Are video games literature?

Interesting article on the Guardian's website today asking why top writers are not writing for video games: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/feb/23/video-games-writers-novelists

In my opinion, there's certainly a lot of scope for a talented writer to produce a video game script that matches the quality of great novels. The problem is one of acceptance.

Check out the syllabus for a typical university literature course and you'll see that, despite now having over a century of heritage, film and TV scripts are still not widely considered literature at the same level as theatre scripts. Students of 20th century literature are likely to study Tennessee Williams or Harold Pinter, but not Woody Allen or Paul Schrader. There is little logical reason for this. Why should a play written for the big screen be any less literary than a play written for the theatre?

With little over a decade of serious scripting to its name, it will likely be a long time before the powers that be consider a video game script as literature and that itself will deter great writers. That is a real shame as the creative industries should be encouraging innovation.