1. What
does the author think that games are for, or how they can function?
The author believes that the story is a part of the game, but the game is not just simply telling a story but need to express all the details to create a world, and allow the players to experience the story immersive. Author referred his understanding at first. 'Game designers don't simply tell stories; they design
worlds and sculpt spaces.' he said. Then he repeatedly stressed some good points in telling stories and games to support this view:
'Game designers don't simply tell stories;
they design worlds and sculpt spaces. It is no accident, for example,
that game design documents have historically been more interested in issues of
level design than plotting or character motivation. A prehistory of
video and computer games might take us through the evolution of paper mazes or
board games, both preoccupied with the design of spaces, even where they also
provided some narrative context. ......When we refer to such influential
early works as Shigeru Miyamoto's Super Mario Bros. as "scroll
games," we situate them alongside a much older tradition of spatial
storytelling: many Japanese scroll paintings map, for example, the passing of
the seasons onto an unfolding space. When you adopt a film into a game, the
process typically involves translating events in the film into environments
within the game. When gamer magazines want to describe the experience of
gameplay, they are more likely to reproduce maps of the game world than to
recount their narratives.'
2. Why
do you think they claim this?
With the development of image technology, the performance form is getting better and better, which also allows the ability to express game story has been greatly improved. For example, in 'the last of us'（TLOU）, we can clearly feel how deep the pond they have just walked through from the height of water on their clothes. This is the creation of various details to express the story world, allowing players to experience the story immersive, rather than simply tell a story.
TLOU is an emotional experience-based (core) game, supplemented by gameplay (shell), and successfully in integration of the two. Everything is services for the emotional experience. Naughty Dog use film elements for the game experience in uncharted series, but there is no dazzling images and exciting fighting in TLOU. Although art and sound is the current level of the game industry, but in the performance approach is restraint, all technical are support of emotional experience, the core rather than overwhelming. No matter what kind of that, they give players a good experience, and have a good response from players. This may also show the future development of game will be different.
TLOU is an emotional experience-based (core) game, supplemented by gameplay (shell), and successfully in integration of the two. Everything is services for the emotional experience. Naughty Dog use film elements for the game experience in uncharted series, but there is no dazzling images and exciting fighting in TLOU. Although art and sound is the current level of the game industry, but in the performance approach is restraint, all technical are support of emotional experience, the core rather than overwhelming. No matter what kind of that, they give players a good experience, and have a good response from players. This may also show the future development of game will be different.
There is a classic action game Megaman, like many old games, they will gradually increase difficulty with some subtle tutorials, such as player need to escape when monsters are falling down, or the trap is starting so player need to stop it. But for the game story, there is not too much dialogue to process, sometime even you do not need to know story for a fun gameplay. Just as Egorapotor said in the video ‘Sequelitis - Mega Man Classic vs. Mega Man X’.
[Sequelitis -
Mega Man Classic vs. Mega Man X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM]
Opinion of author:
‘Jenkins'
research into video games was influenced by his prior interest in the
debates around emerging popular culture media forms as well as his parallel
interest in children's culture. Referring to Gilbert Seldes’ Seven Lively
Arts (1924) which championed the aesthetic merits of popular arts often
frowned on by critics who embraced high art to the exclusion of popular art,
Jenkins dubbed video games "The New Lively Art" and argued that it
was a crucial medium for the growing rise of digital interactive culture.’
‘Transmedia
storytelling, Jenkins writes, is "the art of world-making", "the
process of designing a fictional universe that will sustain franchise
development, one that is sufficiently detailed to enable many different stories
to emerge but coherent enough so that each story feels like it fits with the
others";[29] and crucially, these different stories or story fragments
can be spread across many different media platforms encouraging users engaged
in the story experience to explore a broader media ecosystem in order to piece
together a fuller and deeper understanding of the narrative.’
3. Who
might think differently and why?
For the traditional game industry, the story does not need to be a part of the game. Pac-man the classical game,does not need a lively story in order to allow players to understand that they need to eat beans and avoid monsters.
Dan Cornners (The creator of Telltale) also said this in E3: The shooter folks, sometimes they seem like, “Get that stuff out of here. I just want to go play.”
4. How
persuasive do you find the author’s argument?
In seminar 1 we discussed, quality is not the most important thing of game. Similarly, the story also is not the biggest. The core of the game always is allowing players to enjoy and fun. Such as sports games or racing games, the plot is usually not the focus. These games allow players to experience through the game process. Excessive plot explanation sometimes will be the limit of game process. For example, players will question "why I must go this way, why this role will die." The result is that game experience is not smooth.
seminar 1 ： James Newman, ‘The Myth of the Ergodic
Videogame: Some thoughts on player-character relationships in videogames,’ Game
Studies 2:1 (2002) [Full Article: http://www.gamestudies.org/0102/newman/ ]
For game designers, it is to provide a rich gameplay, so that players can enjoy into the game world, while ensure the wide range of game interaction, allowing players to explore and discover. But this form of expression is very trivial for a story to tell, and we need to break it down into smaller chapters. For example, 'The hero's journey', it is just a generalization, not a consensus; there is enough space for designer to express story contents.
Jenkins, Henry,
‘Game Design as Narrative Architecture,’ Blog Post, 2004 [http://interactive.usc.edu/blog-old/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Jenkins_Narrative_Architecture.pdf]
In accordance with this law to create, players and the designer are more likely to resonate even encouraging players to have interest in exploring. When Overwatch was just on sale, I and my friends usually talked about the story of each character and the relationship between them. For this, Blizzard made a beautiful CG animation for players, and not forced to add them in game.
[Overwatch
Animated Shorts: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYFVhxsaqDuOh4Ic5mRu5CiZVKCMVv66 ]
We say that, but there is still a game which is focused on storytelling that being ‘Minecraft-Story Mode’, Many players say it doesn't really feel like a Minecraft game because it gives up the open world mode.
‘It's not just not-Minecraft, it's not
(yet) a very good Telltale game, either’.
——<Time> Matt Peckham @mattpeckham Oct. 15, 2015
[Minecraft:
Story Mode Is Not the Minecraft You’re Looking For: http://time.com/4073550/minecraft-story-mode-2/ ]
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