Juul,+Jesper+A+Clash+Between+Game+and+Narrative

=Juul, Jesper. "A Clash Between Game and Narrative"= The International Journal of Computer Game Research (1 July 2001). []

=Abstract=

As questions go, this is not a bad one: Do games tell stories? Answering this should tell us both //how// to study games and //who// should study them. The affirmative answer suggests that games are easily studied from within existing paradigms. The negative implies that we must start afresh.

But the answer depends, of course, on how you define any of the words involved. In this article, I will be examining some of the different ways to discuss this. Lest this turns into a battle of words (i.e. who has the right to define "narrative"), my agenda is not to save or protect any specific term, the basic point of this article is rather that we should allow ourselves to make distinctions.

The article begins by examining some standard arguments //for// games being narrative. There are at least three common arguments: 1) We use narratives for everything. 2) Most games feature narrative introductions and back-stories. 3) Games share some traits with narratives.

The article then explores three important reasons for describing games as being non-narrative: 1) Games are not part of the narrative media ecology formed by movies, novels, and theatre. 2) Time in games works differently than in narratives. 3) The relation between the reader/viewer and the story world is different than the relation between the player and the game world. = = =Argument=

This essay is in favor of video games being narrative, but certain degrees. The author argues that for a video game to actually be considered narrative, it must be translatable to other mediums such as movies or literature. The main problem with this article lies in the fact that the author refers to very old video games. I understand where he is coming from, especially with the Star Wars game reference, in that if one were to take away the Star Wars title, it would be nothing more than any other space genre video game. He also argues the fact that games based on movies can work because one can draw from the movie to create events in which to play, but on the other hand if we were to make a movie based on a video game it typically does not work well, as it only represents a small portion of said game and the character may become overly developed such as in the Tomb Raider or Mortal Kombat movies. He also goes on to explain the differences in time in video games and movies and how in video games the characters are not represented as well at times where its mostly player perspective. The article is a good read but I feel falls short in that there are many video games out now (Skyrim, Final Fantasy, etc.) that can easily be translated into movies or literature and work well.

=Key Passages=

Most modern, single player non-arcade games such as //Half-Life// (Valve software 1998) actually let you complete the game: through countless saves and reloads it is possible to realise the ideal sequence that Half-life defines. Obviously, only a microscopic fraction of the play sessions actually follow the ideal path, but Half-Life does succeed in presenting a fixed sequence of events that the player can then afterwards retell.[|[2]] This means that some games //use// narratives for some purposes.

Additionally, many games have quest structures, and most computer games have protagonists (though this is less common in non-electronic games). As Janet Murray suggests in //Hamlet on the Holodeck//, such similarities would indicate that there is a promising future for digital storytelling and interactive narratives, that games and narratives are not very far apart.

It is thus possible, in different ways, to view games as being in some way connected to narratives, but does this really answer the opening question? The above points would indicate that games and narratives do not live in different worlds, but can in some ways work together: A narrative may be used for telling the player what to do or as rewards for playing. Games may spawn narratives that a player can use to tell others of what went on in a game session. Games and narratives can on some points be said to have similar traits. This does mean that the strong position of claiming games and narratives to be //completely// unrelated (my own text, Juul 1999 is a good example) is untenable.

This brings us to the problem of what we actually mean by saying that something can be translated from one medium to another. In a probably slightly limited view of narratives, narratives can be split into a level of discourse (the telling of the story) and the story (the story told). The story-part can then be split into two parts, //existents// (actors and settings) and //events// (actions and happenings). (Chatman p.19) A story can then be recognised by having the same existents (with the same names) and the same events; this is what we usually mean by talking of "the same story".

This can be used the other way, as a test of whether the computer game is a narrative medium: If the computer game is a narrative medium, stories from other media must be retellable in computer games, and computer games must be retellable in other media. On a superficial level, this seems straightforward since many commercial movies are repackaged as games, Star Wars is an obvious example. The other way around, games transferred into movies are less common, but examples include Mario Brothers, Mortal Kombat, and Tomb Raider. Upon further examination, we will find the situation to be much more complex:

Movies and other stories are largely about humans (or anthropomorphic things) that the viewer/reader identifies with cognitively. It is basically boring to view/read fictions without anthropomorphic actors. This is not true for games. Games with no actors represented on screen have appeared throughout the history of the computer game.[|[7]] Many of these have been extremely popular. An early example is //Missile Command// (Atari 1980), where a number of cities are attacked by missiles that you then have to destroy using rockets from three missile batteries. The player is the not represented on screen as an entity or actor, but only sees the results of his/her actions. It would be possible to create a "job description" for the player - a soldier controlling missiles: a typical hero. It is harder to understand //Tetris// (Pazhitnov 1985), where you must combine a series of falling bricks.

=Selected Works Cited=

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//—//"Aporia and Epiphany in //Doom// and //The Speaking Clock//: The temporality of Ergodic Art" In: Marie-Laure Ryan (ed.): //Cyberspace Textuality: Computer Technology and Literary Theory//. Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1999.======