I think it's because we're still learning what video games are. Just as the news battles on and on about whether they're kids' toys or tools of violent porn destruction, we as players are still trying to figure out what games are really evolving toward. We're at a point where games aren't over-saturated in the way that movies are, and we aren't quite as consistently "expecting" something. (Although that cat thing in The Last Guardian is going to die at the end-we're all on that same page, right?)

While the decline in innovation in movies causes them to try superextra-hard to impress us, games aren't there yet! So when a video game tells a joke or makes us laugh, we consider that to be a really special moment-we were engaged in a new experience of play, and it really didn't even need humor. But you gave it to us anyway.

The reason we have so many people clinging to jokes from video games is the same reason we have so many people spray-painting their heads to look like Sephiroth at anime conventions-video games reaching out to us in a human way, whether humorous or dramatic, just feel really special to us. We can never forget it. We're at the point in videogame history that the film industry already encountered in the early 20th century, when it realized it could totally give us compelling stories and character arcs instead of just showing us trains crashing or chimps trying to bake a pie.

Lest you think video games have reached their creative plateau, keep this in mind-the format is still maturing. And who knows what kind of adult it's going to become?

So the next time someone tries to tell you their 500th joke about cake, don't groan- smile at the fact that video games are growing up. And then kick them in the nuts, hard.