Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter

In his nonfiction work Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (2010), Tom Bissell explores what video games teach us about human nature, arguing that these games are becoming the most popular art form of our time. Well regarded by critics and general readers, the book received various award nominations. Bissell is a bestselling, award-winning journalist, media critic, and fiction writer. He based Extra Lives on his own experience playing video games, recognizing he could learn something from spending hours in front of game consoles.

In Extra Lives, Bissell comments on the general popularity of video games, noting that, although the gaming industry generates more money than the music and film industries, it receives far less publicity. Questioning why that is, Bissell concludes that the silence says much about our love-hate relationship with video games.

Bissell does not aim to cover every video game on the market or to write a history of the industry. Instead, he simply offers his own opinions on various video games and the impact each has had on his life. Before he wrote the book, he decided that he spent so much time playing games that he should put his enthusiasm to good use.



Bissell’s central argument is that video games fail to live up to their potential. He claims that developers populate their games with stereotypical characters, poor dialogue, and hole-ridden plots. He argues that, until developers take their own games more seriously, the industry won’t get the recognition it deserves for the income it generates. Above all, Bissell wants video games to take their proper place as a modern art form.

Bissell suggests that developers go wrong at the conceptual level. They rely on old-school design structures that don’t hold our attention anymore. For example, many games seem like one-sided, impersonal movies rather than immersive gaming experiences. For Bissell, the answer is to make video games more engaging and interactive. Only then can video games stand out from their competitors in the art, music, and film industries.

Bissell tells the video game industry that a world of opportunity awaits. There are so many exciting and fresh directions the industry could take—it is only a matter of taking a chance on one of them. Bissell keeps Extra Lives general, and he doesn’t make any suggestions of his own, but his comments are designed to stimulate discussion within the gaming community.



Although Bissell doesn’t explore the technical side of video games, he does consider what the current state of video games says about our society. Particularly, he explores the nature of violence in video games and why we feel the need to play with violence in a simulated environment.

Bissell wonders whether video games allow gamers to explore the nature of right and wrong, asking if video games are an appropriate way for us to consider these questions. There is always a danger that first-person shooting games encourage people to commit acts of violence, although Bissell admits that the link between video games and real-life violence is largely unproven. He argues that the same can be said for drug use and other immoral acts—video games aren’t responsible.

Extra Lives is not exclusively about video games themselves; it also covers video game reviewers and what they can do to bolster the industry. Bissell argues that reviewers could help improve video games by offering constructive criticism; instead, they are only interested in exposure and getting their reviews published on high-traffic websites. If they were honest and gave proper critiques, the video gaming industry might improve. As it stands, their reviews are not sufficiently comprehensive or engaging to compete with the reviews given in the film, television, and music industries.



Bissell proposes another possible reason for why video games aren’t of the same quality as other artistic mediums. He worries that so many people are involved in producing a single video game that the game loses all sense of continuity. He compares games to, for example, novels, which are written by one person and edited only by a handful. So many people work on each video game that they often seem like the sum of multiple parts rather than a singular piece of work.

Toward the end of the book, Bissell talks about his own negative experiences with gaming. He discusses the years he spent taking cocaine and wasting countless hours on video games that he now cannot remember playing. Drug use aside, Bissell argues that this isn’t uncommon. Gamers are either obsessive or they stop playing entirely. It is up to the industry to find ways to grow its user base or else there is a real danger it could fade away in the future.