Extra Lives

1) What is the point of the opening anecdote?

2) What are the attributes, as Bissell lays them out, of the open-world or sandbox or free-roaming game?

3) What are the draws of such games? What makes them appealing?

4) How was Oblivion like an extra life for Bissell?

5) What is special about Fallout 3? What are some of his criticisms about the game?

6) What games interest Bissel the most? What's the difference, in his view, between films and games?

7) What is Bissel really interested in?

“Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter” [p. 349] Tom Bissell
In this essay Tom Bissell details the pros and cons of the video game Fallout 3, concluding that although sometimes such games are frustrating, their “stylishness, sophistication and intelligence” draw him in. He tells the story of his first experience playing the game, when he got so distracted that he missed the results of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, demonstrating that the games can be “leisure-time-eating viruses.” He also gives a brief genre analysis of the “open-world” video game, describing its attributes, though he later criticizes such games for simplistic tutorials, dialogue, and characterization. Bissell would prefer that games have more complex narrative elements to match the attention to art direction and the details of the games’ worlds. He argues against comparing games to other forms of entertainment, choosing instead to focus on “what games can do and how they make me feel while they are doing it.”
Teaching Notes
Bissell uses a number of swear words in the essay, as well as a reference to “fetish- porn.” Ask students who his audience might be, as well as how they themselves reacted to the language use.
Bissell creates a genre analysis in paragraph 4 when he describes “the open-world or sandbox or free-roaming game.” Discuss the elements of a genre analysis with your students and have them write a genre analysis of some other form of popular culture: a break-up song, a reality T.V. show episode, and so on.

Joining the Conversation 

1. Why, according to Tom Bissell, are video games so appealing? What evidence does he provide?

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In paragraph 4, Bissell praises video games for “the freedom they grant gamers, the narrative- and mission-generating manner in which they reward exploration, and their convincing illusion of endlessness,” but he also points out that they are “leisure-time- eating viruses.” Later in the essay, he acknowledges how one video game gave him an “extra life” (¶5) and praises another’s art direction and selection of choices. He uses his own experiences with particular games as evidence. 

2. Bissell begins with a self-mocking personal anecdote about playing video games. Why do you think he includes the story and places it in such a prominent location? How does it set the essay up as an argument that looks beyond the pros and cons of a particular video game? 

Bissell’s story shows how video games can be “leisure-time-eating viruses,” and the details of his personal experience with the game set up his later arguments about the positive and negative features of “the open-world or sandbox or free-roaming game” (¶4). The story aptly demonstrates that despite the problems Bissell details, video games can be highly entertaining. Placing such a story first pulls the reader in, whether or not he or she plays video games: the reader wonders why Bissell was so occupied by the game. Bissell uses Fallout 3 as an example of some of the pros and cons of all games of its genre, but he does not have a strong thesis early in the piece, perhaps because of the genre: a chapter in his book. 

3. Bissell says in paragraph 18 that the games that interest him the most are the ones that tell stories. How are they different from stories in films or novels? 

Although Bissell says that he’s “uninterested” in the debate about whether “games are better or worse than movies or novels” (¶19), he carefully considers how a game’s use of stories differs. He notes that early games, such as Super Mario, had “rudimentary” stories much like fairy tales. More recent games, though, have the ability to include more perspectives: Bissell points out that films “have someone deciding where to point the camera” in order to achieve compression, while games let the player decide what to look at and what story to create. 

4. So what? It’s clear that Tom Bissell cares a lot about video games, but how does he make clear, as his title suggests, why they matter? 

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Video games matter because they give players opportunities to make choices that other forms of entertainment do not. Bissell points out that gamers can interact with a story in ways they cannot in other mediums (¶18). Although he worries that games can insult gamers’ intelligence, he seems to hope that they have the ability to do more than they currently do. He writes, “More interesting to me is what games can do and how they make me feel while they are doing it” (¶19).