I was interested in the class discussion topic about narratives in video games. It is usually obvious when a game has a narrative to it, but for the ones that don’t, why don’t they? For example, when I play the game Bejeweled, I know that there is no story to it. My goal in playing the game is just to mindlessly line up rows of similar gems to get to the next level. I play the game to pass time when I’m really, really bored. So for those that don’t have a narrative, is that done on purpose to make the player create their own scenario? When I play, I honestly don’t think up of a narrative for why I must line up those shiny gems, and I’m not sure who would. That seems like a whole other activity/game in itself, however you want to look at it. Maybe those with no narratives are just because they were made that way so the players can just escape from reality without going into another story from another world. A narrative appeals to more players because they get to live out some sort of fantasy in an alternate world. So maybe for those with no narrative, the players just want an activity to deal with when they need to pass time without getting themselves too involved in a story-based video game.