This week’s readings focus on the role of narrative and story within videogames. What do you see as the function of story and narrative in gaming? Are there concepts raised in the readings that speak directly to your experiences with games from this class or otherwise?
5 thoughts on “Responses for 11/30”
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From a general consensus of the readings, it seems that game developers and game critics focus on narrative only goes as far as getting gamers interested enough to interact with the game, with interaction rather than narrative being the driving force behind the games. While I have to agree with this, as personal and actual interaction is what separates video-games from other art mediums, there are some recent game examples that throw a skewer into this logic.
The first is the newest edition to the Madden Franchise, Madden 11. The NFL is already a media and popular culture giant, one that needs no backstory to get gamers interested in interacting with it’s world. Yet, in the newest version of the game, one of the new modes allows players to become a single NFL rookie in an unfolding narrative, from dealing with press conferences to petitioning your coach for a starting job. While this is an obvious side mode (with many glitches), Madden developers were still compelled to put the mode in the game despite the NFL needing no sort of narrative build-up to get gamers interested.
The second example is Heavy Rain, a game in which players watch an unfolding story, getting to play and make decisions in brief moments and encounters rather than vice versa. For example, in one mission you are in a convenience store that is being robbed. Instead of quickly relaying this information to the player then letting them take control, you are given a choice of possible actions (run, fight, stay put, etc…) which you can choose that then play out in front of you. Heavy Rain acts very much like a film that happens to let it’s audience make some key decisions in the plot. If the driving force behind game narrative is provide just enough to get gamers to interact, Heavy Rain should have failed. However, it was a commercial and critical success.
I would agree with Andrew and the readings that narrative functions to get the players to interact with the game. After all, in games where narrative is present or where you control a hero/protagonist, your aim is usually to get the avatar to some point to trigger another piece of the story. It’s satisfying to see results from in-game actions other than leveling up or gaining new items.
The concept of narrative entering games in localized incident instantly brings to mind sidequests present in a lot of games, especially MMORPGs. Often, these sidequests initiate a short, self-contained, narrative. For example, In Red Dead Redemption, sidequests involve characters who are peripheral to the main story narrative. In one sidequest, you attempt to reunite a woman with her missing husband and child by looking for them in the hills. In sidequests such as the ones found in World of Warcraft, you could go out collecting roots for a NPC (non-playable character) who needs to make a medicine for their sick relative.
I also agree that narrative functions to get the players to interact with the game. I think that the greatest thing about Grand Theft Auto IV is that “environmental storytelling” (Jenkins) is very conducive to its narrative format. The location of the particular game is modeled off of New York City, and I remember reading somewhere this semester about Dan Houser, one the of the writers of the story, who said that a main goal of this particular entry to the series was to reference actual place. There’s something very “evocative” about this game because I am immersed with a familiar world, albeit a realistic one rather than a fantasy. For me, I have a ton of emotional reaction to seeing Meadows Hills (a.k.a. Forest Hills in the real world) and witnessing the LIRR that runs through my neighborhood.
The reading that I found most interesting from last night was the Alice and Kev story based off one person’s experience with The Sims 3. When one writes a story, it is easy to assume that they are the only ones controlling the outcomes of their narrative decisions. When put in the video game world, though, there are certain codes and gaming strategies that make it impossible for us to have full control over the actions of our characters. Though The Sims is supposed to simulate reality with endless possibilities, we have to take into consideration that it is a game with planned out scenarios and outcomes. There aren’t unlimited options as to what to do. For instance, at one point in the Alice and Kev story, the person playing wanted Alice to talk to someone, but the game would not let her talk to him. Clearly, the storytelling control lies most of all within the limitations of the game itself.
In this way, there are two levels of storytelling. The creators of the game are like the gods of the storytelling world, and I would say that the player is Prometheus. He has the power to bring the people in the game life and mold them, but the progression of events is not ultimately in his/her hands. This makes the player’s story so different from what we are used to reading because he/she is putting him/herself into the story as a storyteller that doesn’t have a full grasp on what is happening in his/her story.
I’ve been playing Trauma Center: Second Opinion on Wii. This game consists of various levels of surgery that escalate in difficulty as you proceed. However, the entire game is tied together by a narrative: you’re the up and coming young doctor, and more experienced doctors talk to you about the hospital, upcoming surgeries, and each other. Often they put pressure on you to do well and intimidate you, but they also develop as characters who we’re told are “flirty” or “annoying.” At first I thought this narrative was corny and overly dramatic, I now agree that it did succeed in getting me to interact with the game more. For example, I may not have taken the game’s surgery as seriously had I not been told how important it was right before. The story also provided a good transition between many surgeries. In addition to this, the stories around the patient in the surgery were always exciting and caused me to care even more about the surgery. Overall, I’ve realized that narrative is an extremely effective technique in drawing me into the game.