I was kinda supposed to have written this long ago, right after I read a certain chapter of a popular manga, so I could be writing it amidst the striking emotions I was under. But I am glad I'm doing it now, reloaded with my usual rhetoric. Make an effort and read through til the end: you may not have experienced exactly the same, but I'm sure you were, at least once, asking to feel it again!

How to start, though? I guess it should be from the very beginning: one day, I decided to read the Naruto manga. I had to check why it reached such international multimedia impact. I wasn't very optimistic, the few anime episodes I watched being, well, lame. So, I headed to onemanga.com, and started reading it. After a few chapters, I was hooked. And I still had almost 400 chapters to go.

And so, I read on. As I read on, I was pleased to see a rich universe shaping up. It's a very nice feeling. To my surprise, it was solid work, and you couldn't help but fall in love with the many characters. Page after page, getting closer to the latest chapters, I had the impression Naruto's author Masashi Kishimoto was actually going to accomplish something. And by something, I mean something. Unfortunately, as I got to the second half, the manga went quite tasteless. I won't give the details (as in spoilers), but it was a shame, since it was building up to be full of win.

Still, I had to keep reading. It's not like it was totally worthless and, all in all, I had to know what would happen next. And I reached chapter 382. That is the OMFGBBQ chapter 382. If you read Naruto, you know OMFGBBQ is actually not enough for chapter 382.

Hm, but if you don't read Naruto, you may be wondering "what the hell is this Wintry_Flutist talking about? What is OMFGBBQ about what?". Well, I can't spoil it - maybe someday, just like me, you'll check Naruto. But a major character dies. And not just he died for good - there's no wish granting Dragon Balls in Naruto -, but it was beautiful. The kind of happy sadness you don't feel everyday. I just couldn't believe such pages were written. I don't want to boast, but I've read Racine, Mann, Nietzsche, Perec, Rousseau... but friggin chapter 382 of Naruto skyrocketed through it and got a special place in my heart.

I wondered when was the last time I was so happily sad. It was also reading a manga, this time Dragon Ball. There is that sequence very close to the end, when Goku is making his last Genki Dama and characters that hadn't been seen since the beginning of Dragon Ball show up to help. That was some obvious fan service and quite an easy way to play with the reader's emotions, but hell, it works wonderfully. It had that nice warm feeling needed for a perfect ending. However, that was it. Once I've read it, it was read, and no matter how many times I read it again, the feeling isn't the same. When was I going to feel it again?

A few years later, and that's a few weeks ago, I would read Naruto's chapter 382 and feel it again. But now, it was read and it was felt. It was totally worth it though, I'd recommend Naruto (the manga, please, do it right and ignore the anime) despite its downhill failure after a few arcs just because of that goddamn chapter. I wish I had spent more words trying to describe this sensation, but that's beyond the point, because now, I'm left wondering:

When will I feel that again?

There are many things that, no matter from how far I see them coming, do not fail to leave me with an uncomfortable dizziness through the stomach. And the last time it happened, it was uncomfortable enough to make me start this blog.

It all started April 1st 2008. Pretty much the most uninspired April 1st in gaming press. Still, one site made an effort and published a nicely made Zelda movie trailer, with all kind of hints it was a fake, from the blatant cheesiness to the peculiar release date. It was bound to generate a bit more buzz than most other attempts of teh funnay!1 from other websites and magazines. And so it happened.

I had seen worse, but I hadn't seen it in a while. There was a small boom of topics, filled with astonishing posts. I don't mean the ones from people who actually believed the trailer was real, but the comments like "OMG that would be soooo cool if true" or "Zelda totally deserves a movie, there's so much that could be done". Average gamers, and even some above average, have proven to be my personal daily source of WTFness, but comments like that, well that's just death by overdose.

If you don't get the whole picture yet, the question here is why do gamers want so much their games to be ported to the big screen? I could go as far as saying it is insulting, but fear not! I actually know the answer!

First of all, they want it because a movie based on a game makes it "official" that the game is actually that masterful. "So masterful, it deserves a movie". Ohhh! I'm feeling it, the thrill of exposing something so many feel, but never put in better words than "OMG that would be soooo cool if true". But let's go further: this kind of thinking is only a symptom of a deeper issue.

So, apparently, there are games that deserve movies. Zelda, Metal Gear, Metroid, Halo, you name it. But did you ever hear someone say "This movie totally deserves a game, there's so much that could be done". No, you didn't. What? You remember this friend of yours saying a 300 or Matrix game would be cool? Hm, I think you missed the key word: deserves.

There! We hit the core of this matter! Here, I could start a huge thesis on why games are still far from reaching the appeal of movies, both as an art and as mere entertainment. But I'll put it in the fewest words I can, and you will most likely be able to figure it all by yourself.

Nowadays, multimedia franchises are more and more common, and for the most part I'm fine with that. But by saying a game has reached such quality it deserves a movie, one is implying in many ways that movies are superior to games. As if making a movie was the natural "next step" for a successful video game franchise. On the other hand, your friend who wanted a Matrix game just wanted some of the Matrix feeling and coolness in his everyday beat 'em up. He never meant the movie deserves a game as an "upgrade".

But does the gamer who wants so much a movie based on his beloved game franchise really believe the movie would be better than the games, as the word "deserves" subtly suggests? Does he think he will have more fun watching the movie than playing the game? Absolutely not. The thing is, somewhere deep in him - or her, for that matter - he knows that he can only share his love for a game with a limited number of people. But with a movie, many people who didn't even know the franchise existed may experience it, just like him, even if only in a lower degree.

When he says the game deserves a movie, he actually wants to say that the game deserves to be known and appreciated by more people.

That is why we'll never hear something like "this movie deserves a game" or even "this book deserves a theater play": every media besides video games has already reached an expanded audience, centuries ago for some, and can rely on itself to reach a maximum number of consumers. That is also why we hate when a movie messes up a successful game franchise: it's betraying our will to share our love for it.

And then I ask: why are some people, mostly among hardcore gamers - a crude word for passionate gamers, afraid of expanding the gaming audience? This is how games should be reaching more people.