Narrative, ludology, f(r)iction

Yes, the way I’m writing “f(r)iction” is an academic trope that is kind of pretentious; at least, it calls specifically to a tradition of academic writing, which excludes popular discourse. Then again, so do semicolons (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.). I decided to write “f(r)iction” because I had a discussion about hipsters today. That reminds me: Why did the hipster cross the road?

Oh yeah, way to go Bob Dylan!!! It is next to impossible to be an English Major and not love Bob Dylan.

Tonight’s Reading

I know we’ll have to cover ludology vs narrative, but I want you to think broader. Can we bracket that conversation and move onto the authors’ call to consider “[t]he fictional worlds approach…to studying video games as part of wider ecologies of fiction” (p. 234)? Maybe we should start off by asking if anyone disagrees with the central question of the chapter: “Are video games stories” (p. 199)? They authors answered that on p. 234–last paragraph.

• p. 201: “You cannot play Blade Runner without paying attention to the story, as at any turn you wouldn’t know what to do next.
• In which types of games is this argument entirely true? somewhat true? not true at all?
• For what other video games (ones you’ve played) is this true? What about games in general?
• p. 202: “Themes and plots–however vague–enable players to figure out game interfaces and the rules of the game.”
• “‘Narrative’ can be defined as a succession of events.”
  • Not in the book, diegesis from Aristotle
    “1. The (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur”
    “2. TELLING, recounting, as opposed to SHOWING, enacting”
    Prince, Gerald. A Dictionary of Narratology. Rev. Ed. U of Nebreska P, 2003: 1964.
• p. 203: “No matter how many times a book is read, by no matter how many different people, the text is always the same; but in a video game, no two game sessions will be exactly the same.”
  • “…it is still possible to have different playing sessions in which minor things are done slightly differently.”
  • This gameplay sequence from GTA: San Andreas might complicate all ideas about “narration, text, and gameplay.” CJ only controls the gun while Smoke drives the car and barks orders to shoot. {WARNING: Very explicit language and a sexually suggestive finale.}
  • The GTA wiki has more details about this sequence.
• p. 204: “Many designers abhor the scripting of programmed sequences of events in games, which would actually form a narrative in the literary sense.”
• Why would they “abhor” this?
• p. 206: “Gamespaces are not realistic, but reductive: they reproduce some features of the real world, but create their own rules in order to facilitate gameplay.”
• p. 212: Figure 7.5 model of interactive fiction that’s “typical of adventure and action-adventure games.”
• “[U]ltimately the player is solving a story instead of actively creating it.”
• Is there a genre of fiction where readers “solve” the story? A story they didn’t create…

Reception Theory

• p. 216: “‘[R]eception theory’…focuses on the experience of readers as they interact with texts, and tries to articulate the nature of the reading activity.”
• Are walkthroughs narratives?
• p. 220: “[A] remarkable feature of narative in video games: it is perpetually unfolding, constantly folding back on itself, full of false starts and restarts, as the player contributes to the story’s creation with each action.”

Ludology vs Narratology

• p. 222: “[F]irst steps in new disciplines are usually inspired by older ones.”
  • Slight aside: This is true, but, as one starts to think through the new medium, we often discover that the previous medium or text or idea needs to be redefined. In fact, “new media” pioneer Lev Manovich (2001) noticed that film is actually the first “new media.” To compensate for this, scholars are more careful to point to “digital media” when discussing digital technologies. Guess what? Film is now digital.
• p. 222: “[S]ome early approaches to the study of games centered on their representational quality, and thus authors have been able to apply literary and dramatic models to the description and cultural understanding of video games.”
• p. 223: Gonzalo Frasca claims “‘games cannot be understood through theories derived from narrative.'”
  • “Juul argues…it is impossible to translate video games into stories and vice versa.”
  • Is it impossible? What about watching video game paly on YouTube or live?
• p. 223: The authors suggest that the reason so much effort has gone into separating narrative lenses from video game analysis is that ludologists believe “that the formal properties of video games are more important, more intrinsic, than the stories in the games.”
• p. 227: “Henry Jenkins argues…game narratives are not equivalent to a simplistic, linear idea of a story of the type found in films or novels.”
• Ever read a novel or watched a film and then on a much later reading or viewing, you experienced it differently? All that is solid melts into air (Marx, 1848).
• What can we say about the interactive qualities of video games?

Fiction

• p. 232: “[I]t seems clear that fiction in video games does not work according to the same parameters as in representational media.”
• p. 232: Marie-Laure Ryan–“most if not all games create a ‘game-world’…I would like to draw a distinction between ‘world’ as a set of rules and tokens, and ‘world’ as imaginary space, furnished with individuated objects.”
• p. 233: Video game conventions of reward system and extra lives…what else?
• p. 233: Back to Juul–video game worlds are ontologically unstable, rules are very ontologically stable.

Cultural Studies

We can get into pages 1-55 tonight or wait on that and pages 56-111 for next week. We’ll see what time we have left. Read Ch. 8 in Understanding video games. Remember, you have a workshop for your Video Game Essay in two weeks–10/27.