Video Games Replacing Books

I was preparing to send some information to a blog which had agreed to review “Quest for the Red Sapphire” and went to the file where I keep all my blog materials.  To my surprise I found file after file interlaced with mine referring to one of the SIMS games my youngest daughter likes to play.  To make myself clear, this was a mild annoyance.  None of my files were disturbed.  They were just jostled around.  I have watched my daughter play SIMS and the graphics are amazing.  The point of the game is lost on me.  As near as I can figure it is like the game of Life on the computer where you create characters and have them grow up, work and have families.  I thought video games were meant to escape from all those things?  No matter.  To each their own.  When I was younger I played my share of video games and have no room to condemn.  The graphics may not have been what they are now and the stories were not so intricate but I fretted away too many hours to count.  One thing I did do (although not as much as my editor/father wanted) was read.  There are more good books out there than ever before but reading is not a social activity.  Gaming has become something friends can do together on line or do by themselves and then talk to one another about how the game is progressing (like SIMS).   When you read it is time taken for yourself.  Unless the book is widely known or been made into a movie, others don’t have any idea what is going on in your story.  It makes for difficult water cooler conversation the next day.  The lack of social aspects is one of the things I love about books.  If you are like me, you have a full day of stimuli from coworkers to television and sometimes you need to unplug.  Therein lays the beauty of a book.  You unplug and read in silence.  Whether you are granted that silence or not is another matter.  Video games are great but like movies they show you one person’s vision of a scene or character or even the entire story.  When you read a book you see things as you imagine them.  How many times have you read a book and then watched the movie only to be disappointed?  I’m sure if you liked the book you also liked the movie but think of how many times you have said or heard, “The book was better.”  The book will always be better because you liked it in the form you imagined it.  The movie is shot from someone else’s point of view.  Video games have become books you write as you go along and share with friends.  There is no fault in that.  Nevertheless, the day will come when your reflexes slow or the games become too advanced or too boring when you will sit down with a good book and get lost in your imagination.  In the meantime I must make sure I email the piece about Linvin and the Red Sapphire rather than the file on my daughter’s SIMS character with the brown hair and the puppy that plays in the yard.