Story writing: Games and Books

Last week I talked about some of the positive aspects of the “Tokyo Xanadu” RPG video game. RPG's usually involve very engrossing and expansive stories, and legends like “Final Fantasy 7” leave memories that some of us will remember for the rest of our lives. Those of us that love reading books know that the same is true with a good book—the memories of well-written stories leave us with deep experiences that stay with us. But do the stories in games even compare to full-length novels? Consider, for a moment, what happens to novels when they are made into movies. You always hear people saying that such movies were not as good as the book. We even have a little rule in my family: my daughter is not allowed to see a movie based on a book unless she's read the book first. When “Ender's Game” was due to release in theaters a few years ago, I went out and bought the novel and read it. Once my daughter had read it, I took her to see the movie with me. Although the movie was well-done, it wasn't as good as the book. Based on this, can we assume that a story told in a video game can't really compare with a novel?