Video gaming and its discontents

But there is innovation to be found -- games that are not gender-stereotyped and exciting. The coolest thing I've seen this year is a Playstation2 peripheral that is selling steadily on word of mouth and spectacular in-store demos. The EyeToy nearly caused a riot at the Tokyo Game Show this fall. It's insanely and infectiously fun, and you don't need to know anything about games to get why it is utterly engrossing.

The EyeToy is a camera that sits on top of your television and projects your image onto the screen. You are then able to interact with onscreen elements, like karate-chopping targets in a game such as "Kung Foo" or hitting all the onscreen bubbles in the right order in the funky dance game "Groove."

EyeToy suggests a new era of interactivity, one that increasingly looks like the movement-based control scheme Steven Spielberg designed for Tom Cruise in "Minority Report."

"I think the reason it's compelling is obvious," says Jim Greer, a programmer and gamer. "It takes video games out of the thumbs and uses the whole body. The whole geekiness of games -- there are multiple components -- but one element is that it's a rather tight, enclosed, compressed, cerebral experience. [EyeToy] takes video games off the couch and the armchair. It's the difference between typing and dancing."

Musical games are not new. In 1997, the boutique game studio NanaOn-sha, headed by musician and producer Masaya Matsuura, scored a sleeper hit with the instantly accessible beat-matching game "Parappa the Rapper." "Frequency" and its sequel, "Amplitude," were more hardcore versions of the genre, featuring faster, harder beats. The gorgeous, blissed-out trance game "REZ" offered synesthesia for auteurs and artists.

The latest NanaOn-sha product is too Japanese to make it out of the island nation. But "Mojibribbon" is so unusual, and so compelling, and such a lovely little game that it deserves mention. It's a beat-matching game in which you write Japanese kana in calligraphy to the time of the rap. If you have too little ink on your brush, your script is light and scratchy; too much, and it's wet and blotchy. Pressure counts, too -- just enough on the analog stick will create perfect, clear characters. If you unlock Level 9, you can compose your own raps and send them as e-mail to your friends via the "Mojibribbon" network if you have the PS2 network adapter. You can also download the raps that other people have composed.

Dance games are probably more popular than simple beat-matching games. "Bust a Groove" and "Dance Dance Revolution" mapped the moves to music, requiring the player to perform the supafly combos on giant dance pads. Hardcore gamers don't like the genre, typically, because it forces them to do something they probably haven't done since they were forced to do the Hustle in seventh-grade gym class: get up and get jiggy. At DDR tournaments, lithe kids sweat their way through impossible configurations of foot and hand movements, the best ones perfectly choreographed and synced with a partner. It's a jaw-dropping feat of turbo-powered grace. The home version continues to be popular, with new songs and remixes coming out every year.

Games that involve the body in its totality, like DDR and games for the EyeToy, and games that are musically tied to the action are manifestly not geeky. Geeks use their heads; non-geeks use their bodies.

But getting non-geeky may be the key to getting games out of the hardcore ghetto and really attracting women in large numbers. Getting funky shaking the maracas to "Samba de Amigo" or wailing on little plastic taiko drums is just plain fun. These games go a long way toward dispelling the image of gaming as a solitary, bloodthirsty sport of young males sniping at each other over the Internet. These games have an instant, intuitive appeal -- you get the point of them in seconds, and the fun factor is effortless. And the replay value is huge -- at least, until you develop a leg cramp.

Put the body together with interaction with other people, and you've got a world of potential.

"I like the social aspect of gaming," says Souris Hong-Porretta. I like games that involve more than just me."

Right. I don't want girl games, I just want what every gamer wants -- smarter games. More meaningful games. Games that relate to other people. That relate to other things. Games that push me off the screen and off the couch.

The first home entertainment system, the Magnavox Odyssey, hit the market in 1972, one year before I was born. Video games and gamers are mature 30-year-olds now. We're ready to move beyond games as nicely packaged, salable consumer products. We're ready for cultural products. Good, bad, and ugly games. Experimental games. Games that are not entirely successful but try out a new idea or a new technology. Games that are more than just games. We're getting there. And for all the love of video gaming that gamers still bear, that seed of discontent is just what's needed to keep looking for the next great thing that breaks boundaries, wakes people up and rocks the world.

• View blog reactions