I never listed gaming among my favorite hobbies until this year, nor allowed my name to be associated with the term gamer. Gaming was, in my mind, something I did when there was nothing else to do. A time filler, between working, sleeping, drinking, watching sports and chasing women. Part of my aversion no doubt stemmed from the connotations associated with the word gamer. I do not read comics, nor have I ever played D&D, or watched anime, or been obsessed with Japanese culture. Stereotypical as they may be, these tropes and others seem to define gaming culture, and I found no connection with such a world. But my resistance to becoming a gamer also lay with my unease at defining what exactly gaming was. It’s very nature so straddles the line between active participating and passive experiencing that to list it as one of my favorite things to do seemed wrong in some way. We all watch movies, and for some I’m sure this is very much a hobby. But for me hobbies have always been activities, skateboarding and playing guitar, that are somehow more, well, active, or at the very least interactive. Video Games are not movies, though some toe the line so closely that I have oft wondered if they would have been better served as cinema. They are not active, anymore than a game of chess or poker. But they are interactive experiences that range from visual versions of choose your own adventure books to virtual play rooms with a large number of themed toys. 2013, more than any other year, was when I fully realized all that games are and can be, and coincidentally 2013 was when I decided that yes I was a gamer.

Generalizations are dangerous, but also helpful in framing a discussion, so in 2013 I frequently found my discussions, often unintentionally, breaking games into two categories. These categories are simple and likely say more about me as gamer than about the games I play, but I have found them useful as theoretical divides.. There are games that are simply games, or more accurately there are games that place gameplay first. Games such as these are not devoid of narrative, but it is always the gameplay that takes precedent. Then there are the type of games that put the narrative in the forefront of design. These games can provide a range of emotional experiences but everything thing about them, including the gameplay, seeks to serve the narrative. For me 2013 was the year when these two categories came into stark contrast.

2013 was also a year of new experiences for me. While the mainstream game industry seemed to be on a holding pattern waiting for the arrival of a new generation of consoles, I was eagerly exploring the massive back catalog of games I developed while not being a gamer.¹ While the masses took to the internet to rail against the new Xbox requiring them to be on the internet, I was experincing the simply bliss of running in Mirror’s Edge. And during the endless hand wringing over what resolution the new Call of Duty ran at, I sat staring in silence at the ending of very stylistic interactive comic book called The Wolf Among Us. We were all so anxious to know what the future held, yet there was so much in the past that had been unjustly overlooked.

And these two games, Mirror’s Edge and The Wolf Among Us, provide clear examples of my categories of gaming. Mirror’s Edge was one of the more challenging games I played this year. It was a gameplay first game, with a serviceable narrative that provided a world and a reason to run around rooftops, and I loved almost every second of it. It was for me in many ways a call back to the 8 bit days of gaming, where a game would be based around one simple idea, constantly adding challenges, often requiring repetition of the same section of the game to achieve mastery and move on. It was old school controller throwing frustration, and while I don’t need all of my games to bring back this style, it was a nice throw back. Fortunately my 360 controller survived the experience.

The Wolf Among Us was something else entirely, a choose your own adventure comic inside of video game packaging. But it was emotional and thought provoking, and the ending left me begging friends to download the game so I could just have someone talk about my pain with. But in the back of mind I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was barely a game. It was an action game, stripped of everything but the quick time events; a detective game where I did very little deducing. I’m glad I played it, but would I have been happier to have merely watched it?

The Wolf Among Us was not the only narrative first game that I felt may have been better served as a film or TV series. The extremely tense and often emotionally haunting story of a man transporting a girl across a post apocalyptic United States overrun with zombies. This game touched me deeper than nearly any game this year, and yet I would never replay it. It was an experience, but one I feel no need or desire to repeat. And buried within was gameplay that I never felt matched every other aspect of the game. While traversing the continental US, my charge Ellie and I were often beset by Clickers, the fungal infection based zombies of this universe, and this was the more realistic part of the game. Because in typical video game fashion, I would empty entire camps of human hunters alone in my best Commando impersonation. Sure these brutal men were out to kill me and take my supplies, but there’s still something off about clearing a settlement of 20, 30, 50 human males (because we don’t kill women in video games) just to get to the other side. It was unsettling in a game that begged so much for me to buy in to its narrative, not to mention the super human ability to take on small regiments of people by hiding behind desks till they past, all the while Ellie stood next to me in plain view. They ignored her because to do otherwise would have made that part of the game impossible, but perhaps that’s a sign that you need to rethink that part of the game. Or at least add a scene where Harry Potter gives Ellie his invisibility cloak before Hogwarts is overrun by the undead.²

There were several other narrative games that fell victim to this problem, this issue of including compelling gameplay in a game striving for realism. Bioshock Infinite was a philosophical exploration of the nature of the universe and the illusion of choice broken up by shooting galleries where I mow down robot George Washingtons (yes, plural) and giant men with exposed hearts. Catherine, a very Japanese take on American relationships, was a unique and interesting look at commitment, infidelity, and responsibility, albeit one where the choices telegraphed exactly what result you were going to receive, that also had me pushing blocks around in my underwear because nightmares.³ The Tomb Raider reboot told the story of a woman forced to become a survivor and the horrors that transformation required. It also featured a woman killing a island full of shipwreck survivors brainwashed into joining a cult so that you never got bored, even though the original Tomb Raider features the death of only three men and one demi God. Progress in story telling is a strange thing.⁴

In the end these narrative games always left me with a strange feeling upon completion, a mixture of relief and disappointment. I truly enjoyed each game I mentioned, yet each one felt like an unfulfilled promise the more I thought about it. If you want to tell me a story just tell it, don’t make me take diversions through sociopathy and genocide to do it. There has to be a better way.

Perhaps the best way for games to exist is in the way they always have: fantastical trips into the depth of your imagination where fun is the goal and story is tool to serve gameplay. Defense Grid was the first tower defense game I ever played, and you may now call me a fan of the genre. The story was, I don’t know, aliens or something. It never really mattered, and the games lack of a compelling narrative never once dampened my enjoyment. No game served as more enjoyable time sink this year for me than Saint Row the Third, a game that took the Grand Theft Auto formula, stripped out the terrible story and dumb jokes masquerading as humor, and replaced it with over the top gameplay, absurdity, and dumb jokes that nevertheless knew exactly what they were. Side activities in this game included shooting mascots in a murderous game show, getting hit by cars to earn insurance money, and causing as much destruction as possible in a tank. Side activities in GTA 4 included going on dates, playing pool, and driving a taxi. Guess which game I had more fun with?⁵ I walked away from 2013 with a distinct feeling that gameplay, not narrative, was where I wanted the future of gaming to lie.

Why then was 2013 the year that began to view myself as a gamer? I think in the end it was because finally we were reaching a point where some games had something to say, and more importantly I felt that I had something to say about games. Games had stories, morals, and lessons, and we had thoughts to share about those games. In the past games have been discussed, reviewed, and marketed as toys. I think it’s time to look them as something else, as a unique medium where imagination and play do battle with narrative and art. Or maybe I’m just a nerd.

Ronny Hutson is a certified gamer and wants to have a drink with you sometime and tell you about the time he ended up at an Asian Mail Order Bride auction.  Follow him on twitter @SlackerRon