This is a headgum podcast. I don't know what to think I don't know what to say

and that's all right that's okay

I don't know anything.

Hello and welcome to Factually.

I'm Adam Conover.

Thank you so much for joining me on the show again.

This week we're talking about one of my favorite topics, Games. I am a gamer, I love games of all types, but especially I love video games. I grew up obsessed with them. And like with so many adolescent romances, my parents did not approve.

They thought that Super Nintendo was going to lead me to ruin, okay?

And when the Nintendo 64 came out, I was forced to borrow money from a friend and pay him back over months just to get these games that my parents were certain would harm me and rot my brain.

And you know today as an adult I'm happy to report that my parents were wrong and I was right.

Suck it mom! I know you listen to the show, okay?

Because now we know without a doubt that games actually are important.

You know, a couple years ago we had on the show the philosopher C. T. Nguyen and he explained

compellingly that games are their own art form, an art form that deals specifically with agency.

Like, imagine three different games. In one, you're a general commanding troops,

and another you're a night on a magic quest, and in a third, you're a rich guy with a sick obsession for building the craziest rollercoasters

imaginable consequences be damned that is a real game in each of these games you're acting out a different role each game has you're acting out, a different role.

Each game has a different idea of how agency

in a specific sphere works and what it means.

That makes games distinct as an art form

from films or novels or other art forms because it is the only one that contains the agency of the person experiencing the artwork as something to be played with.

And that makes games valuable as an art form. They are not trivial. They contain

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