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10.
NARRATOLOGY. NARRATODAY. NARRATOMORROW.
They have not made a
convincing mark yet, but the technologies of video gaming point
toward groundbreaking possibilities for approaching narrative.
Yet many feel that a narratological approach to the medium is
unhelpful as it reduces the form to a one-dimensional viewing
apparatus, or that it discounts the complex, networked, digital
aspect of gaming. The fundamental difference between a narrative
form and a video game:
is
probably best described with the word choice. Even in games
of 'pure' chance there is a choice: what to bet on, how much
to bet, and so on…If the choices presented to a player
are so limited that they clearly seem to lead the action in
one unavoidable direction, they become quasi-choices, and the
game becomes a quasi-game…the story disguises itself as
a game using the game technology to tell itself 7.
Gonzalo
Frasca elaborates on the difference between narrative media and
games, by categorizing games as simulational and narrative as
representational:
To
simulate is to model a (source) system through a different system
which maintains (for somebody) some of the behaviours of the
original system …Traditional media are representational
… they excel at producing both descriptions of traits and
sequences of events (narrative)8.
I
align myself with the positions of Aarseth and Frasca, as I believe
that the current popular attitude toward video games as extensions
or an evolution of cinema is crippling the potential of the medium.
By virtue of being thrown into the mass entertainment market and
hoping to flourish, games had to keep a competitive edge and they
quickly found that the biggest fish in the sea was the film industry.
They have subsequently modeled their mode of production after
the Hollywood studio system, pouring multi-millions into development
and distribution. To limit the possibility of failure, games have
to disguise themselves as easily consumed narrative objects. The
inherent problem with this is the continued contribution to the
confusion of the gamer, who is quick to report how movie-like
a current hot title is. Within the cloak of Hollywood realist
cinema, games are easily subsumed into popular discourse. As a
result, the ideological implications of game scenarios are not
at all apparent to the gameplayer. While it makes sense for Frasca
and Aarseth to motivate an understanding of alternate approaches
to games at the theoretical level, the manufacturers and advertisers
of digital media effectively overpower them with their dollars.
Although a new media scholar may be quick to take up a ludological
perspective, games will continue to be consumed as nuggets of
popular culture - so realistic, so Hollywood.
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