Contrary to the perspectives of Aarseth and Eskelinen, Kline shows (whether purposefully or no) that video games have always carried narratives in some form. The Spacewar game/simulation was drawn from ideas surrounding the space race and the then new fear of nuclear war with Soviet Russia. The later game Space Invaders was drawn from a similar idea of fighting in space–though this time focused on an extra-terrestrial invasion of our civilization. Game designer Chris Crawford commented on the need to develop the theory of computer games with ideas like “rewards”, “proving oneself”, and “sculpting the ‘play value'” into games. But these ideas do not fundamentally alter why you make and play video games, they simply help you make video games better. The real reason we play games has to do with something far deeper and far more subtle — namely the narrative associated with them.
Video games, through their narratives, are an expression of our lives and experiences and we experience aspects of life through them. They express our fears and vision for the future as in Spacewar, but also our fantasies as in the many games that grant super-human abilities to the player. In a similar manner to cockfights being symbolic for larger issues in the culture, video games are a picture of our lives in the world. As Crawford saw, the need to design games with player interactions reflective of reality are “the central art of the game designer”. It is interesting to note that given the user-oriented feedback loops in game development and increases in computer technology, the overall direction of successful video games has been towards a story-telling style, and not a simply high-tech tetris or pac-man (though, of course, those games are not necessarily devoid of narrative). This trend illustrates the reason we as a society are really interested in video games: their ability to express our lives in ways we couldn’t before.
I agree with you that narratives undoubtedly have played and continue to play an essential role in videogames. I felt that Aarseth and Eskelinen overemphasized the nature of games as tools of fun and play, such as Tetris, and treated videogames as poor sources of storytelling just because they were games. Aarseth argues that games are only “texts” in so far as a cooking recipe can also be considered a text. He notes how there is no story involved in chess, and argues that fundamentally a game is different from a story. Perhaps he is right, but moodier videogames seem to refute this argument. Certainly games like Skyrim, which has over 600 in-game texts which both inform and complicate the overarching story, are different from Tetris in terms of story and textual content.
Kline’s article, however, gives us a somewhat different perspective. He notes a change in the design of videogames promoted by Chris Crawford towards immersive “virtual” games. I would argue that this shift towards the paradigm of virtual reality in video games demonstrates a combination of both story and game, in the form of role-play games (RPG’s). Stories in videogames can help build up the virtual environment, creating the atmosphere and conflicts that make gaming so entertaining. Would Assassin’s Creed be nearly was fun without knowing who the main character is or what his motives are? Kline’s description of the evolution of videogames seems to back this up, noting that videogames started out as digital chess programs but became immediately more “interactive”, beginning with Spacewars (87).
This has ultimately led to the highly interactive games of today, such as the Mass Effect series, etc. Such games utilize the balance between story and game in interesting ways, allowing the player to shape his or her own experience within certain parameters. However, the key to this experience is narrative. Hence, although games and stories have distinct social roles, games have evolved to use complex narratives as a tool to further enrich the gaming experience.
I agree with the fact that narratives can and do enhance the experience of video games dramatically. They can allow the operator to become drawn into a fantasy world that would not be possible without video games. However, I must disagree with the statement that successful video games need to include a narrative, not only now, but in the future as well. Of the top ten selling video games of 2011, only one of the games are considered as mostly narrative driven. Even if one would consider games such as Call of Duty or Gears of War narrative driven, which I do not since they are primarily known for utilizing online gameplay rather than the ”story” mode, then there would still only be four games in the top ten that rely on a strong narrative to enhance gameplay.
While it is impossible to deny that narratives in video games have become more and more commonplace, it does not necessarily mean that they will be more successful and/or replace non-narrative based video games such as FIFA or any other sports game that relies heavily on the gameplay and not the story line. Now that interactive games like the Wii and Kinect are involving the operator as the controller, the narratives in video games do not need to be as complex. I’m sure that enhanced technology will continue to allow for more incorporated narratives into these new controllers, but it will not eliminate video games that do not rely dramatically on narratives. This is because for many people like me, we play video games for the gameplay and not the narrative.