Week 4 - Gameplay and Narrative

Henry Jenkins wrote the article we have discussed this week. In it, he talks about the importance of the gameplay in a game and the importance of the narrative. He tries to be objective by presenting both points of view (ludologists and narratologists), each of them with their reasoning.

Personally, I found the text very well structured and written thanks to Jenkins objectivity. What I mean is that in previous texts, authors had a very clear point of view since the beginning and supported it fiercely during the whole document. Here, Jenkins stays very objective, as it has been said before, but he also explains a bit everything what has been said before, like the state of the art. By doing this, he gets to locate himself and makes the reader have a clearer thought of what the author is going to talk about.

The main point of the article is trying to make the reader think what is more important between these two options: according to narratologists, as mentioned in the alst post, narrative and storytelling is more important than gameplay experience because the first is a human core activity but the second isn't. On the other hand, ludologists affirm that game experience is more important than the narrative, which should be self-contained; plus, environment themselves can evoke things that make the storytelling even more secondary.

From my own point of view, I have to admit that gameplay seems more important to me than narrative, so i would be more on the ludologist' side. However, as in last week post, it all depends on the game. If a person is playing a game like tetris or street fighter, there is no need for narrative. It is true that it can enrich the game; for example, knowing in street fighter the past of each character allows the player to understand why they fight, but not knowing it does not make any difference as far as the game itself is concerned.

On the other hand, rpg games like Fable or god games like Black & White are very attached to the storytelling. In both games, for example, the player can play optional quests that have nothing to do with the main story, and not knowing about them would make no difference at all. However, even the simplest quest of all need some narrative to explain the player what to do, how to do it and why. 

In conclusion, as I said before, it all depends on the game: it would make no sense to have a quest in Fable for no reason, even though the game consists in making quests, because it has been built and set around a story (the life of the main character) and stepping out of it makes the character get lost. In street fighter on the other hand, having a fight for no reason is completely acceptable, the game consists in fights, but in this case, it has been built and set around fights, not the story or reasons of fights.

Week 3 - Cyberdrama

Last week talk involved a text from Janet Murray. In it, she discussed the different ways of storytelling; books, theater and film have a very similar form of presenting the story, people are just mere spectators who passively witness the occurrence of various events and how the story changes due to them. In the case of video games, the concept is completely opposite. In this digital entertainment, stories are not static any more; the passive witness / observer becomes an active actor whose role turns to be the most important of the story. This distinct and immersive way of storytelling is labeled by Janet Murray as Cyberdrama, and the fact that the user can interact with the story itself and can even mold it is referred as 'agency'.

It is completely true and I agree that many games nowadays are using this resources to forge a great product, and even some years ago, when the concept had not been studied yet, some games used it. The first example that comes to my mind is Fable (and many other games designed by Peter Molyneux), a game where player actions head to different story results. However, Janet Murray also affirms something I disagree with, she states that there are two kind of digital entertainment as far as video games are concerned: game-stories and story-games; each one refers to a way that a game with a story is structured. The first one implies that the game itself is more important than the story, and the second one viceversa. According to her, the second one is the only real way of making games, because "storytelling is a core human activity", so story comes before game.

That last point is the one I disagree with, stories are a core human activity, of course, but gaming is as well. I do agree with the fact that a game having a story would make the player feel that the actions he does or decisions he makes are more meaningful, but I truly think that it the depends on the game. In last lecture one example was Tetris; in that game one can totally imagine a story about why blocks fall and disappear or stack if it encourages him/her to play better; but, is it really necessary? Another example I can think of are usual fight games like Street Fighter; there the player may see a bunch of people betting or encouraging at the background, so he may think he is fighting for money or for a bet; but also the background can be a factory on fire. The player can wonder "Why would I start fighting inside a burning factory?". But it's a fighting game, so that is secondary, the background is just decoration and the player will fight regardless the reason of the fight, regardless the relationship between the fighters.

In conclusion, from my point of view Cyberdrama is a concept that all video games have (the player has an immersion in the game) and have always had; however, the storytelling within a game is not a must at all. It will all depend on what type of game is going to be done.

Week 1 - Digital Games Studies

The articles to read during the first week discussed the concept and importance of game studies and the comparison between digital games and literature.

Personally, I found them a bit hard to read because I am not very well acquainted with that kind of vocabulary in English and because the topic is treated very vaguely and abstractly. However, some of the statements they do are completely true: digital games have become during the last decades an important issue in society and therefore there should be an academic field specifically in game studies (maybe called ludology) rather than having a mixture of psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists dealing with it.

On the other hand, I totally disagree with the comparison the authors make between play and science. They  basically affirm that, applying a slightly abstract definition, science is a form of play. The definition could then also be applied to almost everything, and so I don't consider it valid.

Apart from that, I also have to agree with the authors as far as the comparison between narrative and games is concerned. The understanding of literary does serve for analyzing games, and these can in fact be compared to other forms of fiction. Both games and literature immerse user in a completely different world, but in order to understand digital games, we have to determine how they differ from other forms of entertainment; and there is where game studies apply.

In conclusion, there is an obvious need of science like ludology or game studies to treat this topic, but it still need to be set into specific boundaries.

Hello World

Hello readers,

I am Miguel Garde, MProf student at Abertay University of Dundee. In this blog I will write about the readings and workshop discussions of Narrative Theory.

See you!