Chad Boeninger over at Library Voice answered my question:
Is GTA a teacher or is it a classroom waiting to students to explore?
Chad makes some great points in his post and his comments make me look forward to continuing this discussion with further games.With his post over at Library Voice... here:

So Paul, my final answer is this: GTA is not a teacher, but a laboratory for experimenting and exploration. Learning occurs while the player mixes the right ingredients, probes the environment, and experiments with trial-and-error. GTA does not tell you what you did wrong if you fail but only encourages you to try again.

Onto round 2 of Grand Theft Auto IV Librarian Vs. Mode...

I agree with Chad that GTA is not a teacher, but a laboratory classroom for the player to experiment and learn. Most players of any GTA game end up spending more time experimenting with the laws, physics, and freedoms in the game world that the central story often takes a backseat to this classroom laboratory setting.

Since we are in agreement about how players learn through GTA, lets look specifically at some of the skills they are practicing and learning in this laboratory. I'm using ACRL's Info Lit Standards as a framework for this discussion because it provides a recognizable starting point and well, we are librarians after all.

1.1.f Recognizes that existing information can be combined with original thought, experimentation, and/or analysis to produce new information

Chad described this in his post:

However, upon rescuing my thug buddies, I now had to evade the police. Guess what? There wasn’t an indicator on my map telling me where I had to go to evade the police. After driving around for about 20 minutes, I got caught by the police. I repeated the mission, and then got caught again. And again. And again. Finally I figured there must be a way for me to hide my car, and I then remembered how to go get my car painted at the car detailer. I had actually learned how painting a car tricks the police in a previous mission, but I had forgotten about that while trying the evade the fuzz. When I finally figured out thats what I was supposed to do, I tried it.

The game already help Chad learn the skill needed in the mission, but it did not direct him to use it again. Based on his experimenting (driving around) and his analysis (still getting caught) he looked back on his existing game information and found the information he needed... it just needed to be applied to a new situation.

1.2.a Knows how information is formally and informally produced, organized, and disseminated

Players have a variety of ways to access and understand in-game information. They can construct it on their own as Chad described, "I learned that if you try to steal a black four-door sedan you’re likely to get shot. All the while I was exploring, I became more familiar with the rules of the game and the layout of the city."

Or they know that the solution is available online or in a print guide as well.

1.2.f Realizes that information may need to be constructed with raw data from primary sources

Again Chad writes, "The player learns by exploring, by experimenting, and by failing." Part of the learning done in any GTA game is in the exploration and experimentation of the game world. The player constructs this knowledge and builds upon it as the game continues to advance.

1.3.b Considers the feasibility of acquiring a new language or skill (e.g., foreign or discipline-based) in order to gather needed information and to understand its context

GTA: San Andreas did this specifically. The main character, C.J., could go to driving school or flight school to enhance in-game skills with driving and flying. Better driving and flying skills allow the player to complete missions more effectively and even open up new content. The player could also bring C.J. to the weight room to increase his strength and thus add addition skills to gathering and understanding information throughout the game. GTA4 creates some new potential for acquiring new languages and skills with it's in-game "friend" system. Niko can stay in contact with non-playable characters throughout the game, creating relationships and opening up new missions or skills in the process.

1.4.a Reviews the initial information need to clarify, revise, or refine the question

Every video game offers this skill. Was the player able to find the information they needed? Did they complete the mission? If not, what information is missing? If I do not have the correct information to complete the mission, I need to revise and refine my question? Maybe there's an alternative to way to deliver the hit on the rival drug lord. Instead of chasing him down in a car, maybe the rooftop is a better option, if so, then I need new information about the buildings and the target's route.

2.1.a Identifies appropriate investigative methods (e.g., laboratory experiment, simulation, fieldwork)
2.1.b Investigates benefits and applicability of various investigative methods

Chad made the excellent point that GTA is set up as an experiment and lab. The player is testing out the boundaries of the world, experimenting with what jumps, neighborhoods, and strategies work and which ones do not. This investigating helps the player reach their information goal (completing a mission). As players, knowing the costs and benefits of the experiment is important as well. Some players will jump online to seek a solution, while other will do the experimenting themselves.

2.3.d Uses surveys, letters, interviews, and other forms of inquiry to retrieve primary information
3.6.b Participates in class-sponsored electronic communication forums designed to encourage discourse on the topic (e.g., email, bulletin boards, chat rooms)

Sharing experiences (ie. Game knowledge) is just as important for the player experimenting in the world of GTA as the actual results of those experiments. Valued is placed on those experiences and others learn from the communication of it.

3.7.a Determines if original information need has been satisfied or if additional information is needed
3.7.b Reviews search strategy and incorporates additional concepts as necessary

Players use both their in-game experiences, online searching, and discussions to determine if they have enough information to complete their current mission. They will either re-try it or go back out in the world of GTA and experiment more – seeking out new or more complete information.

4.1.b Articulates knowledge and skills transferred from prior experiences to planning and creating the product or performance

Players share (internally or often online) how they went from trying one strategy to their new one that incorporates their additional skills and experiential knowledge.

4.2.b Reflects on past successes, failures, and alternative strategies

There is not a videogame played that doesn’t result in the reflection and analysis of the player afterward. Why that jump worked? How can I not get caught? Chad detailed his on-going reflection process as he continued to repeat a mission without success. Being GTA is not a teacher but a laboratory classroom, reflection and peer discussion is the most effective (and sometimes the only available) strategy.

5.1.c Identifies and discusses issues related to censorship and freedom of speech

Since we are talking about GTA censorship and free speech is a central theme in the general media discussion. Every person now playing Niko in GTA4, or anyone who’s spent time with any of the previous characters, has an opinion about on the GTA series and these issues. Regardless of what arguments used (social, moral, legal) the fact remains is that players are actively engaging in this discussion in person and online. Compare that discussion to any had in a classroom about the same issues.

With all these critical thinking and information literacy skills being practiced, the violence and destruction still gain the most headlines. The NPR story does address some of the freedom and exploration the laboratory classroom of GTA creates.

Chad are these skills real? Or am I just trying to make a controversial and violent game more acceptable?


GTA Box art from Global Nerdy

This week I am starting an ongoing series of weekly posts and discussions with Chad Boeninger, from Library Voice, on the education value of a new game on sale that week or related game series. Chad is an excellent librarian and he and I engage in frequent gaming discussions. This series is an attempt to formalize some of those discussions and share them with the larger library community. We are modeling the format after what Stephen Totilo has done with his Vs. Modes over at the MTV Multiplayer.

This series is designed as a way to offer various viewpoints on new games and their related series as well as creating talking points for those who are looking to advocate for video game not simply as a service to our patrons, but as a way to enhance and improve video game’s application in education. It is our hope that the dialog will be interesting and helpful for librarians interested in video games, learning, and libraries.

And so without further ado, Grand Theft Auto IV…

With news stories in the NY Times and NPR over the last 24 hours on the release of Grand Theft Auto VI (GTA4) and the months of building media by gaming outlets, it will be almost impossible for any another other game this year to match the hype and sales (and probably the controversy as well). While some may look at the game and worry for the future of our children, I look at the game and I’m thankful for the practical problem solving and critical thinking it requires.

Back at the beginning of April, Chad picked up a post by Wired’s Game|Life Chris Kohler about his experience playing GTA for the first time. Chad quoted Kohler and wrote:

• Kohler:You have to park the car perfectly. On my second try, I got the car back with time to spare, but pulled it in the wrong way. The game told me I had to park correctly, so I tried to, but the car I’d originally arrived in was blocking the way and I couldn’t get it right. Then, while trying to adjust the car’s position, I slammed it into the wall and now it was busted up. Mission failed. What did this teach me? The next time I did this mission, I parked the first car way outside the lot, thus leaving myself a clean path to pull the bomb-car in next time.

Once you successfully make it out of this mission, you’ll have learned a great deal about the rules of the game. As such, accomplishing all of this was a great feeling.

Boeninger: Yes, while the Grand Theft Auto series is controversial and a bit violent, this excerpt is a prime example the learning process in video games.

Now I do not disagree that the GTA series has some educational value, it is not in the trail and error method that Kohler described. Grand Theft Auto III series of games were not good teachers. Sure the games provided the player with an opportunity to try a new skill, in Kohler's example driving without crashing, but the game left it up to you to lean the skills. While the player's actions certainly had consequences (scratched car = failed mission) there was not a supporting structure their to practice the skill. Unlike a game like God of War were skills are slowing doled out with directions and practice or Zelda Twilight Princess that sets you on a ranch to practice and learn your skills.

Grand Theft Auto is the teacher who asks the question and when the wrong answer is given, quietly sits and waits for the right answer to appear. Giving the student / player the space and allowing them to make their own connections.

That space is where GTA succeeds in educational value. Every corner is filled with potential problems or fun events and it is necessary to think critically about a range of possible solutions to any given problem. GTA allows the player space to apply critical thinking skills to the world and seek out any number of possible solutions to a problem.

This problem solving creativity was highlighted by Kohler, Jeremy Parish, and others on this past week's Retronauts video game podcast. They describe parking cars at the exist before starting a mission to prevent the character from escaping. This open ended and forward thinking problem solving exists in most missions allowing the player to create their own game based on preferences but also live with the consequences.

GTA series does have educational value, but it is not a good teacher. It creates a world of possibilities and asks the player to think of creative solutions and how those choices affect the world around the character.

Chad is GTA a teacher or is it a classroom waiting to students to explore?

GTA Box art from Global Nerdy

It is important to understand the narrative potential of video games, both for their ability to engage players in stories and to motivate players to create their own narratives. The concepts I’ve covered over the last series of posts on narrative including Jenkins concepts of transmedia and understanding part of the larger debate over narrative vs. ludology provides us an important insight into how our students are interacting with stories and text.

This interaction is not only relevant to the literature and composition faculty I spoke with on Sunday at ACLA but it is also vital for us as librarians to understand as well. The changes in students interaction and expectations create opportunities for us to engage readers and address reluctant readers.

The same recommendations I gave to the ACLA conference, apply to us as well: recognizing, engaging, and creating the value-added narratives that transmedia creates.

The next few posts cover issues of literacy and why understanding this change in narrative is important for reaching our students and patrons.

During my presentation on Sunday for the American Composition and Literature Association, based on my ongoing research into videogame narratives and literacy, I offered three points of action on how we, as educators can apply this narrative.

1) Use Traditional Strengths: English departments have screenplay and scriptwriting course or currently partner with Drama/Theater departments. They should create partnerships with Computer Graphics or Game Design departments

English departments can house videogame story / game narrative courses alongside of film/theater ones. Looking back at Bronsky’s game writing elements, they are traditional storytelling elements. If you or your department is not sure where to start – start there. Use it to start a discussion and incorporate what you already do well. Or partner with existing gaming courses and departments to team teach or assist with units on videogame writing. A faculty member in the English department at the University of Dubuque partnered with our Computer Graphics program. Last semester, the students had to create a proposal and design document for an original game. This semester, the English faculty member worked with some students to continue to develop the story and narrative of their videogame project. If this type of partnership is not possible, create an elective course or J-term / summer class and see what the registration is like. You have the skills, experience, and passion – continue to instill a passion for storytelling in others no matter what the format or medium.

2) Seek Transmedia Connections: Many of you already do this to a lesser extent – grabbing a film or play – as a visual representation of the text. Stretch beyond that. Allow for the additional media (TV, theater, games, film) to add and expand the students experience and understanding. Ask questions about connections and draw on their value of information across media. As someone in the audience (Mark) said during the presentation, our survey courses already do this to an extent by showing how and using all the previous analysis to help understand each new piece. Yes, draw out those connections between narratives, even if loose associations. The more our students can see the connection and how their knowledge of one adds value to others, the more engaged they will be.

Another panelist from the conference, Edward Aiken from Syracuse, described an art and religion course he once taught. He talked about looking at artistic depictions of Mary the mother of Jesus throughout history and then showing the film Terminator 2 and raising the question of narrative similarities. The topic struck a cord with students to the degree that a former student stopped him on the street years later to tell him about it. Transmedia creates meaningful lasting connections.

3) Deliberate Awareness: Be aware and deliberate in the engagement of students and narrative across mediums. The pieces described in the presentation and the forthcoming paper discusses how both our current and future students interact and what they expect out of narratives and stories. If we are aware and planning to incorporate these changes in narrative interaction we can and will continue to engage our students in meaningful analysis and creation… inspiring passion along the way.

Terminator image via solarnavigator

I just returned from presenting at the ACLA Annual Meeting. While the crowd was small there were a number of good questions on my presentation and some excellent discussion between all the panelists. I'll post some more reflections on the presentation and the slides later, but I wanted to post the last narrative resource. Next week I'll post my reflections and write-ups on some literacy studies and videogames.

Dansky, R. (2007). Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Video Games. In C. Bateman (Ed.), Introduction to Game Narrative (p. 1-11). Boston, MA: Charles River Media.

Narrative as the method by which the story is communicated to the audience. Dansky states that the “greatest mistake” is reducing a game’s narrative to story and story alone. Games reach beyond fiction, to where the story is only the “launching point” for the narrative. Players can add to that narrative experience in a variety of ways, beyond the choices made and gameplay actions taken. Players add to the story through original ideas on fansite discussion boards and fan fiction or through official external narratives in web clips, film, novels, or comics. The narrative the player understands and appreciates expands well beyond the game screen or the page.

Dansky’s chapter serves as an introduction to game narrative writing and storytelling within games. His work is more technical rather than an analysis on storytelling. But it is useful to consider what Dansky includes within creating a narrative:

• Setting
• 
• Character
• Backstory
• Cut Scenes
• Scripted Events
• In-Game Artifacts

Dansky also looks at three techniques of videogame narratives

- Immersion

o Similar to Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow”; the player is absorbed in what they are doing and have suspended their disbelief to follow along with the experience

- Reward

o Narrative advances in the story before/after key moments of the game

o This helps to drive the player forward and motivate their progress

- Identification

o Gives the who, what, why’s of the game space and in-game world; creates the context for a player’s actions

o This investment of the player creates ownership and is related to the idea of “agency”

Any narrative experience is completely defined in advance. For game writers this presents challenges to incorporate multiple paths and connect the choices players might make to the overall narratives or narrative. It is possible that no one player has the same exact experience each time. The writer needs to account for all these actions and decisions the players might make.

Because of this difference, while videogame writing borrows much from traditional scriptwriting it cannot be used alone. Game writing takes a little of each media, but not all of any. And this makes videogames and unique storytelling telling medium.

Dansky considers game’s not the writer’s story but the players. Is this true? Is any story simply the writers or does each reader bring something unique that adds and shapes how the events are understood and interpreted?

Images:

KingsQuest from FreeSci

Warcraft III from Gamershell

As I am preparing to present, I want to make my slides available. I will include a link later to download the full slides, since these are trimmed from the conference presentation for size. Later this weekend, the rest of the supporting resources and analysis will be posted.

Thank you for your interest and please check back on Sunday evening for more resources.

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Kirkland, E. (2005). Restless Dreams in Silent Hill: Approaches to Video Game Analysis. Journal of Media Practice, 6(3), 167-178.

Kirkland tries to balance the ludology and narratology view points when analyzing Silent Hill. Both have merit and add to our understanding.

Ludology focuses on gaming qualities, videogames are games and simulations first and foremost. They are interactive, rule-based systems.

Some game, like Silent Hill, are focused within traditional storytelling and narrative worlds. Sections of gameplay are limited both in control and camera so a player experiences the story in a specific way. The designer makes a deliberate choice in how the scene should play out. Silent Hill also incorporates transmedia storytelling with additional novels, comics, fan art, and fan fiction. The game is a self contained story, but these additions add value and an investment into the larger world. Professional and fan fiction help create a deeper engagement from the player and a richer experience of the game’s narrative.

Silent Hill incorporates traditional media element like location, camera movement, mise-en-scene, sound effects, and score to tell the story and create an experience around the narrative. While Silent Hill contains these traditional narrative element there are other embedded elements that a player experiences and creates in the story through gameplay. Most of key element are contained within the controlled narrative, the exploration gameplay expand the story and reward the player by opening up additional story lines.

Barry Atkins in 2003 used the term “game fictions” for videogames where the player is both the storyteller and the reader. Players are creating the story through their gameplay. While the key narrative elements may remain static, the experience and gameplay are unique to each play through. Thus, creating new experiences each time.

Creating tension in a game often requires restricting the narrative and exploration.

Image from ToTheGame

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Frome, J. & Smuts, A. (2004). Helpless Spectators: Generating Suspense in Videogames and Film. TEXT Technology, 13(1), 13-34.

Suspense requires fear, hope and uncertainty. Games always contain a level of uncertainty as players play. But using that uncertainty for suspense often requires limiting the player’s control over events. There is a battle between cut scenes and game play for storytelling. Helplessness heightens suspense. The helplessness of a cut scene is not necessary for suspense, but it does make the communication of this emotion easier to convey.

Suspense cannot work without an emotional connection. Players/readers need to care about the characters and what happens next. Often putting the character in a situation where the unwanted event is more likely to happen than the wanted one. Other media invoke suspense by creating situations where the outcome looks bleak. Games can do the same with limiting a player’s abilities or increasing a boss’s health.

If games are most successful in creating suspense by limiting a players control, they become closer to traditional narratives when the author/creator has a story to tell.

Image from Gamespot

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Grodal, T. (2003). The Video Game Theory Reader. In J. P. Wolf & B. Perron (Eds..), Stories for Eye, Ear, and Muscles: Video Games, Media, and Embodied Experiences (p. 129-155). New York, NY: Routledge.

Focusing on games as stories and applying traditional narrative measures limits to scope of analysis. Videogames are more than stories from other media, they include the gameplay and experiences that create the mental understanding and emotional attachment to the game. Grodal takes a ludologist’s position that are simulations of real life experiences, not stories to be walked through.

Games require more than a passive narrative experience. Videogames require cognitive and motor skills. A player is creating and connecting mental maps and plot points to progress through the game. Grodal would argue that this makes games different than narratives, and he is right. But it makes videogames more engaging as narratives, not more distant from narratives. The player is more invested into the story because they are actively taking part in it. Often times the player is the one shaping events in the story, sometimes major, sometimes minor plot points.

Grodal discusses how players grow into the space within a game world. Games at the outset feel open with a wide range of story paths for players, but as many games progress the actual path may be more confined. There ways in which the gameplay funnels to a certain point in the narrative. The question becomes how interactive is the game and how controlled is the story. What is correct? Where is the balance?

There is a larger discussion of linearity and non-linearity in storytelling and culture, with the strengths and weaknesses that come from a Western viewpoint of linear narrative. That debate is not necessary to this discussion, because regardless of if the narrative is strictly linear or allows for non-linear choices the players reaction. Creating alternative routes and multiple paths gives the simulation of freedom to the player. Videogames can create both a specific story within a world, or a specific world with a variety of stories.

Image from Bioware: Mass Effect

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Mateas, M. & Stern, A. (2006). Interaction and Narrative. In Salen & Zimmerman (Eds..), The Game Design Reader (p. 642-667).

There is a continually give a take between narrative and gameplay in videogames. Gameplay centers on the player interacting, changing, and responding to the game world. Narrative centers on the player moving down a specific path to experience a predetermined story. While there is give and take, the ideas are not mutually exclusive to each other. And Mateas argues that can be and should be a balance between the two.

Mateas discusses a variety of types of narratives, including emergent narratives where the player constructs their own story and meaning from the events in the game world. Emergent narratives are an important piece of MMO worlds. Players are creating and adding story elements into the gamespace either as backstory or to expand upon the characters and events happening within the game world. Emergent narratives are not limited to MMORPGs though, gamers have created side stories within a variety of genres and games as diverse as Grand Theft Auto and Madden Football.

Mateas walks through a brief history lesson on videogame narratives by discussing text based adventure, interactive fiction, and interactive drama. He limits the discussion to the early development of narrative in games tying it specifically to traditional literature.

In 1998, Murray presented three categories to analyze interactive stories and they are still valid for game criticism today:

- Immersion, the suspension of disbelief, feeling of being in the game

- Agency, ability to relate to the character, develop a sense of ownership

- Transformation, as masquerade and as personal transformation

Immersion is a sense and experience that most games strive for. Most players are willing to suspend their disbelief, at least for a time. If the game takes the player out of the experience through gameplay or design mechanics, the immersion can be lost. But players are forgiving. Agency is part of the equation in that forgiveness. Players are able and willing to be taking in and out of a game if there is a strong sense of agency developed. Agency is important not only to the success of gameplay, but to the success of the narrative.

“A player will experience agency when there is a balance between the material and the formal constraints (p.654).” Agency allows for a junction of narrative and gameplay. The story is not only compelling the player forward but the gameplay is allowing and supporting the desire to move forward in the plot and in the game. The player not only understands the how of playing the game, but the why as well.

Images: Crackdown from CrackdownonCrime

Frasca, G. (2003). The Video Game Theory Reader. In M. Wolf & B. Perron (Eds..), Simulation Versus Narrative: Introduction to Ludology (p. 221-235). New York, NY: Routledge.

Ludology argues that games use different mechanics and tools to engage people compared to narrative ones. “’Ludologist’ grew in popularity among the game academic community to describe someone who is against the common assumption that video games should be viewed as extensions of narrative (p.222).” Ludology does not cast aside storytelling in games, but contends that games are not held together by narrative. The gameplay, mechanics, and structure of the game create and hold the game. Ludologist’s look at games as a simulation of real world events, experiences, and behaviors. Playing a game of the event is a different experience compared to watching the event. Frasca states that games can convey experiences that narratives cannot. The experience of flying a plane or sneaking through an enemy camp is different in a game than a movie or novel because of the simulated effect of actually taking that action. Players’ experiences are different and the emotions are different based on the difference in medium.

Frasca claims that the multiple endings and resolutions that videogames offer add to the overall emotional experience of the player. He is correct. In a many games, a player knows that if they go back through the game and 2^nd, 3^rd, or even more times that the experience both in gameplay and narrative. Going through a game multiple times is not only a possibility, but for some games it is the only way to unlock all the content, gameplay, and narrative within the game.

“Narrative may excel at taking snapshots at particular events but simulation provides us with a rhetorical tool for understanding the big picture (p. 228).”

Image from Endless Ocean on Gameguru

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students.

Konzack, L. (2007). The Players’ Realm: Studies on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming. In J. P. Williams & J. H. Smith (Eds..), Rhetorics of Computer and Video Game Research (p. 110-130). Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Narratology is storytelling rhetoric; a game from this point of view analyzes it as a narrative format. The closer the game narrative gets to a film or book narrative the higher quality it is. For games that want to tell a story, this comparison is useful and important. If designers are modeling the conventions after other media, should games be analyzed in the same fashion? Are there unique criteria to games?

I would argue that yes, there are unique criteria. Narrative games are important and can be compelling. While they can use the same conventions of movies and books there are additional ones as well. Games have the ability to emotionally engage and invest a player based on their decisions in addition to the decisions of the author/designer/creator. Using a narratological framework is very useful, but it cannot be the only framework applied.

Konzack also describes the ludology field of game studies, which was created as a response to the narratology framework. Ludology holds that games do not need to have any narrative to be a good game. They operate on a rule set, not story elements. Ludologists also feel that in a game, the story is always a second to the gameplay. The story may help hold the game progression together, but the gameplay is the reason to continue to move forward.

The ludology prospective is useful and directly applies to some games. Players do not play Tetris for the story. Even popular games like the Mario franchise by Nintendo are better suited as game and criticized on gameplay rather than story. Has anyone tried to finish a Mario game just to see if he will rescue Princess Peach? Players play because of the level design and other gameplay elements.

But limiting videogame analysis to an either / or is short sighted. Videogames can and should be both. Movies exist both as spectacle and drama. No one worries if Spider-man, the Transformers, or Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow will save the day. People flock to the theaters to see how it will happen. The action drives the movie forward.

Videogames can and should, as a maturing medium, take on a variety of purposes and formats. Books have always existed for a variety of purposes. Fiction and non-fiction serve different purposes for the reader. Videogames have to potential and should be analyzed with such concerns in mind.

Images from:

Sibera from Gamespot

Tetris from Neoseeker

Transmedia:

Stories within the game are not / should not be limited to the game. Transmedia storytelling allows stories to be told across a variety of media (Star Wars, Matrix), each providing a piece of the larger story. No longer autonomous, enriching the readers/players/viewers’ experience.

Transmedia storytelling adds value to the standard texts the students interact with. It opens them into a larger world where they can add and enhance the narrative and their interaction with it.

“Game designers don’t simply tell stories; they design worlds and sculpt spaces.” p.674

The environment is just as important to the story and the experience. Helps reinforce story’s message and mise-en-scene. Environmental storytelling, spatial stories, allow for exploration over plot development, and broad goals/narrative are constructed by the players actions. Rather than assuming that player freedom takes away from the narrative, spatial stories use the exploration to create the narrative. Jenkins states that the struggle between performance and exposition is not unique to videogames. Action films use a thin narrative as the glue to hold the action set pieces together. But the limited narrative gives the player/viewer an understanding of the context and the meaning behind the action. Action for the sake of action is fun, but shallow. Action within the confines of a story creates tension and excitement.

“Game designers struggle with this same balancing act – trying to determine how much plot will create a compelling framework and how much freedom players can enjoy at a local level without totally derailing the larger narrative trajectory (Jenkins, p.680).”

Over the course of the coming week, I'll post my reflections and notes from my literature review in preparation for my upcoming conference. The posts during this week will be focused on how we can understand videogames as stories, how those stories are told, and what value those stories have in the lives of our students. Next week I'll this series up with some discussion and literature on what this change in narrative engagement means for our students and why we should engage with it rather than fight it.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Game Design as Narrative Architecture. In Salen & Zimmerman (Eds..), The Game Design Reader (p. 670-687).

We cannot strictly use film theory to analyze games, since there are differences. But in general there is a lot that can be learned by comparing storytelling in games to other forms of media. Before any comparisons, Jenkins establishes some ground rules for videogames and narrative.

• Games do not have to tell stories, some try some don’t
• Games that try to tell stories often depend on traditional narrative experiences
• How characters react, our understanding of situations, conforming to narrative expectations
• Games as narrative are not locked into form, stories do not need to come at the cost of gameplay; nor does gameplay come at the cost of stories
• The narrative is larger than just the formal story, it includes the player’s emotions, decisions, process of playing
• Games that have stories to tell can do so in various ways

“Game designers don’t simply tell stories; they design worlds and sculpt spaces.” p.674

The environment is just as important to the story and the experience. Helps reinforce story’s message and mise-en-scene. Environmental storytelling, spatial stories, allow for exploration over plot development, and broad goals/narrative are constructed by the players actions. Rather than assuming that player freedom takes away from the narrative, spatial stories use the exploration to create the narrative. Jenkins states that the struggle between performance and exposition is not unique to videogames. Action films use a thin narrative as the glue to hold the action set pieces together. But the limited narrative gives the player/viewer an understanding of the context and the meaning behind the action. Action for the sake of action is fun, but shallow. Action within the confines of a story creates tension and excitement.

“Game designers struggle with this same balancing act – trying to determine how much plot will create a compelling framework and how much freedom players can enjoy at a local level without totally derailing the larger narrative trajectory (Jenkins, p.680).”

Pictures by Gameboomers

While I've continue to live, work, and go about with my daily life. I am living toward the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy. The past two weeks were (and still are) filled with trying to provide and find shelter for my family. The security of the need for shelter has filled every night in terms of time and emotional commitment. Finding a house is not going well.

My blogging absence is directly related to spending my nights looking, bidding, countering, reviewing finances, and looking some more. I have started a number of posts over the last two weeks, I obviously have not finished them. I am hopeful that over the next days I will return to them and post them.

As I'm returning to blogging, I'm hopeful to begin moving back up the hierarchy and meeting the social and ego needs as well.

In the meantime, I'm back to looking for a house. 23 houses down... ? to go. We thought we had a couple very solid options, but those fell through. Now my wife and I are at the stage of determining our sacrifices and trade-offs. Wish us luck.



Image via Flickr.com by mikemindel