The debate over whether narrative is important or necessary for games to thrive has been in progress for years. I am amongst those who believe that narrative, however one chooses to define the term, is an important part of many video games (though I don’t think it is inherently necessary for a game to be worth playing.) Today, games have been increasingly including narrative direction that might not have been present if there had been less demand for or interest in its inclusion. Much like books, t.v. shows and movies, there are an innumerable amount of games which are dependent on their narratives. This is to say that they are driven by themes, plot points, and word-building techniques in the form of dialogue and, occasionally, gameplay mechanics. The narratives of games can even be the primary drawing factor. This can be true for games that are totally narrative driven to games which have minimal or optional narrative aspects. Examples of “optional” narrative games include big titles such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Many who play these games primarily play online and therefore do not experience as much narrative—or at least not something easily identifiable as narrative—as they would by choosing to play the games’ single player campaigns instead. However, even these games form fanbases of individuals solely invested in portions which include an obvious narrative. In other words, narrative can be what makes people care about the reasons they are playing and what they are working toward in the digital, fictional worlds of video games. Entire online communities have formed on the basis of fans discussing the plots, character development and writing of their favorite games. I’ve seen this everywhere from twitter to instagram.

This being the case, I found it odd that Ian Bogost’s piece “Video Games Are Better Without Stories” is dismissive of the very implication that games can both have narratives and do them just as well as books, t.v. and movies. Bogost writes, “The best interactive stories are still worse than even middling books and films.” This statement in itself implies that books and movies being “better” than video games is an immovable truth as opposed to an individual opinion. There are definitely game narratives which have been met with less than positive reception or have just plainly been viewed as bad. However, this tends to be the case for media in all its different forms. Importantly, thoughts on narratives across the board are far from objective in that they are not universally shared by 100% of those who interact with them. There are brilliantly written games whose narratives are continuously praised just as there are those deemed as poorly done. This is true. It is also true that books, t.v. and movies are met with this divisive kind of feedback all the time. To argue that video game narratives are unimportant or should not be included is to suggest that interactive modes of story-telling are less worthy of being paid attention to than those that are typically non-interactive. Furthermore, Bogost’s piece seems to ignore the fact that different forms of media have been intertwined together for decades. Interactive stories such as Netflix’s Bandersnatch as well as choose-your-own adventure books have become more and more prominent in today’s world and undoubtedly boarder on the thin lines of definition. In Bogost’s eyes, should these, too, drop the inclusion of narrative, and would they truly be better off if they did? Personally, I think narratives have their important places across different forms of media and can be especially beneficial to interactive stories (due to those interacting usually being able to decide the direction of things.) To ignore them is to dismiss the distinctiveness between the ways in which games, t.v., films and books utilize them as well as how they uniquely impact different individuals.

Works Cited

Bogost, Ian. “Video Games Are Better Without Stories.” The Atlantic, 25 Apr. 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/