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# Are videogames most like poetry?
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/are-videogames-most-like-poetry/
- Published: 2011-11-23T21:06:00.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T15:29:32.000Z
- Description: In a recent interview about his game-poem A Slow Year, written for Atari 2600, Ian Bogost mused over why videogames are often compared to films and novels, when the closest analogy might be poetry. poetry feels game-like to me not because it is procedural, but because it is highly condensed… symbols
- Author: Kill Screen Staff
- Tags: News, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

![](http://www.igf.com/images/aslowyear_new.png)

In a recent interview about his game-poem *[A Slow Year](http://www.bogost.com/games/game%5Fpoems.shtml?ref=killscreen.com),* written for Atari 2600, Ian Bogost mused over why videogames are often compared to films and novels, when the closest analogy might be poetry.

> poetry feels game-like to me not because it is procedural, but because it is highly condensed…  
>  
> symbols and ideas \[are\] strong in both forms…  
>  
> I’ve always been confused at attempts to compare videogames to narrative forms like the novel or the cinema when poetic aesthetics like condensation, metaphor, and structure present themselves as alternatives.

[Source](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=jep;view=text;rgn=main;idno=3336451.0014.205&ref=killscreen.com).

*\-Jason Johnson*