Seamus Sullivan is a playwright by trade, and this background has given him some great insight into the analysis of narrative in videogames. One key idea is that making a story for a videogame is much like making a story in other media, with a few special items to take into consideration. The previous posts from today already summarize his key points (smile11), and mention that much of what he says applies as much to videogames as to other storytelling media (edang).

Building on that last idea, something struck me towards the end of the presentation: that videogames have become a serious medium for narrative. Much of what we have read this semester (and thus, the class discussions on those readings) has shied away from discussing videogames as stories in search of the more unique characteristics that set them apart from other media. Sullivan’s presentation was my first exposure to a thorough discussion of character development and narrative crafting in videogames. My biggest takeaway was that videogames are maturing as a medium and are beginning to offer the rich, layered stories that great movies and literature have provided for decades and centuries respectively. Sullivan used many of Valve’s hits to illustrate this. For example, Half-Life 2 tells the player about the game’s world not through a dry debriefing but by showing characters in the game interact in a way that quickly highlights their personality and relation to the main character.

Considering videogames as narratives provides a way of unearthing the depth of some games while seeing how poorly-done others are, and the ideas Sullivan discussed in his presentation provide a solid framework to begin a critique or creation.