Clive Barker talks of games as art, of Jericho, of sequels

Clive Barker is scary. He writes scary stuff. If we're going to use very faulty, feeble and silly logic, we'd say "Clive Barker is a writer. He writes scary stuff. Thus, Clive Barker is scary stuff." Crazy logic is fun and that seems to be a driving point with his games, such as Jericho, which is planned as a trilogy. We had a big preview of the game a while back and we're pretty excited to see how it turns out. But does he really think games are art? Here's a hint from us: they are.

When asked about the claim that games are inferior to things like film or books, Barker frighteningly replied, "That's bullshit ... We can debate what art is, we can debate it forever. But if the experience moves you, some way or another, even if it just moves your bowels, I think it's worthy of some serious study ... Games mean something to a lot of people." Right on, Clive, right on.

He discussed Jericho and some future games, namely the two sequels. The game was supposed to be a book, initially. He couldn't decide what medium exactly, but for some reason he was drawn into making it as a game. Why? He clarifies: "It would make a f***ing terrible novel. It really would, it doesn't work! It screams out to be something other. Maybe if games hadn't existed, I would've made it a movie. But I much prefer the idea of having twenty hours to play this world, to enter this labyrinth than the two hours or the way movies are going now." We agree with him and we can't wait to play Jericho either. We're glad it's not a book. We like games.