Videogames as Narrative Medium
© 2003 Nich Maragos

  1. Chapter I - Are Games Art?
    1. The Case Against
    2. The Case For
  2. Chapter II - Narrative Components of Games
    1. Imagery
    2. Sound
    3. Movies
  3. Chapter III - Conventional Narrative in Games
    1. Plot
    2. Character
    3. Point of View
    4. Setting
    5. Theme
    6. Sidequests
    7. Metanarrative
  4. Chapter IV - Interactive Narrative in Games
    1. The Arbitrary Choice
    2. The Burdensome Choice
    3. The Interpretive Choice
    4. The Behavioral Choice
    5. Rewards
  5. Chapter V - Conclusion
  6. Works Cited

The cover story of the March 6, 2000 issue of Newsweek was about Sony's PlayStation 2, the super-powerful descendent of its wildly popular PlayStation game console. The articles inside explained "How Sony will change high-tech fun forever." Hype centered around the unprecedented storage space possible on the DVD format, the lifelike facial expressions and body language powered by the system's Emotion Engine, and the promise of games that would feature realistic, immersive, explorable worlds. Well-known figures in the gaming industry wasted no time in touting the platform's abilities. Lionhead Studios' Peter Molyneux said that "PlayStation 2 is the most exciting entertainment machine I can ever imagine," explaining how he "was interested to hear that Sony's is to use 'Emotion Synthesis,' which focuses particularly not just on how images look, but how in-game characters think, act, and behave."(Next-Generation) Trip Hawkins, CEO of game developer 3DO, went even further, claiming that the PlayStation 2 would be "historic, a mass-market appliance that fundamentally changes society the way the printing press did" and that the machine would be no less than "a new canvas for humanity that takes us back to our nature."(Levy 56) The obligatory dissenting voice belonged to Newsweek’s arts editor Jack Kroll, who in an editorial claimed that "Games can be fun and rewarding in many ways, but they can’t transmit the emotional complexity that is the root of art."(Kroll 64).

As so often happens when expectations rise that high, the PlayStation 2 failed to immediately deliver on its promise. The initial crop of games was nothing special, let alone revolutionary, and growing frustration arose within major game developers such as Capcom or Konami regarding the difficulty of programming for the machine. It was amusing, on the day of the PlayStation 2's launch, to look back on the Newsweek’s breathless reportage, as the PlayStation 2 turned out to be nothing more or less than a higher-tech version of the original PlayStation; just another step on the evolutionary ladder of console gaming.

But it was just as amusing to some avid players, that October, to look back on Jack Kroll's editorial and hold it up beside some of the games released between its publication and the PlayStation 2's release. And by the end of the year 2000, a remarkable year for games, many of his arguments seemed even more laughable.

So: are videogames art? Yes and no. Before I give my reasons for either answer, though, I should disclose the definition of "art" that I’ll be using from here on out. First, art is an experience above and beyond normal survival duties. Second, all art is communicative; the creators present a work to us in the audience, and it changes us, in however small a way. In order to do this, it must have our attention and our interpretation. Art that the audience can’t or doesn’t or won’t see may as well not exist for them; and art that is not interpreted has no meaning for the audience—not only does uninterpreted art have no effect on an audience’s physical state (as survival duties do), it has no effect on their mental state either.

It’s easy to see, then, how videogames can be art: their interactive nature is an ideal fit for artistic expression. The act of play consists of attention and interpretation, where the presentation is what we see and our actions stem from the way we interpret it. Games go beyond simple communication to interactivity: not only does the work change us, we simultaneously change the work. If the function of art is to hold a mirror up to the world, videogames offer the clearest surface yet in which to gaze, for reasons we will discuss later.

To The Case Against ->