Gaming is the most vital artform of the age, a field that has burgeoned from virtually nothing to one of the world’s most popular forms in no time flat, a field that has seen and continues to see an enormous ferment of creativity, a field that may well become the predominant artform of the 21st century, as film was of the 20th, as the novel was of the 19th. By God, we’re privileged to be here at the birth of this great form, of the creation of a democratic artform for a democratic age, the creation of structures of desire, of ways to enable people to create their own entertainment through play. (Costikyan 2000: 53)