Reading Notes
Games telling stories - A brief note on games and narratives.
Introduction thoughts
(1)
The first paragraph is under the impression that we are still unsure whether games tell stories,and that the answer would help us study them and who shouldn't/should study them.
I'm assuming that if the answer was that they don't tell stories,then the narrative focus people shouldn't be involved anymore or should change their focus.
Then it goes on to say that if games doesn't fit into the already existing structures for narrative,Then we would have to start over again to figure out what games truly are and how to go about them.
(2)
The second paragraph insists that he isn't arguing what the terms he is using are,such as narrative.
He then says we can make our own decisions on what the terms are and that they can have multiple meanings.
I agree with this as a lot of the terms stem from multiple languages so the meaning can vary and the context or subject matter can affect how we interpret the words.
(3)
The third paragraph is saying that there is bias in the way that narrative has been applied to games and that some parts of the differences were ignored or were assumed as unimportant.It says comparing will show both the similarities and differences instead of pressing the narrative concepts to games.
I agree with this in theory but comparing without bias is pretty difficult and just the time period he wrote this in has created bias via technology,and gaming's progress as a whole,which I will get to later.
(4)
The forth paragraph says hes going to explain the arguments around games being narrative.
"We use everything for narrative"
This means that alot of texts/mediums/forms of media are narrative and therefore games should be too.I agree but I see the point that as a term gets a wider scope it will lose some of its meaning
"Most games feature narrative introductions and backstories"
This means say a game may have ending and starting cut scenes and such but I think he only sees this as a motivation/context for the player.
I view these as more than just a motivation or context as introductions are usually part of narrative such as "world building" or introducing characters like the first act of a story.
"Games share some traits with narratives"
This means that he thinks that since comparisons have been made people may assume games are narrative and may ignore the differences as he mentioned above.
I think narrative has a wide scope so of course there will be similarities but I don't think the differences stop games from having stories.
(5)
The next paragraph says what his points are going to be for games being non narrative/not stories.
"Games are not part of narrative media ecology formed by movies,novels,and theatre"
I think this is talking about how these forms of media interact and that he thinks games fail to translate properly or as well as other forms can.
In some ways I see how games may not have the same purpose therefore being translated differently.
But a lot of this translation failure again comes to his time period when the gaming industry (or lack thereof) was less developed.
"Time works differently than in narratives"
His point being that narratives in the other forms of text were mostly in past tense and that gaming is present tense.Interactivity is the part that changes this.
As we discussed before in class "Games are present narrative,they aren't a story until played through"
Aside from time skips the other forms of narrative are linear whereas games are like the idea of multiple universes in the way that each decision becomes a new narrative,a new story.
"The relation between the reader/viewer and the story world is different than the relation between the player and the gaming world"
His point is that in the other forms of media the audience/reader cannot affect or change the story,but the player to game relationship involves interactivity and more non trivial effort (ergodism)
I agree that the roles are different the games are more reliant on the player to tell the story but I don't think this makes games non narrative.
(6)
This paragraph is saying that in this article he is viewing narratives in a traditional sense.
He then says he will go back at the end to see if the more experimental parts of narrative fit together with games.
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