Video games are art.

It’s boring, it’s been said, and it’s been argued against. But it’s true. Game developers are this generation’s unnamed Ansel Adams and Andy Warhols. The video games they work to create are their own unique worlds imagined and they bring to life these visions with precise direction and immense effort. By any definition, the entire process is an art form; writers weave a story out of nothing, artists turn barren worlds into illustrated societies, and coders bring it all to life in an interactive formation.

The entire process is undeniably art–almost magically so.

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I take my choices in video games seriously. Although their concept of morality is usually nothing more than a ruse to present players with a common thread to characters, I still care about the illusion it generates–repeatedly finding myself entangled in the web of choices that are presented. Moreover, I always find a sense of satisfaction in doing right by my character and surrounding world. I even go as far as to debate both the mundane and monumental at great length before taking any action.

Early on in Rockstar’s most recent release, Red Dead Redemption, John Marston walks into a saloon where he happens upon a man whose wife has left him. In a continuation of an earlier quest, the man explains that he has information to spill if the price is right. In-between sips of gin, he offers Marston the chance to either find his wife and bring her to her senses or to slip him some money instead.

While both choices would move the story forward, they would do it from opposite ends of the moral spectrum although which end each task belonged to was unclear. Erroneously, I chose to help him and would immediately end up regretting this.

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John Marston is the latest victim to my attention deficit. He is not likely to set his sights on the sands of Mexico or deliver justice to the town of New Austin at anytime soon. He’s a wanderer, his cause a lost one. The reason? I have a short attention span–most of the time.

Niko Bellic, now the focus of my attention, may yet avenge his fallen comrades by bringing vengeance upon the man who betrayed him in the Balkans and left his squad for dead, as he makes a name for himself on the streets of Liberty City.

He’s only two years late.

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Red Dead Redemption is John Marston’s story and not mine. This has become somewhat of a mantra as I follow the antihero to the end of the West and back. I use it to explain his odd choices of company, his sometimes off-putting quips, and the entire part of the game that takes place in Mexico. But by divorcing myself from the avatar constantly, by forgiving narrative blunders and being forced to justify poor characterization, I am removing player agency–and effectively making the game mean a little less each time.

Eventually, it adds up.

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