You make a point that aregging with would be an understament. To me "Metal Gear Solid" is the Citizen Kane of video games in terms of story telling and drama. The norm is that games tend to have the story quality of a B-film while games like "Bulletstorm" have a story quality similar to a grindhouse film. I would have to blaim the industry that at times acts like its catering to 13 year olds. 

Your argument is short on evidence. If you're only going to look at the "summer blockbusters", then of course video games are going to look as stale and bloated, at times, as Hollywood. That's like only judging film based on what makes money and what wins Oscars. There are tons of other films out there to be seen, and tons of other games out there to be played.

Your logic is also flawed. I don't think permenancy is easily equatible with quality story. I'm still playing Mario on my SNES after twenty years, and there isn't exactly a complex narrative to speak of. Just because people still go see summer blockbusters, that doesn't mean that movies in general are incapable of producing quality stories. This logic carries over to games.

I think you need to expand your horizons. If you're dissatisfied with the bigger titles, play some indy games. Or at least come to terms with the fact that Call of Duty's success has no bearing whatsoever on a gamer's enjoyment of Mass Effect or Heavy Rain.

I recently wrote an article about the dangers of low-brow gaming, but even I admitted that there's a time and a place for everything. The 'bar for content' that you're writing about is continually being raised. In a fast-paced society with titles being released every week, we have to remember that mediums don't mature overnight.

Film was around for years before they started realizing it could tell stories and it took three decades before there was synchronized sound. Yet, over a hundred years later there's still people innovating on how we utilize these things.

While I agree that that there are alot of immature games out there, Bulletstorm included (which was the point of that game), when you say that games will never, "reach the narrative or emotional heights of a film like the Social Network," you're sort of turning this into a "are games art?" debate. Roger Ebert went down that road, and he conceded defeat.

It seems to me that your problem with games is that all of them focus on action, and not drama.

Drama is good for a passive medium, like TV or movies, but in an interactive medium, like games, drama on its own is just...boring. People need to do something in games. They need to solve puzzles, throw a ball, jump on inexplicably moving objects, and yes, make stuff 'splode.

There are some really interesting ideas here, but you need to explore them more indepth. As Matthew said, you're kinda reaching into the "are videos games art?" debate, but you also skate about issues such as videogames as an business and the media perception of videogames. Those are some really indepth issues!

For me, it makes me wonder how we actually define lowbrow in terms of stories. For example, I wouldn't really say Uncharted 2 is 'lowbrow'. I mean, it isn't arty-farty by exploring huge philosophical questions, but it has a incredibly robust script with some great characters and it does have a few themes to it that are quite interesting.

Thank you guys for your well thought out comments. I wanted to comment back on a few of the ones so far. I wanted to keep the post short, I hate reading excessively long posts myself so I'm glad I started a bit of a conversation about the matter in the comments.

I first want to say that I do think video games are capable of better and more thought provoking content. It's the amount of these "lowbrow" type games that upsets me. I love popcorn movies like 300, Die Hard, and the better superhero flicks. But what if that was the bar for intelligence in movies? We'd have no King's Speech or Black Swan. That is where I think games are sitting at this point.

Of course, there are fantastic games like Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, and although it's criticized, I thought Red Dead Redemption had some of the best writing of the year. Those are fantastic titles and deserve praise but does Gears of War or Call of Duty belong on so many game of the year lists along with them? No. I don't mind how much money Call of Duty makes, it could make billions for all I care and it's still a fun game. However, if there aren't enough "highbrow" titles to follow it, thats just a shame. Take any of the 10 best picture nominees compared to Twilight. I just feel like there are not enough "Mass Effects" to counter balance the "Bulletstorms". And more regrettably there isn't enough reason to make a game as complex as Mass Effect over a story like Gears of War or Killzone's.

Matthew commented on drama being boring in games. I understand that watching people in dramatic situations is not interactive and at that point might as well be a movie. With so much freedom we are given in titles we should be able to weave our own stories with our own actions. I also need some motivation to do all that jumping, puzzling and 'sploding. That brings me back to Matt's comment that video games are a young medium, I couldn't agree more. Story telling in games is at an early stage but with the history of the film industry to look back on it does give the games industry a bit of a head start on it's self.

I also want to make it clear that "games as art" debate never crossed my mind. I think art is subjective and debating what is or isn't art is futile. I've been a gamer my whole life, at 22 I'm looking for something more engaging than shooting dudes in the face and explosions. Please feel free to pick my comment apart as well as the post, it's the best way to get to the root of the problem (if there is one) and begin to fix it.

I just want to say that Uncharted 2 is much more like Raiders of the Lost Ark (even beyond the superficial similarities) than Die Hard, and Raiders actually was nominated for best picture, and won four other Oscars.