Video Game King I think with video games it’s the scarcity of popular work that has something to it, like John Ford, Steven Spielberg, etc etc. There hasn’t been anything remotely close to that phenomenon in video games
I’m thinking the two mediums share some similarities in that they’re technical/industrial and at least for a matter of several decades were dominated by studios and publishers that had the resources to make and distribute a product. I’m not quite sure why both have diverged in terms of like basic quality to the degree they have. Maybe it was comparatively easier to train workers on the technical aspects of film production, while for a lot of the history of video games, you had a smaller, more heterogenous pool of computer nerds who’ve all never read a book without a dragon in it, and said nerds are both more niche in their tastes as creators and as consumers. Maybe because cinema’s antecedents were stage productions, which were directly related to literary writing that the source material was just better, more meaningful and ambitious stuff vs video games which has mainly been inspired by the nerd culture offshoots of film and tv.
Not really sure what the reason is, but I think it’s strange that at this point in time, anyone grown adult who writes about games for their career can possibly think Baldur’s Gate 3 is some important work. I mean, I know there are “critics” who make the case for marvel movies but that’s still not a POV that’s taken seriously (I hope)