When we talk about interactive media, we don’t talk about storytelling enough.
After all, while video games can be considered a sophisticated mode of expression given the unique ways in which they go about delivering content and engaging the viewer/player, it is also worth noting that they are perfectly capable of delivering to an audience a more “traditional” product with both strength and gusto: a compelling and stimulating story.
If you’re a gamer, then I am confident —nay, certain— that you already know that video games can deliver a compelling narrative. How many gamers do you know that hold certain titles near to their hearts for the stories told and characters used to tell them? Yes, we love these titles in part for their gameplay, but we also love them for their stories:
Halo, Final Fantasy, Half Life, The Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, Uncharted, L.A. Noire, Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption, Knights of the Old Republic, Heavy Rain, Bioshock, The Last of Us, Journey.
The list could go on and on, but the point is, these are interesting stories that get us invested in them. They are fun, captivating, and satisfying.
They can even be incredibly deep and challenging, both emotionally and intellectually.
Irrational Games’ Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite tell their respective tales to a backdrop of racism, class discrimination, religious persecution, needless violence, gender politics, economic politics, and more. Journey, during the course of it’s story told via a unique and intellectually stimulating experience, deals with themes such as adversity, selfless camaraderie, human nature, power struggle, life, death and apotheosis, to name a few. Hell, I have no shame in admitting that I cried at the end of That Game Company’s Journey.
The point is that, as stories, they have merit that is worth recognizing from both a narrative point of view and an emotive point of view.
Q: But why should we talk more about this aspect of interactive media when we do, in fact, talk about interactive media?
A: Because people outside of the gaming world, people whose attention we should want to win for the sake of seeing interactive media grow even more, appreciate storytelling as an art and a science. If we can see to it that they appreciate these aforementioned stories as being substantive and noteworthy in conjunction to the platform that allow them to be told (i.e. interactive media), then perhaps we can win their acceptance, praise, and who knows, maybe we can even turn them into one of us. If we can do this, video gaming and the video gaming community will grow and thrive.
People break down the narrative structure and storytelling techniques used by authors and filmmakers all the time. Let’s do that, too, so that we can show that gaming is just another way to tell great stories with emotional depth.
Let’s examine scenes and set-pieces from video games in the same way that we analyze staging and direction in films and television shows to show that there is laudable narrative and thematic thinking happening, on the part of game designers, programmers, artists, et cetera.
Let’s show the world that interactive media is an art form that is just as emotive as it is fun and engaging. Let’s make it so that, in addition to talking about game mechanics and gameplay features, we’re also highlighting those narrative features that captivate us, too, so that when people see video gaming, they see sophisticated and compelling storytelling, in addition to compelling gameplay.
If storytelling is meant to connect with people on an deeper, personal level, let us use the discussion of storytelling in interactive media to find common ground between gamers and non-gamers, who might not understand just what gaming is capable of. Let’s use this thing that we have in common with all other “conventional” media to infiltrate and win-over those who might otherwise find it difficult to approach a video game as an inexperienced observer/player.
We all love a good story, after all, and, in the end, who’s to say that the way that story is told should diminish its overall merit?
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