On games as games as games and nothing else

Markku Eskelinen, an independent scholar and self-professed "ludologist", in his response to Jenkins' paper "Game Design as Narrative Architecture", says:

According to the well-known phrase of David Bordwell, narration is "the process whereby the film's sjuzet and style interact in the course of cueing and constraining the spectator's construction of the fabula." In games there are other kinds of dominant cues and constraints: rules, goals, the necessary manipulation of equipment, and the effect of possible other players for starters. This means that information is distributed differently (invested in formal rules, for example), it is to be obtained differently (by manipulating the equipment) and it is to be used differently (in moving towards the goal).

By systematically ignoring and downplaying the importance of these and other formal differences between games and narratives as well as the resulting cognitive differences, Jenkins runs the risk of reducing his comparative media studies into repetitive media studies: seeing, seeking, and finding stories, and nothing but stories, everywhere. Such pannarrativism could hardly serve any useful ludological or narratological purpose.

Do you agree with Eskelinen's dismissal of Jenkins' approach? Why/why not?

In a way, Eskelinen’s reply to Jenkins is rather myopic in itself. In his response to Jenkins, a short summation of his own view regarding games as a medium of narrative discourse can be seen here:

“To the detriment of [Jenkins’] approach, there are no specific narrative contents, only contents. Consequently, only some combinations and arrangements of events and existents become game elements; others become stories or performance art.”

In my opinion, Eskelinen is guilty of a similar reductionist philosophy of games being games, and other art being other art. He admits that some elements from art, performance, narrative and play can make a game, but it does not make it either form.

Jenkins, in his paper “Game design as narrative architecture”, admits that:

1. yes, not all games tell stories, though many do,
2. games don’t have to tell stories to be good games,
3. playing a game doesn’t make it all about experiencing a story,
4. and games as a narrative medium are unique from other media.

Why I find Eskelinen’s critique of Jenkins unfairly harsh is partly because he seems to ignore Jenkins’ acceptance of the limitations of a game to tell a story.

In his paper, Jenkins also discusses how games can tell stories, but in markedly different ways – for example, touching on the concepts of games designed to use space, environment and embedded narratives to tell a story. Eskelinen dismisses all this as being useless, and says that these elements are game by-products. He also makes it sound like Jenkins is fully advocating games as the best way to tell a story, but this certainly isn’t the case – at least not what I gathered when reading Jenkins.

Jenkins, in my opinion, was trying to find a middle ground between the ludologists and narratologists, since the two fields have commonly been philosophically mutually exclusive (in that, they are always discussed in the same voice, but distinctly drawn as different).

While I do not agree with Eskelinen’s blunt dismissal of Jenkins’ attempt to draw a balance which ludologists and narratologists can share, I do agree with Eskelinen that in some sense, Jenkins’ approach is somewhat superficial.

Spatial and environmental elements are, more often than not, functional by-product of games - they certainly help in storytelling in the game, but are not necessarily the original purpose of their existence. In other words, they weren’t there for the sake of the narrative anyway.

It would have been helpful though, for Eskelinen, in his reponse, to have addressed these issues with some ideas of his own, instead of plain dismissing Jenkins.

Narrative and Agency

Choose a game which you feel attempts to incorporate strong narrative elements. Discuss the tension between agency and narrative structure within the game. Do you agree that narrative and interactivity can never co-exist? Why/why not?

I don’t believe they cannot co-exist.

I take Metal Gear Solid for example. This was a game that borrowed the typical structure that required free user movement within the boundaries of the game interface while delivering a narrative through conversations with game characters as well as video snippets in between segments, during which the player could take a “rest” and watch certain events unfold, often a result of the player’s movements to fulfill a certain task.

I remember we discussed how these segments may be tedious and take away user control. However, I think these segments brought things into perspective, giving meaning to the actions performed by the player. Also, there is a deeper level of immersion into the whole “point” of the game, so that it still feels like you are part of a different world.

If there are too few narrative elements, there may be too much freedom of movement such that playing becomes stressful. Too much responsibility lies on the user to determine the outcome of the game, which may actually be worse because the player has to detach himself more often to think clearly – “ok, now what?” Also, there is less meaning that is incorporated into the game, and less incentive to play. Just like how if there were few/no rules, there really is no game.

The narrative elements, in particular, with reference to Metal Gear Solid, give context and history to the game characters and environment. This works and makes it a good and enjoyable game perhaps because it feeds our innate desire for a social environment (which nicely explains why RPGs and social games like WarCraft are such hits). As you play, you find out more about the game characters, your game persona, the game environment, etc, and this further immerses the player into the magic circle, making the game much more enjoyable.

Certainly, games lacking in narrative can be enjoyable as well, but they don’t necessarily have more interactivity than games with strong narrative elements. I believe that the interactivity is still there, just that the narrative elements must not intrude too much into the gameplay.

For Metal Gear Solid, I found the narrative elements like conversations and video clips very entertaining, and made me enjoy the game more. Certainly there were bits I got annoyed at, especially when the girl keeps whining about our relationship and our feelings when I’m in the middle of a crisis. But apart from that, it certainly made for a good game experience.

Image(s)

Choose a set of 5-10 images that you feel form a narrative. If they are not digital images, scan them into the computer (there’s a scanner available in the USP multimedia lab). Arrange them in a linear sequence on your blog. You may or may not want to include text captions with each image.

Bring a physical copy of your images to class on Thursday. We’ll be using them as part of an in-class exercise.

Ok, so I got annoyed while trying to find images to fit a certain narrative I wanted, so I drew mine instead. Then I arranged them in a comic strip. XD Click to enlarge.

On Narrative: story and discourse

1. In the Introduction to Story and Discourse, Chatman quotes Claude Bremond, who says: “Any sort of narrative message… may be transposed from one to another medium without losing its essential properties: the subject of a story may serve as argument for a ballet, that of a novel, can be transposed to stage or screen, one can recount in words a film to someone who has not seen it.” Chatman goes on to suggest that “transposability of the story is the strongest reason for arguing that narratives are indeed structures independent of any medium”.
   
   Choose a narrative that has been expressed in both an interactive and a non-interactive medium, for example the game Tomb Raider and the movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Discuss how the transposition to/from interactive media has changed the narrative. Has the structure of the narrative remained intact?

In most movie-turned games, most narrative is conserved insofar as certain kernel events, settings and existents are maintained. However, the user is inserted in particular points of the narrative structure that allows for some freedom of play. This “freedom” is also restricted by the rules of the game. In this, there is some element of self-regulation. The user is not allowed to make decisions that will drastically change the course of the narrative.

When I was thinking of an example to cite, many of the typical movie-turned-games came to mind. But as we were in lecture on Tuesday I was reminded of Indiana Jones when we were talking about “different stories, same plot”.

Then the “primitive” Atari/LucasArt era came to mind and I remembered the really prehistoric arcade games made during the 80s of the Indian Jones movies. The one I most recall has to be Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Most of you would probably remember that one because of that scene with the live throbbing heart.

Anyway, in that game, developed by Atari in 1985, the general plot is the same as the movie. The mission for Indy remains the same. But while the game tries to preserve the settings and some characters, the theme of the game, being one of those old scrolling adventures, fails to capture much of the movie’s original narrative. Indy does still carry that whip, fears bats and snakes, and his ultimate goal is still to stop Mola Ram (harharhar!).

Like most arcade games of the time, they were not so interested in preserving the narrative as they were in providing some short-lived entertainment. Thus narrative structure was not very much preserved, save for the characters and some settings.

2. Chatman observes that “whether… the author elects to order the reporting of events according to their causal sequence or to reverse them in a flashback effect – only certain possibilities can occur… Of course certain events or existents that are not immediately relevant maybe brought in. But at some point their relevance must emerge, otherwise we object that the narrative is ‘ill-formed.’” This is the notion of self-regulation.
   
   Interactive media allows for choice and control on the part of the reader/user. What problem does this raise for self-regulation? What, if anything, does this suggest about designing interactive narrative?

Let’s think about the piece of “interactive narrative” as a game, to make this easier. A large part of game design in my opinion is really in predicting what the user would do when playing the game. In order to maintain some integrity of the narrative I think, would require a complex of rules and boundaries in which the user can move freely within and play, yet control the ultimate outcome. (or, produce a number of outcomes)

For example, in the example cited in class – text-based H2G2 by infocom – largely follows the narrative of the book closely, yet allows the user to freely attempt to play around at commands. Yet, while the user can make all kinds of demands of the system, the structure of the narrative is preserved in that settings, kernels and existents are all maintained. Choices made by Arthur Dent thus help propel the story forward but does not change the main bits of it. This is probably my rudimentary example of how a piece of interactive media is somewhat self-regulatory. The game designers left a certain amount of leeway for the user to play with, but set down many rules that help restrict the amount of choice the user has.

3. Discussing the concept of interpretation, or "filling in the gaps", in narrative, Chatman states that “there is… a class of indeterminacies… that arise from the peculiar nature of the medium. The medium may specialize in certain narrative effects and not others. For instance, the cinema may easily – and does routinely – present characters without expressing the contents of their minds… verbal narrative, on the other hand, finds such restrictions difficult… Conversely, verbal narrative may elect not to present some visual aspect… The cinema, however, cannot avoid a rather precise representation of visual detail.”
   
   Think of an example of the use of narrative in interactive media. With reference to your example, suggest what the “peculiar nature” of interactive media may be, and which narrative effects it may specialize in.

I’m not really sure since everyone seems to think of this proverbial “peculiar nature” differently. Anyway.

So I was saying I used to play a lot of Resident Evil (the original main series) growing up and sure, it freaked the hell out of a wee girl of a tender young age of 10 thereabouts (blame the brother), but the point I’m making is that, there is a fixed narrative and the plot unfolds as you play the game. But if you can’t get past a particular corridor with that particularly tough zombie dog, you really can’t get anywhere and the story is suspended there until you manage to kill it or run past it really quickly. This I think is one example of a peculiar nature of interactive media.