How do we understand the importance of narrative within games.
Let's begin by exploring what I mean when I refer to “narrative within video games” by looking at the
“Dictionary.com” definition of 'narrative';
nar·ra·tive [nar-uh-tiv]
–noun
1. a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious.
2. a book, literary work, etc., containing such a story.
3. the art, technique, or process of narrating: Somerset Maugham was a master of narrative.
It is with the second definition that I refer to here. “a book, literary work, etc., containing such a story” if this is the case then video games can be referred to as narrative. Simple, right? Wrong! Although this basic conclusion can be used to state that games are narratives it doesn't go anyway to to demonstrate the importance of such a theory within video games.
Games academics is still a very much infantile area of study so lets refer back to the silver screen,
cinema. Craig Lindley surmises in his paper that
“. . the central notion of narrative in modern commercial cinema is that of a form having a beginning (the first act), in which a conflict is established, followed by the playing out of the implications of the conflict (the second act), and completed by the resolution of the conflict (the third act).” (Lindley, C. 2002).
I will suggest that this is a handy way of dealing with narrative form within video games. We already
know that many video games tell a story, in fact I will suggest that most gamers buy a video game based on its narrative story content and not necessarily the genre or gameplay dynamic, such as; if it's an FPS or a strategy game. The results show that games tend to be bought based on the story it tells.
By understanding the above quote we can apply the idea of linear narrative to interactivity. For examplelets look at the movie Avatar (20th Century Fox, 2009). Avatar shares many similarities to modern video games, the aesthetics and the production for example, in that large portions of the movie are computer generated much like a video game. But, the movie Avatar isn't interactive. If you leave the movie half way through the story still progresses regardless of if you're there to see it or not. A video game is different, the player has to be involved in the progression of the narrative in order to get to the proverbial 'third act' and complete the game and therefore the story. Let's consider that games don't
simply contain narrative but are actually constructed as narrative, would it be correct to assume that a game such as Tetris (Alexey, P. 1984) was created as a story, I would suggest not. Espen Aarseth states in his book “Cybertext. .”;
"To claim that there is no difference between games and narrative is to ignore essential qualities of both categories.
And yet, as this study tries to show, the difference is not clear-cut, and there is significant overlap between the two."
(Arseth, E. 1997)
With that in mind lets consider another game, Space Invaders (Midway 1978). Although Space Invaders
isn't a 'next gen' title in which you have the ability to deliver a media rich narrative experience the fundamental plot is there. Juul in his paper “The Clash Between Game and Narrative” (Juul, J 1998) points out that;
“The concept of the invasion presupposes a time before the invasion, and from the 1950's science fiction it draws upon, we just know that these aliens are evil and should be disposed off ” (Juul, J 1998)
Many gamers these days probably wouldn't agree that Space Invaders tells the great story of a war
being fought against a fierce alien race looking to enslave humankind. In actual fact this is exactly what it does. I would suggest that because modern games are so technologically advanced that plot devices and core narrative, have been swept up amidst massive explosions and flying bullets. For example, from
an interview with John Carmack from ID software 1998;
ID head John Carmack says of the upcoming Quake III that it will have "The best graphics, the best
networking, the best gameplay - but no plot." (Juul, J 1998)
So is narrative really that important after all? I think that we need consider the question differently, we need to concern ourselves simply with “how do we understand narrative”. So I have done just that. I asked the public to explain narrative in the 1988 movie Beetlejuice. I gave no more explanation to question than that. First I needed to see if people actually understood the question. I was looking for technical
answers, but the vast majority simply went onto explain the plot and some humorous pieces from the
movie. The very form within Beetlejuice is incredibly important. Alison McMahan explains in her book
“The films of Tim Burton: animating live action in contemporary Hollywood” (McMahan, A 2005)
“After Hollywood hammering me with the concept of story structure. . . the script for Beetlejuice was completely anti all that: it had no real story, it didn't make any sense, it was more like a stream of consciousness. .” (McMahan,A 2005)
Beetlejuice was based on an idea and a series of characters, the plot and story were then created around them, as opposed to creating a story and populating it with characters. If you refer back to my opening definition of 'Narrative' you will see that the point above is concerned with definition three. “. . the art, technique, or process of narrating: Somerset Maugham was a master of narrative.” We as academics in the study of video games need to consider and understand narrative as a whole, not just referring to a story.
With that mindset we can understand and analyse narrative in games by appreciating gameplay and
storytelling. By looking at the 'art, technique and process. .' behind the interactivity we can see how narrative is important in games. Using the term “Narrative” to encompass story and gameplay we can
see that the two go hand in hand and need to be treated equally to achieve a rich interactive experience.
References:
Aarseth, Espen (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, John Hopkins University Press.. 216.
Juul, J. (1998). A Clash between Game and Narrative. Available:
http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/clash_between_game_and_narrative.html. Last accessed 26 April
2010
Lindley, C. (2002). The Gameplay Gestalt, Narrative, and Interactive Storytelling. Available:
http://www.tii.se/zerogame/pdfs/CGDClindley.pdf. Last accessed 22 April 201
McMahan, A (2005). The films of Tim Burton: animating live action in contemporary Hollywood. London:
Continuum. 262
Pazhitnov, A. (1989). Tetris wikipedia entry. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris. Last
accessed 24 April 2010
Shaw, P. (2010). Contextual Studies Survey. Available:
http://phillshaw.questionform.com/public/Contextual_Studies. Last accessed 26 April 2010
20th Cenury Fox. (2009). Official Avatar Website. Available: http://www.avatarmovie.com/. Last
accessed 25 April 2010
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