When I think back and remember frantically gliding Dig Dug and Ms. Pac Man through and between their fearsome foes for hours on end, I am reminded of how much of a story I could find in such a storyless environment. When you get down to it, clearing a maze on Ms. Pac Man isn’t about the dots and the ghosts. It’s about overcoming obstacles, being triumphant, destroying evil, finishing the maze. There is a story even in Ms. Pac Man. Remember those cut-scenes? The life and times of the Pac-family shown for your enjoyment. The desire to tell stories with videogames is as old as the technology itself, although most efforts have come up significantly short.

Videogame stories are evolving though, and they are evolving very rapidly. We are getting better at writing them and at reading them. In only a few short decades the medium has shed its skin countless times to be reborn faster, bigger, better, and still not big enough. The Videogame medium is hungry and hurried. It is precisely this unrivaled rate of evolution that makes this such an exciting time to be playing games. It is also what puts new media narratives in such a perilous position. One false step can threaten to send the entire genre spinning off on a tangent to nowhere. It could be miles, years off course before we even realize that a mistake has been made.

This is why I feel particularly vigilant about how the videogame medium moves forward. It is important to make sure that a discourse exists and that an exchange of ideas takes place. Sometimes these ideas will need to be praised, discussed, metamorphosed. Some will need to be refuted, some simply exposed, and others put gently out of their misery.

Which brings me at last to my point, and this is an area of some concern to me. A wind is blowing through the industry and its bringing a disturbing buzz with it. Perhaps I should say it is sucking through the industry, sucking creativity, innovation, evolution. It is seeking something that doesn’t exist and wouldn’t be very much fun if it did. It is seeking the death of the story (though it may not recognize it at first). Above all, game players and developers should be aware of this point: Interaction enhances stories; it does not replace them. Yet this idea seems to be under increasing criticism. This idea is epitomized in Scott Osborne’s "Telling Stories Without Telling Them".

In his editorial, Osborne criticizes narrative technique for removing the gamer from the game: "Attempts at storytelling and immersing you in a game world have often been at odds with each other . . . they more often draw you out of it [the story] by forcing you to experience it passively". The heart of Osborne’s criticism is his desire for the suspension of disbelief—an idea he appeals to often. This phrase, originally offered by the 18^th century poet Samuel Coleridge, is intended to describe the ability of a person to be immersed, enthralled, captivated inside a story. This act does not cease to be possible in a novel, even though the very words on the page, the book in hand, the chair below, are constant reminders that the reader is not actually inside the story. The book is merely paper and ink, and these things do not captivate the human spirit. To make things brief, we are not captivated by the book at all but rather by the story within.

Osborne has failed to make this distinction in his criticism of videogame narratives. He has equated the ability to successfully tell a story with the inability to recognize that it is in fact a story. Historically, this has been untrue of every story that has ever been told by anyone, at any point in time, in any medium, and it is still untrue today. Osborne is critical of text in RPGs because it is a reminder that one is not really in a fantasy world:

Dividing a game’s presentation between visuals and text further interferes with drawing you into a game world and helping you suspend your disbelief. It’s like sitting in a movie theater where the lights go on and the reel stops whenever there’s dialogue, so you can read it in a provided script.

The criticism of combining text and image is simply preposterous, while the melodrama of the film analogy is both preposterous and funny. There is no need to be so creative with the analogy because such combinations already exist; we call them subtitles. Osborne is equally critical of the limited capacity of RPG characters to ask and respond to commands. He asks us: "What good would a fantasy world be if you couldn’t talk with its colorful inhabitants?" I say, ask Tolkien; ask Homer; ask anyone who has ever read a fantasy novel. There is use in a fantasy world even when you can’t talk to its colorful inhabitants because they can talk to you. This is called a story.

What is equally telling is that even if we conceded to Osborne’s assumptions about narrative, which I have no intention of doing, it simply begs the question: What about the mouse in one hand and the keyboard under the other, the computer screen on the desk, the hum of the computer’s fan in the background? Aren’t these constant reminders that the gamer isn’t really inside the game? Of course they are, but if the story is engaging enough then the gamer simply doesn’t care. Many games do not even desire the suspension of disbelief; In fact, they oppose it and build on it. Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a good example of this. The humor is ironic and self-referential; it is demanding that gamers consider the game as outsiders even as it leads them on a contemporary Odyssey (plus poop jokes). Suspension of disbelief is not only unnecessary in this case but also detrimental to the story, the humor, and the game.

Osborne is critical of cut scenes for precisely the same reason – removing suspension of disbelief through such actions as switching from a first to third person view. I reject this claim completely for the reasons outlined above, but find further fault in this argument’s failure to consider the value of artistic representation. Osborne writes:

Cutscenes have a major drawback, though. One minuite you’re watching 2D isometric battelfield of a realtime strategy game, for instance, and the next you’re watching a short film. The lack of a unified storytelling method calls undue, awkward attention to itself. When you go back to the main game after a cutscene, you’re reminded just how far you are from living out a movie.

When was the last time any of us went to a theater and saw a movie with only one camera angle? How about a single first person perspective in order to make you believe you were really in the movie? It might be an interesting experiment to see one movie like this, but by and large this type of presentation would be horrible, and would suffer from a lack of options, style, flavor, and artistic vision, while suffering from an abundance of total crap, redundant perspective, and total crap.

My arguments aside, Osborne’s argument effortlessly demonstrates its own inadequacies and collapses in on itself. He is critical of the storytelling method of Deus Ex, citing the game’s shift from first to third person during the FMVs, yet is quick to praise Half-Life for its innovative style. He draws particular attention to Half-Life’s opening sequence in his praise of its narrative technique. Yet the shuttle-docking scene is portrayed in the third person, while Half-Life is played in the first person. He offers us no reason why one shift of perspective is a masterpiece and the other a failing. Also worth mentioning is the attack on linear structure, but I can solve this one quickly. There seems to be some confusion as to the definition of linear. Half-Life is a linear game. It has a beginning and an end. You have to finish one stage or area before you can move onto the next. This is a linear structure.

The debate on the role of narrative in videogames is not yet settled. When we see MMORPGs, fighting games, and death match games become both successful and enjoyable with paper thin narratives, it is natural to question the necessity of stories in our games. These types of games, however, are very limited in scope, and what we are attracted to is the competition they promote. I like these games very much, but I am also aware that they are very narrow in possibility and are, fundamentally, simply multi-player competitions. Their continued presence is assured and welcome.

Narrative based games are built on a less clear foundation. We are constantly searching for new ways to tell stories. Recently Black and White pushed the boundary a little bit farther. Yet even here, with all the innovations Black and White offers, we still have such conventions as cinematic cut scenes and narration -- devices that allegedly draw you out of the interactive narrative. Critics such as Osborne will likely argue that the narrative success of Black and White is reached in spite of these conventions. Yet it seems clear to me that Black and White largely succeeds precisely because of these conventions. Many of the cut scenes are used to propel the story forward, and others are used to show consequences of actions and game decisions. This is the genius of the game: a free flowing story space with enough consequences and direction to make you care that there is a free flowing story space to begin with. The interactive space of Black and White has no cohesion or direction without these devices. It would be a schizophrenic mess of good ideas unable to find a voice.