Are Video Games Literature?

      I will be discussing the 2009 game entitled "Call of Jaurez: Bound in Blood". Set in the 1860's, the game follows two brothers, Ray and Thomas, who are outlaws in the American West as well as in Mexico. The story begins with them as Confederate soldiers fighting off the advancing Union army. They decide to desert their companies and travel to their home to defend it from Union troops. When they arrive, they find that their mother has been murdered and their farm set ablaze. They have an altercation with their Colonel in Arkansas and kill him. Forced into hiding, they set their sights on a lost treasure in Mexico. While there, a women comes between them and creates a rift in their already strained relationship. Before each mission, the player is able to choose which brother they will be playing as.
       Story line aside, and going back to the original question of wether video games are literature, I believe that the same steps were taken as if an author were to write a novel with the same story line. Much thought was put into making the story historically accurate as well as entertaining.
    Is literature anything that is a story? Is a radio play literature? Is it only novels, short stories, and poetry? In my understanding the last sentence is the truth. This game has done well in building a creative and believable setting, with interesting characters that develop through the game. The story offers multiple twists and conflicts that can be overcome if you succeed in beating the level.
    Yes, this can be literature if the story was written down on paper and handed to me. It is not however in the same category of "East of Eden" and "Heart of Darkness". The dumbed down aspect of shooting people for 15 minutes to gain access to the next 2 minute animation that tells the story, takes to much away from the process that is required when "experiencing" literature. Films are not literature, screenplays are. A live play is not literature, in written form it is. We cannot draw parrallels and label things when they are of a different animal.
  Although entertaining and engaging, playing a video game is a cop-out to gaining knowledge of the world when compared to good old-fashioned reading.