I was also very interested by the Koster reading and its relation to games and their inability to have stories. After reading through the first readers posts, I definitely have to agree that sometimes stories are an essential part of a game and can be the most appealing element to people. If a character is set in a story that allows the player’s imagination to take off then the player will be more likely to “get into the zone” that Koster discusses. He discusses how the zone is flow and means that the player is completely focused on doing something. Granted a player can definitely be into something without having some sort of story to follow, but in my opinion a story definitely helps. There are countless adventure games that catch people’s attention every year that would be nothing without the story. I think it’s also important to bring up movies that are made into games. A person will see the movie, and if they buy the game they know the story already and want the outcome to be the same. For example, when the Lord of the Rings games came out, my brother bought them and played them endlessly until he defeated them. He knew he liked the story already and wanted to play through the story himself.

I definitely think that Koster had it wrong in saying that games and stories can’t be mixed. Every game has a story, no matter how minuscule it is and most games would be lacking in more ways than one without one.