stop whinin', eskelinen

Something has been bothering me a while, and I have finally figured out what it is. It might make me sound whiny, but I am okay with that possibility.

Basically, it's this: Why do we care what (if any) "difference" there is between narrative and games?

I don't know. Maybe I'm being narrow-minded (or an English major), here, but it seems really obvious to me that there is a narrative element to video games--duh, of course there is. That's what happens when people do things in fictional universes: in some form or another, stories develop--whether they're plot-based, character-based, or world-based, there is some kind of narrative. Even in that James Bond game. Even in snowboarding games. It may not be a traditional narrative, but to try to divorce games from narrative seems pointless.

And, see, I think that all of the ludology guys know it. You can see narrative sneaking around between the lines of those Eskelinen and Aarseth essays. They're fighting it, and they get kind of weasel-y and they backtrack and redefine to get out of it, but it's there.

Besides, it's not like we can possibly study all games, or even all computer games, using the same mindset. Chess (Aarseth's example of something that hasn't got a "text") has no more in common with "The Sims" than "Pride and Prejudice" does. How could we possibly lump together Tetris, World of Warcraft and Facade?

So what I can't tell is whether or not this question of literally whether or not we can talk about narratives while we're talking about games is actually just an academic catfight, because that's the impression I get from First Person. The only reason some of them seem to care is so that they can piss all over gaming so that those other guys won't try to claim it as their territory (like all of Eskelinen's talk about "resisting and beating" the narratologists, and calling his paper a "survival game").

Questions about the nature of narrative in games are worth asking, and some of the later stuff we've read has actually had interesting possible answers to those questions. But to suggest that narrative has No Place At All in academic discussions of computer games, or to suggest that all computer games can be studied in the same way and are similar enough to be grouped into one category, seems bizarre.

I know I am being a little unfair, but this book has been getting to me. Some of the responses are irritatingly catty. I want to make them go stand in the corner until they've learned to play nice.