Blog Post 1
The difference between playing games and reading stories or narratives is the perspective you take away from them respectively. When reading a narrative you tend to put yourself in the characters shoes and take in the perception of the character in the story. A piece from the first article we were assigned explains how we interpret narratives as “When we read a narrative, even one in which the end is presented before the beginning, we adopt the outlook of the characters who are living the plot as their own destiny. Life is lived prospectively and told retrospectively.” (Simons, n.d.)
As for playing games the player seems to take a completely different perspective than if they were to read a narrative about the game they were playing. In a game you choose your own destiny in a sense and have a say in what the end result may be. You also tend to become a character in the “story” you are playing. As said in the article best “The trick of the trade of game design is indeed to make the player believe she is in control.” (Simons, n.d.)
Although many of us know that there is inevitably an end to most games. But, with that said we as game players create our own goals within the game that will satisfy our goal of sufficiency. In some games that may be reaching a new level or in others maybe just having satisfactory stats. For example, in a game such as Grand Theft Auto, in the story mode you have to attempt tasks given to you by a “boss” and if you don’t complete the task that is given, you cannot move onto the next mission in the story mode. The player becomes in control of what they want to happen and if they want to move onto the next mission. An example of stats being satisfactory due to a goal I think of a game like Call of Duty where maybe your ultimate goal is to have more kills than deaths in a round of gameplay which would make your goal satisfied even if the goal of the gameplay mode was not met. In this case even though the ultimate goal of the game was not met, you met your goal that you created to be sufficient.
The book also has many insights into this conversation about why you get a different perspective from playing games rather than reading narratives. As Ralph Koster said in the book, in games narrative often functions as a form of feedback in game design. “We enjoy finishing a game of Pac-Man not only because it means we get to advance, but also because we get to watch a brief cartoon featuring Pac-Man and the ghosts. Koster states that our brains love feedback and the games have a built in reward system that keeps us playing and keeps us thinking we have achieved something even though we have not.” (Eyman, 2016, p.258) This sort of sense of accomplishment is similar to the above example about Grand Theft Auto. After each mission you get another mission and sometimes even virtual money or respect that makes you feel like you have achieved something, which makes you want to keep playing longer.
One last example I believe ties in with these two readings is Battlefield 1. Though its narrative is different from Grand Theft Auto and Pac-Man it indeed has a unique narrative in my opinion. When playing in the online game mode and you are in the loading screen you are hit with facts about World War 1 and about the places in which the battles took place. So while playing this game you are learning history and gaining perspective of the soldiers that fought in that war. Overall, through reading these articles and listening to different examples from text, it is easy to take away why games can be a useful tool for narrative while staying intrigued about the topic with the players undivided attention. Also it allows an individual to create his or her own personal perspective instead of adopting somebody else’s.
References
Eyman, D., & Davis, A. D. (2016). Play/Write: digital rhetoric, writing games. Anderson, SC: Parlor Press
Simons, J (n.d.) . Game Studies. Retreived September 19, 2017, from http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/simons
