Blog 2: Narrative and Narrative Wars

“A major factor in the evolution of computer games – after obvious technological advances – is the increasing importance of storytelling” DT Pg 28

Although this quote would make Markku Eskelinen (we’ll get to him later) uncomfortable, it’s hard to deny that it’s difficult to go into a digital games shop and pick up a game that doesn’t have a narrative. For instance, according to John Sachem who writes for Associated Content (2009), these are the top 10 selling games for the Xbox 360 at the first half of the year...

1) Resident Evil 5

2) UFC 2009 Undisputed

3) Call of Duty: World at War

4) Halo Wars

5) Street Fighter IV

(Sachem [online] 2009)

Three out of five of those have a strong narrative and even Street Fighter has a narrative albeit a tenuous one. Though in fairness if the term ‘narrative’ isn’t accurately defined then pretty much anything can be a narrative. For our purposes I will define narrative as the story of the game and how that story is told.

In many modern games the narrative, both the backstory and the story that unfolds is extremely detailed. Some games, though at face value would seem quite void of backstory and narrative, actually have it in abundance. Take Tekken for instance, just a fighting game right? No real narrative or backstory right? Wrong. The game itself is centred around the fictional ‘King of Iron Fist Tournament’ held by the head of a powerful multinational organisation. The winner of the tournament gains control and owner ship of the organisation. Each of the now 40+ individual players have their own reasons and agenda for entering the competition. The character Jin Kazama was the illegitimate son of two of the contestants and he enters the completion for revenge against the head of the corporation who may have been his father. Home and Away couldn’t beat storylines like that.

Fig 2

 There’s an absolute wealth of detailed narrative in digital games, a lot more than people think. Perhaps that’s why the movie industry is increasingly looking to digital games for inspiration. At present there are over 50 movies based on games and with another 10 in development (Wikipedia [online] 2008).

This well of narrative is what is inspiring the creation of 64 game-based novels, 50 comic books and 124 TV shows.

Narrative in games became something of a very sore point a while ago, under the overall umbrella of digital game studies, two camps emerged; the Ludologists and the Narratologists.

Narratologists such as Janet Murray believed that narrative in digital games should be looked at in the same way as novels and forms of linear media such as films, in that they tell stories. This standpoint was looked into in greater detail by books by Brenda Laurel and Janet Murray who wrote the highly influential ‘Hamlet on the Holodeck’.

In the other camp Ludologists such as Jesper Juul and Markku Eskelinen believed that games were not the place to tell stories at all and that the use of narrative in games was detracting to the gaming experience.

Blog 1: Intro's & Definitions

I chose Dramatic Elements as to me it’s one of the most important ingredients of a game, the one which if the game was without it would fail.

Within Dramatic Elements there are a lot of questions to explore…

Why do gamers connect to games?

Why do gamers like playing a game over and over again?

Why do digital games now have so much following and interest?

The answers all lie within Dramatic Elements.

Ok so what are Dramatic Elements? Well let’s imagine a world without them, in film for example…

This is a story void of any dramatic elements and you can see how dull it is. Dramatic Elements give a digital game, its life and soul. They are what places a player in the world (be that a literal of figurative world) that the game designer has created, dramatic elements makes a player emotionally invest in a game and care for the outcome. I don’t think anyone would care too much what would happen to 0001 or 0011.

Let’s talk a little about the history of digital games. So were there always dramatic elements in games?
In a way, yes. Even the very first games like Spacewar, Asteroids and Space invaders had what is called a ‘framing’ narrative. A basic premise that the player is given

- Spot the narrative? It's not easy.

In Asteroids that framing narrative is that you are a defending earth from asteroids and similarly in Space invaders you are a ship defending Earth from an alien attack.
Some early games, such as ‘Zork’ were entirely text-based and though the dramatic elements and narrative were not there visually, there was a lot of backstory in the game which grounded the player in it’s fictional world. It had a strong premise and like Asteroids, who’s premise was simple it made the gameplay meaningful.

So what is premise in terms of digital games?
Well, premise in digital games, is the same as premise, movies, books and any other media. It’s composed of five elements…

• Time – When the game takes place.
• Place – Where the game takes place
• Character – Who is involved in the story of the game
• Objective – What must the protagonist do?
• Action – What stands in the protagonist’s way?

Let’s take a game like Capcom’s Resident Evil for example…

Time = Modern day
Place = A mansion in Racoon City, a small town in the US


Character = Chris Redfield & Jill Valentine are the main protagonists


Objective = Survive a zombie infested mansion and destroy a virus before it spreads.
Action = Numerous zombies and other mutated creatures