It’s a shame, we were just getting ready to rant at another ignorant old man who’s never picked up a game in his life, but we thought we’d better read his article first and it turns out he actually knows what he’s talking about. I know, we were as shocked as you!

Junot Díaz won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his debut novel, and writes for the Wall Street Journal. He also happens to be a pretty avid gamer from the sounds of it, and has put in more than his fair share of time stealing cars and robbing the citizens of Liberty City.

Rather than spewing out the tired old ‘games arent art’ line that so many supposedly intelligent critics seem to spout, Díaz specifically states that he has no doubt that GTAIV is art, but that he doesn’t feel that it yet equals what films and TV shows such as The Sopranos and The Godfather have managed.

Díaz says “Narrative art of that caliber is distinguished by its ability to re-organize our preconceptions, to shift us into a world that’s always been there but that we’ve been afraid to acknowledge, and I’m not convinced that GTA IV pulls off that miracle.”

He also posits that Rockstar could have done a lot more with the fact that their main character is an immigrant, and suggests a more poignant and bleak ending such as Niko being deported back to Europe would have been a better addition to the narrative.

Being an immigrant to America himself, Díaz certainly has a unique perspective on the matter. The article is very well written and certainly worth a read. It may not change the way you think about how games compare to movies, but it may just make you stop and think, which sometimes is just enough…