Yeah, these days it's obvious that video games are the next logical step in media consumption. First we had audio. Then we had audio+video. Now we have audio+video+interaction. You can literally watch a movie inside of a video game, if you care to.

But back then, the audio and video qualities of games weren't yet terribly developed. You could still easily find board games, or heck, sports, that were more complex than Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
I can definitely see that one would think, it's a novelty and not be able to imagine how cineastic games would become, or that some even contain books worth of history lessons.