Guillermo del Toro Defends Video Games as Art

While at a Portland book reading to promote his latest novel “The Fall”, filmmaker Guillermo del Toro took some time during the Q&A session to defend video games as an art form.

“Video games are the comic books of our time,” says the Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth director. “It’s a medium that gains no respect among the intelligentsia. They say, ‘Oh, video games!’ And most people that complain about video games have never fucking played them.”

Listening to him speak on the subject, it’s clear that del Toro has a passion for the medium. He discusses many of his favorite games during the Q&A, including Shadow of the Colossus, Left 4 Dead and BioShock. “I think BioShock is one of the most fully realized world creations in any medium and I think it’s a gorgeous piece of real estate that they created and I adore it,” he says. He also calls the opening of Uncharted 2 “a lesson in storytelling.”

Del Toro recently told MTV News that he is working on a “Lovecraftian” video game with THQ (though THQ will not officially confirm it) and during the reading he expressed some of what he hopes to accomplish with the project.

“I expect and hope to create what I would like to see in a video game,” he said. “The one thing I can say is I’m doing [my movies] because no one else is doing them. And the video game is the same thing. I want to do that video game in a way that no one else is doing it.”