the game even without a controller in hand. But I'm sure that a lot of people have had the experience where you're watching someone play what is by all rights a kick-ass game, and all you want to do is shove the person playing out of the way and pick up the controller yourself. Oftentimes, this reaction isn't engendered only by the game's merits, but also by the fact that videogames have you do a lot of things that seem reasonable while playing, and less reasonable when watching.
I can't even begin to imagine watching someone play The Wind Waker, for instance. Sure, it's one of my favourite games of all time, it's gorgeous as all hell, and amazingly fun to figure out and play, but unless the spectator is actively assisting in problem solving or the like, what you're essentially watching is one of the most poorly paced cartoons in history. Hours of sailing and item collecting? Heck, if that's not boring for the player (which I never did find, actually), it most certainly would be for the spectator.
You can even take a more intense example, and one that I've lived through personally. Resident Evil 4 is a game that I found incredibly frightening (yes, I'm aware that I shouldn't be scared by these games, nor by anything that doesn't actually exist – but, reason be damned, chainsaw wielding zombies still kind of haunt my nightmares), and when I'm that frightened, I don't really feel like playing the game all that much by myself. My roommate at the time had just bought the Wii version and has a much stronger stomach than I, so for about a month, a few hours every week, I would watch her blast zombies on the TV. My fear disappeared, and we certainly became closer as roommates, but was my experience the same as hers? No. She had just gone on an epic, zombie-killing adventure, and I had merely watched. Unlike in a film screening, our responses are wildly different and informed by completely separate mental avenues than if we were to watch a film version of the same thing.
This isn't even really a responsibility that I think all videogames need to tackle. I've written countless articles about how videogames need to be less like films, and that the greatest videogames follow their own generic and aesthetic virtues through to their logical conclusions. The problem is, though, that games that encourage co-operation and/or are just as rewarding for spectators as for the players, have shown themselves (to me, at least) to hold an even more special place in my heart than those that simply gratify the player. They're not better, necessarily, but from a purely emotion-driven response, they are.
I've written about this before in a circumspect kind of way, but in the rare cases when gaming does produce a collective, non-internet-driven response, it's a pretty glorious thing (and in the case of internet-driven responses, those have value too. I mean, why do you think this website exists, or why so many people play games on Facebook?). Incredibly, I've had these experiences with so many games that I wouldn't traditionally call "great." Tales of Symphonia, for instance, but more recently, a short play session with LEGO Harry Potter on a friend's PS3. There's no denying that the LEGO series of games are little more than silly trifles, but playing that game co-operatively with my girlfriend, while her sister and her boyfriend spectated, was really great. We were all participating, enjoying, and responding in a collective way. I'd never call LEGO Harry Potter a great game, but that experience was great. It seems to be a delicate thing to do, making a game as enjoyable for a spectator as a player, but it's certainly something that I'd like to see more games do.