GAM3R 7H30RY

I think this passage offers a pathway from the world of textual to videoscopic to algorithmic - capturing in a few sentences the dramatic difference between books, video and games.

GAM3R 7H30RY: "f the novel, cinema or television can reveal through their particulars an allegory of the world that makes them possible, the game reveals something else entirely. For the reader, the novel produces allegory as something textual. The world of possibility is the world of the linguistic sign. For the viewer, the screen allegory is something luminous. The world of possibility is the world of mechanical reproducibility. For the gamer, the game produces allegory as something algorithmic. The world of possibility is the world internal to the algorithm.

So: a passage from the topic to the topographic, mediated by the novel; a passage from the topographic to the topological, mediated by television; a passage, mediated by the game, from the topological to as yet unknown geographies, a point where the gamer seems to be stuck."

Understanding this shift from text, to video to games is a key to where we are being "taken" by our algorithmic journey. Are we "stuck"?