It's one in the morning for me, and as usual, I have nothing to do, and don't want to sleep just yet.

I don't know if anyone will read this, but it doesn't matter. I need a place to put this, and here it is.

I just asked myself a moment ago "Why do we like videogames?". The obvious answer of entertainment sprang up, another being something to do. Then, there was the third answer. It deals more with story driven games more than anything, so basically just RPGs.

The third answer was "To hear a story. To experience a tale on a grand scale that has never been done before..."

Society loves stories. It's built upon them, in the sense of morals and ethics. It's governed in a figurative sense by the ideas spelled out in stories. Hell, you have them somewhere in your dwelling, or are easily capable of accessing them, for free no less, at a library.

The general concept of a story is to entertain and maybe educate. Education tends to be more aimed at children in the 1-5 category, but entertainment is universal. Without entertainment, we have nothing to do. As much as certain groups would like to get rid of some forms of entertainment, any entertainment is necessary, and very much a human trait, passed on through the gene pool into the coming generations.

I have no clue when the first staged play was staged, but it was important in the evolution of stories. Now, instead of reading or having read to you a tale, you could watch and listen, with actors giving their own little quirks to a character, making it a new take on the tale, and a unique medium for it.

In the early 20th century, we got movies. Motion pictures set the stage for story evolution again. Now, you could see the story played out by actors, but with a bonus of unique perspectives and music added for effect. Eventually, movies were made available to the public, so you enjoy them in your own home.

Since the mid to late '80s, humans have had another form of entertainment : Videogames. Simple at first, we've seen them clearly evolve into fully 3-dimensional environments, with realistic characters taking part in the story.

The biggest feature added to this element of story telling was the ability to control a character, and gain a new perspective into the story.

In some games, you could choose how the story progresses, and what happens in the end. Or, you could follow a story, but see it from different views as seen by the characters.

The reason we play games is entertainment, but for many of us, it's to experience a new story. To see a tale unfold before us, with our hand guiding it on. The reason I love games is because of the stories they tell. They're new myths of fantastic worlds that we can identify with, but at the same time see as completely alien.

When I'm an old man, and my grandchildren ask to hear a story, I'll tell them of the worlds I've seen. The worlds I've explored. The worlds where I met friends, and enemies, and had adventures in.

When I'm a parent, I will encourage my children to experience games. To take their own adventure through a world of someone else's imagination, that they have control over, to take the story in their hands, and make it their own.

A videogame is a work of art. Thousands of people around the world work to make them, create worlds, stories, and characters. Not only that, but it's a work of art that anyonecan add to, change, and make their own. Everyone who plays games has their own take on what happened in it, and how they feel about it, just like a book.

Anyone who looks down upon games (not all of them mind you, some really do suck) as being horrid tools of the downfall of art, think again. They may not be your choice for a story telling medium, but it is to someone else. Many people make connections to videogames, as they do books or movies.

Art is art, and a videogame is art as well.