Video game makers should be proud of themselves. Theirs is a revolution in the sharing of the human condition. Not like painting or music or literature or film, not an exposition. Not a scenery only viewed by its audience at most through a personal lens. Theirs is a mirror. And like so many delightful distorting mirrors of carnival, the reflection is always telling not only of the mirror but also the viewer. No, distorting mirror scarcely does it justice. Video game is a sculpture of reflection.

Rather, video game has the potential to be so much more, but we have paid too much attention to the games themselves. We are asking game makers to paint the Mona Lisa with 16 colors. Dual Shock 3 has many more buttons than the red-white controller of Famicom, but it's still just a controller. We need more Wii, more Kinect, more Move. We need what's after those devices. We need to constantly invent new ways for the player to interact with his game until every feasible way a game designer can envision becomes possible. Then video gaming will become mainstream, even beyond mainstream because it offers what no other medium is capable.

Perhaps then the perception of games as toys or fodder for the violent and lascivious will change; perhaps that never mattered. In every medium, there is consumption of violence and sex. The unique nature of video game naturally makes it even more susceptible because it does them so very well. Just as Marilyn Manson does not devalue music and literature is no worse off for Fanny Hill, game makers and players alike need not feel ashamed of appealing to the masses. In fact, I have never been prouder to call myself a gamer.

I thank Gamespot and the ACMI Game Masters for giving me this new confidence.