Comment on "Game Theories"

"Game Design as Narrative Architecture" by Henry Jenkins

The relationship between games and story...

I agree with what Jenkins says on page 120 about how games tell stories differently than other forms of media and "We must therefore be attentive to the particularity of games as a medium, specifically what distinguishes them from other narrative traditions." But with this statement, Jenkins is also making it appropriate to underscore the kinds of stories that can be told through video games. Just like how the Sci-Fi genre has always been classified as a lesser form of literature, so too will the games we play be less significant than what the other forms of media can portray.

Later, Jenkins goes on to say that a game designer has less control over narrative information than authors of books or filmmakers do. I do not agree with this, I think that authors and filmmakers have less control over what narrative information is released. In fact, I think that authors and filmmakers intentionally reveal more narrative information than video games do.

First, when I was younger I used to read the last page of a book first so that I know how it ended. Even today I will sometimes go to Border's Books and flip through a book that looks interesting. If I can read any random page and it peaks my interest, then I'll buy it. Also, books today have their own versions of trailers that precede the release to peak interest, like on the Today show, or any morning show for that matter that brings an author on to discuss the content of their new book.

Second, filmmakers are even more famous for revealing the most interesting aspects of their movies in the very commercial advertisements they use to generate interest. Especially where action flicks are concerned, all the best stunts and c.g. are the first things we see. Also, filmmakers and actors make up the majority of guests featured on talk shows, purely to promote a new movie. You know how on David Letterman's show or Jay Leno's show there will be an actor on promoting a new movie, and they show a clip from that movie at random, and then the actor explicates the scene for the audience? It's the same thing as going to Border's and picking up a book and flipping to a random page and reading it.

Finally, I hesitate to say that video games reveal more, or that video game designers have less control over narrative information, because buying a new video game can be a gamble. Yes, there are trailers for new games, but games have way more content to consider than books or films do, so the ratio to information being prematurely revealed is slim compared to the amount of information revealed in one, three minute movie trailer that acts as montage of all the best scenes and reveals the entire plot line. For me at least, and I'll try to keep my comments as personal and not general as possible, I am grabbed by the cover of a game, or I'll stick with a genre that I like, but I never usually research a new game before I play it the way that some people do with books and movies with their Arts & Entertainment section of the Sunday Times.

And my final point about this is that games reveal their narrative information within a sequence of events that needs to be followed by the player. If I were reading a book instead of playing a game and I wanted to know what happens next, I'd just flip the page until I got that information. You can't do that with video games, you can't even break the code with console games to find the information you're looking for, or you shouldn't! Because that's the fun behind playing video games, you need to accomplish something before any new information is revealed to you. With books and movies you can just skip ahead, and that means that authors and filmmakers have less control over narrative information than video game designers.