Inspired by this week's reading revolving around interactive entertainment, I have decided to revolve my final paper around narrative in video games. For years video games have been labeled as mindless entertainment massed produced for children and trigger happy college students. but as a DTC major and a gamer, i see the textual and narrative potentials present in games. There are many different genres of gaming, each able to introduced narrative properties on par with today's other media, and i feel that negative view of games in this respect should change so that we may embrace it for all that it has done and all that it can do for us through narration.
I believe that this medium should be counted among the texts and narratives found in movies in television. My paper will argue the narrative properties available in video games and how interactive entertainment should be viewed as a valid outlet for it. I will support my paper with the readings from this week, academic studies, video and written interviews with various game designers, and my own personal experiences with this medium. I will also compare gaming to other media such as movies and television in order to express similarities between them and validate the inclusion of interactive entertainment as a narrative medium.
Video games have a lot more to offer other than as a diversion. With games such as Fable and Mass Affect, critics can no longer claim with any validity that this medium has no purpose as a narrative medium. And i hope this paper will have a part in placing games in their proper place alongside movies and television as a narrative medium.
I've seen this topic come up several times, and it's fine, but very broad. You would be best served in this area by selecting one (or two — no room for more than that, probably) game and give it a good, deep reading that methodically analyzes the game as text and _why that is important_. So, if you want to focus on Fable and Mass Effect, do that. But you absolutely cannot say that "critics can no longer claim with any validity that this medium has no purpose as a narrative medium" because you don't have the ethos to do that -- plus, they can make arguments just like you. So, make an argument for why your selected games are narrative, and let that stand.
ReplyDeleteNote that while blog assignment #12 is due by Thursday, 12/02, 5:00pm, that does NOT mean you can’t do it earlier. In fact, in order to get the best comments that would help you do the best work, the earlier you do this, the better (since the paper is due via e-mail by Friday, December 17th at 9pm). Assignment #12, the longer proprosal, should be the short proposal fleshed out, plus a tentative works cited list (with annotations, as described on the assignment sheet).