Who Cares About Narrative Meaning in Games?

A few months ago my friend Hyperion pointed me to an article in Slate magazine by Farhad Manjoo, whom he described as "one of the best popular-tech writers out there". The article, Are Video Games a Massive Waste of Time?, discusses the book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell, and how its theme jives with Manjoo's personal feelings of guilt and embarrassment when he plays video games. He asks

How can I explain and defend—both to myself and to others—my affection for and continued investment of time in a form of entertainment that ultimately seems empty and ephemeral?

As someone whose career centers on creating video games, this question resonated with me. In the distant past I frequently felt the same guilt and embarrassment. I certainly had my doubts when I decided to attend DigiPen Institute of Technology instead of a physics graduate school, and it wasn't easy explaining my decision to others. However, after several years of study and work I have grown far more confident in my decision. So much so, in fact, that I emphatically do not share Manjoo's pessimism when it comes to finding lasting meaning in games.

In the article the comparison is drawn between narcotics and video games, suggesting that they are both addicting and can lead to destructive behavior. While valid points, these kinds of comparisons are only peripherally important. People usually say those kinds of things to spark reaction. Pretty much anything can be addictive—books, movies, sex, food, etc.—we just have to be careful how we spend our time.

The really important questions deal with the sentence

When he looks at video games from a critical distance, Bissell is concerned mainly with their lack of narrative meaning.

To that I say, Who cares about narrative meaning in games! That's not to say meaning is not important, but games inherently are not narratives. A narrative is when the audience is told what happens. In games, however, the audience gets to control what happens, and that is a monumental difference. Games have a state, rules, and inputs. They have inputs from the author which have narrative elements—for example, cut-scenes, symbols, and text. However, it is the rules and the player input that lead to a different "story". That is what differentiates games from other art forms. The purpose of the narrative portions is not to convey deep meaning, but to communicate the state of the game to the player. This enables the player to make informed decisions. The player ultimately derives lasting meaning from how his decisions affect the game state.

Thus, I think Manjoo is missing the point when he wants to know why the character in the game is doing what he is doing. He should be asking why he—Farhad Manjoo—is doing what he is doing. Manjoo says that Bissell's account of his experiences make him feel sad, but personally I feel sorry for Manjoo when he says

I can't recall a single moment in which Red Dead Redemption (nor any other game) has moved me, emotionally and lastingly, in the way I've been moved by the best music, movies, and TV shows.

Manjoo is approaching games with the wrong mindset and as a result he is playing the wrong games. Certainly some games, such as Super Mario Galaxy, are just for the pure fun, but others can provide the meaning he's looking for. Instead of playing Grand Theft Auto, he should be playing Heavy Rain or Sim City and asking questions like "Why am I willing to drink poison?" or "Why do I choose to expand the airport instead of building new railroads?" The answers would say something about his values.

To his credit Manjoo seems aware that something is amiss, asking

is the video game, as a form, simply incompatible with traditional concepts of narrative, and must game designers instead find other ways to invest their creations with lasting meaning?

I think I've already given my answer to this question, but in case I wasn't clear: YES!

Finally, I should point out that games can—and should—get a lot from traditional narratives. Right now most games revolve around spatial puzzles and physics, which developers know how to implement pretty well. I think we'll start to see the kind of things many people would describe as "artistic" when game developers start thinking about how to simulate character's personalities, or start making it so that the player can really talk to game characters. They could learn a lot from books and movies about what makes an interesting and believable character, and start trying to simulate that, instead of bullets and explosions.