Because unlike with books and movies, players get to experience the world you've built for them! No movie or book can give me what roaming around in Rapture did for me in Bioshock or what galloping around Velen did for me in Witcher 3, and that's the truth of it. Though I touched on this briefly at the beginning, I felt it worth hashing out a bit more. Video games are a medium where everyone experiences the extent of the video game they wish - and nothing more! 5. With a video game, players can opt out of this experience if they choose, or if they want to know every little detail of the world they can usually seek that out too (though it depends on the type of the video game, which I discuss later in this post). The ability to seek out more storyĮveryone has personal taste, and for some, the idea of exploring subplots or side characters is considerably gruesome. This is a type of connection to a story I have yet to see in any other medium, and it truly is a beautiful one if you think about it. With a choice-based video game, there is the more pure sensation that what you did actually was permanent and you are forced to commit to your choices.Īdditionally, this adds to my previous point in that with choice-based games, players feel that they are responsible for the course of action of the story and take ownership. I imagine this is due in part to the fact that when you read a choose-your-own-adventure novel, there is the labor of flipping to the right page and the sense that so easily you could undo the adventure by choosing a new page whenever you feel like it. Maybe you've read a choose-your-own-adventure novel and maybe (most likely) you found it extremely underwhelming. In what other medium do you hear consumers of the story talk this way? None. Even when playing as pre-set character and not one as your own creation, players often think things like "I don't know if my character would say that," or "my character would probably do this." When I took my video game writing class, one of the most prevalent things we discussed was player mentality. I think what appeals to most fellow lovers of story is that when players play video games, not only do they get to consume a great story, they get to tell that story and become the main character! While you can tell a first person story in literature, as a reader you still don't feel like you literally are that person, whereas video games create that sensation. Danielewski, and that serves as a wonderful example as to what video games could teach you about storytelling in fiction writing at the very least! 2. While you can read a book out of order or watch a TV series at random, you are still viewing pieces of the story in a disjunct manner, whereas with video games, the story is meant to be told this way and does so seamlessly. The only other thing that comes close to this experience in my opinion in other mediums is House of Leaves by Mark Z. It is almost impossible to experience any video game exactly the same way every time you replay it, creating a unique experience every time. Unlike any other form of storytelling out there, you as a consumer of the story get to not only determine the pace at which you explore your story (and by that I mean how quickly the story occurs in its world, not the pace at which you actually finish the game) but you also oftentimes get to choose the order in which your story is told.įurthermore, video games can be told non-linearly with ease and oftentimes offer countless replay value due to so many variants on how the game can be experienced. Why Video Game Storytelling Is Different 1. Video games are dynamic and flexible. ![]() And video games offer stories in a way unlike any other medium! Read on to see why exactly that is. You don't have to be a hard-core gamer to enjoy a video game, just someone who loves great stories. There are so many great aspects about video games that can teach you so much about storytelling. However, I am not here today to argue about video games merit in the world, but instead to prove it to you. Many years ago people treated television the way people treat video games today, and before that people even used to talk about books that way! Instead, try giving them a chance to see them as artistic and literary just like the rest of the mediums can be. But don't let those bad ones define the entire medium for you. Just like with novels and television, there are bad, trashy video games that perpetuate the very worst aspects of our culture. If you are someone who likes books or movies or plays, then it is my belief that you like video games, otherwise you are claiming you do not like stories, because that is what video games are - stories.
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