If you played Plague Inc. a while back, it’s hard not to believe that the real world can be modeled and mapped as well.
Statista’s breakdown of U.S. video game sales shows that genres that incorporate narrative elements, such as role-playing and adventure, are selling well, and more and more game companies are incorporating realistic elements into their game productions. If humans live in fictional stories constructed by our own imagination, and we each experience different stories, can these personalized and exclusive stories be mapped in a virtual world? Or in what way could it be mapped?
Before answering this question, let’s consider another question: “When we talk about the protagonists in a story, should we use the word ‘they’ or ‘I’ to describe them?”
Thinking about the question, we can see that from novels and movies to stories in games, we describe the protagonist closer and closer to the other end of the spectrum in the diagram, the “I”, which is what distinguishes video games from other media narratives, and the possibility of mapping personalized stories from the real world into games. This leads to what we want to explore in this article—the narrative in video games.
In fact, in our definition, a story is made up of many events, and narrative is a way of presenting a story to convey it to an audience. As early as Aristotle’s time, he defined the three-act narrative structure in Poetics, which divides the story into three parts: the beginning of the story (background and conflict), the development of the story (elevation of the conflict), and the end of the story (the end of the problem), a narrative structure that we can see in many novels, movies, and even games.
This was followed by the mythologist Joseph Campbell’s discovery of the “Newton’s law” of narrative, which he described in his magnum opus, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, as the basic narrative pattern of the hero’s journey:
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
In addition to dividing the hero’s journey into the traditional “three acts,” he goes further and subdivides it into 17 stages, but not all heroic journeys must explicitly include all 17 stages. Some stories may focus on only one of the stages or deal with them in a different order.
Such narrative models have greatly influenced the creation of subsequent films and game titles. A narrative model as such can be seen in everything from The Odyssey and Lord of the Rings to Star Wars and even more modern stories such as Iron Man. Thatgamecompany’s lead designer directly cites this narrative mode as the main inspiration for the game Journey (2012).
With modern games showing players more diverse forms in their narratives, the aforementioned classical narrative model may just be the tip of the iceberg in video game narratives.
So what exactly are the characteristics of narratives in video games? What other video game narrative structures exist? And what will the narrative model look like in the future? These are all part of what we will be discussing in this study
This study is divided into three main parts.
- The first part is an introduction to narrative, where we discuss the definition and characteristics of narrative in video games and why narrative in video games is attractive to players.
- The second part is focused on the narrative structure of video games and explores the characteristics of video games under different narrative structures.
- In the third part, we tried to explore the future of narratives about video games.
1. Introduction to Narrative
1.1 Definition of Video Game Narrative
Before discussing video game narratives, let’s review the history of an issue: the debate over video game narrativity. In fact, in academic circles, the specialized research on games is called ludology, which focuses on the definition of games, game phenomena, game culture, game design, and game laws from the perspective of games themselves. The term ludology was coined by Uruguayan game scientist Gonzalo Frasca in 1999 in his paper “Ludology Meets Narratology: Similitude and Differences between (Video) Games and Narrative”, the first of its kind, uses ludology to refer to the study of the game. The word is derived from the Latin word Ludus, meaning game, and was cited in the Cybertext Yearbook in 2001, after which the concept of game studies began to spread widely and was gradually accepted and used in literature, design, art, games and other fields. In addition, the thesis innovatively included narrative in the framework of games for discussion, explaining the relationship and differences between games and narrative. Since then, the narrative nature of games has been one of the central topics of debate in various studies on games. The debate over whether games are narrative and whether they can be narrative has been hotly debated in academic circles and has been joined by scholars of narrative studies, which has opened up a debate between game studies and narrative studies (The “Narratology Vs. Ludology” Debate).
But the above academic debate is not the focus of our attention this time around. We won’t be arguing for the existence of narrative in games like Tetris, preferring instead to focus the discussion on RPG-type games or other types of games that are driven through narrative.
There are also many versions of the definition of narrative, which has been used to tell stories since people have been communicating through language. The following definitions are given from a literary, cinematographic and game-based perspective:
Aristotle’s understanding of narrative is that it exists in the story, and that any given story must have a place to begin, a place to encounter a problem, the effort required by the characters to overcome the problem in the process, and an ending that resolves the problem, which is the origin of what we often call the three-act structure.
According to film theorists David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, a narrative is “a series of causally related events that take place in time and space.”
In his paper “Theorising Video Game Narrative”, games scholar Jakub Majewski defines narrative as a story made up of many events, and narrative as the act of conveying that story to an audience.
While definitions of narrative vary across different theoretical circles, the basic consensus is that narrative consists of a series of events and that literature as well as film studies emphasize the temporal and spatial features of narrative, while game studies focus more on the way in which stories are expressed.
1.2 Characteristics of Video Game Narratives
As a unique communication medium, video games possess narrative features that distinguish them from other traditional media. In the paper “Measuring Player Immersion in the Computer Game Narrative”, Hua Qin summarizes the narrative features of video games, and understanding these features can help us to better construct our knowledge of video games and better understand the narrative structure of games in the latter part of the study.
1.2.1 Interaction
Traditional communication media, such as novels, traditional movies, and TV series, are created by the author/editor, and the audience/reader can only passively receive the story as they read or watch it. However, video games are very different from these media in that they involve the player’s choices and actions, and through interaction with the game, the player re-creates the story.
The main thing about narrative interaction is that the player intervenes in the progress and outcome of the story, and the player has control over what happens in the future game world in a pre-written narrative.
1.2.2 Structure
Based on different theories and models, scholars have given different understandings of the narrative structure of video games:
In the analysis of the conflict-driven model, games are constructed by recursive conflict, i.e., games are composed of continuous information, increasing challenges, conflicts, battles, difficulties, decisions, and rewards for the gamer.
Salen and Zimmerman identify two broad structures for understanding the narrative components of games: embedded narrative and emergent narrative.
An embedded narrative is pre-generated narrative content to form the backstory of the game, existing prior to the player’s interaction with the game.
Emergent narratives emerge from the player’s interaction with various game subsystems, with each decision the player makes affecting the way the story unfolds. This narrative emphasizes the way players interact with game systems in order to produce a unique narrative experience for each player.
Through the analysis of a large number of games, Majewski summarizes four basic models of narrative structure:
- The first model: the player will experience a series of predetermined events and will be free to choose between these major events.
- The second model: the game will have multiple paths, each with a different experience and possibly a different ending.
- The third model: the game emphasizes a single central storyline, the story is split into subplots, and the player is free to jump between subplots.
- Fourth model: there will be an unstructured narrative that arises in the course of playing the game. The player not only plays a role in the story, but is able to control and create the story.
1.2.3 Immersion
In the game world, players can see, hear and manipulate the environment just as they do in the real world, and elements such as narrative draw the player into the game and immerse them in it. The narrative describes the player’s story, background, and characters, which makes the player feel like they are part of the story. While experiencing the game, the player not only participates in the existing game world but also actively participates in building the game’s narrative.
1.3 Why Video Game Narratives Appeal to Players
From the previous section, we were shown that video game narratives are interactive, structured, and immersive, and can provide players with new narrative experiences in their gameplay, which is why more and more games in the gaming market are now adding narrative elements: in Statista’s breakdown of US video game sales in 2018, game genres with narrative elements, such as role-playing and adventure, have achieved good sales. In addition, we also notice that more and more people nowadays are having a hard time staying still to read stories from their books, or can’t even handle watching a movie that lasts for two hours. So the question can be asked, do games make a better narrative medium than movies, TV or books? This question is difficult to answer because each medium has its own strengths and weaknesses, it is difficult to compare them horizontally, and discussing other mediums is irrelevant to this article. Therefore, we might ask why narratives in video games appeal to players.
The answer to this question, in fact, goes back to the spectrum of “they — I” described at the beginning of the article: the player replaces the protagonist with himself in the story of the video game, thus bringing a more intense sense of immersion and fun. This is what video games can achieve, and it is also the player’s own choice.
In the paper “Identification with the Player Character as Determinant of Video Game Enjoyment”, the authors mention that the way players in video games have fun is through the process of finding a sense of identity with the character and that the key element that supports this process is the narrative framework of the game. At the same time, due to the characteristics of video game interactivity, players are able to act freely and solve problems by themselves during the process of participating in the game narrative, thus gaining a sense of identification and involvement with the game characters. Here we can see that adding narrative to video games and matching the interactive features of video games can help players gain great immersion and fun, and the two interact to enhance each other. In modern games, game developers have further enhanced this relationship by adding additional elements that enhance player immersion. In his paper “The Motivational Appeal of Interactive Storytelling”, C. Roth details the appeal of interactive storytelling, showing that games draw a key element from other mediums — the player’s curiosity — which greatly enhances the gameplay experience. In a game, the user not only thinks about what will happen next but also “what would happen if I decide to do this”. While playing the game, players may combine different curiosity mechanisms, which can extend the time they spend immersed in the game.
Additionally, in the paper “The Evolution of Video Games as a Storytelling Medium”, and “The Role of Narrative in Modern Games”, the authors mention that players choose to play games with narrative elements because they want to experiment with a more immersive form of narrative, where the player’s choices could have an impact on the game and make them feel like they could determine the story. It can also be seen that the appeal of video game narratives also stems from the player’s desire for a sense of self-involvement.
Furthermore, their position on the “They — I” spectrum is influenced not only by the characteristics of the storytelling medium itself, but also by the player’s position in the story: if you want to watch a story that belongs to someone else, then watching a movie or reading a novel is the way to go, but if you want to be part of the story and create your own, then a video game with a plot element would be more appealing.
A game as a narrative experience, apart from the usual narrative level elements such as text, images, camera, action, music, etc., one of the reasons why it is an extremely interactive experience medium is also due to the fact that there are different ways and types of gameplay that allow the player to have a completely different experience when faced with even a similar story. For humans, the visual pathway is the easiest way to access information, and the information contained in the visual pathway can be divided into an image-level and a textual level. In the past, when graphics were less developed, we understood and constructed stories based on textual information (visual and auditory pathways), which portrayed and shaped the context of the textual environment in our minds based on our existing stock of image-based information. For example, when we hear “flowing water in a high mountain”, we associate it with the scene of “the lute and psaltery are in harmony”, thus creating the feeling of “a soulmate is hard to find”.
As of today, image technology is so advanced that we can not only create two- and three-dimensional scenes, objects and characters. Even things that exist only in our imagination could also be brought to life and make them move as we want them to. The limitations of the image dimension have been relatively liberated, but what about the story and logic dimension? Or if we simply look at the elements of animation and images, we don’t find them interesting. What we find interesting is actually the story behind the images, and the images and even the auditory elements are just the ways and means through which the story is presented and through which we participate in the narrative process.
From a narrative point of view, it is easy to divide the game into “story-driven” and “gameplay-driven”, but we also consider the most direct form of narrative advancement: text-driven, and set up a classification into “text-driven” and “non-text-driven”, which leads us to the following four-quadrant classification diagram:
- In the upper-left corner, the representative feature is “the dynamic presentation and advancement of the plot through visual and atmospheric elements”. In this type of game narrative, the plot is advanced by the player freely interacting with the elements within the game scene within the framework of the story set by the game scriptwriter. These types of games generally have their own distinctive features in terms of game-play, not just a single game-play or a lack of emphasis on game-play, but a relative prominence of “story-driven” over “game-play-driven”.
- The lower-left corner represents the characteristic of “focusing on the interactive experience brought by gameplay and satisfying emotional needs in the process”. These games are mostly characterized by competitive and multiplayer participation, relatively light in terms of plot, and focus on a relatively large number of large-scale real-time player interaction. However, there are also beautiful games like “Journey” and highly exploratory games like “Minecraft”, and even games like “No Man’s Sky” which are not listed. These games are all based on different ways of playing the game, involving a single player’s constant exploration of the scene and the world. The meaning of the game itself is realized in the process of exploration.
- In the upper-right corner, the characteristics are “strong storytelling, diverse logic, and text choices driving the plot”. Although only games that are purely text-driven can be strictly considered to have text as the main narrative driver, such as “Mr Love: Queen’s Choice” and Galgame-type games, due to the development of modern graphical technology, textual plot development choices are almost always combined with some level of graphics. Games such as “Mass Effect”, “Deus Ex” and “Detroit: Become Human”, for example, although they could also be categorized as action, adventure or shooter games, we see their stories and plot progressions from a narrative perspective as relying on textual choices at various points. So we put games that advance their plot based on texts or options here.
- In the lower-right corner, the representative feature is “reinforcing game-play through text to enhance the sense of agency in the character’s background”. This category is arguably the core of game-play, with the text being one of the main ways to enhance game-play relatively quickly. Textual narratives make “traditional” types of game-play appealing again, and without the need for multiple players, they can amplify the impact of the game’s well-established game-play. Whether it is a combination of different game-play styles or a recreation of a single game-play style, the textual direction is more of a proxy for plot and background for this type of game, allowing the game-play to be more attentively embedded in a “text-based worldview and plot context”. Combined with graphical representation, this category enables players to experience the game-play and subconsciously “pretend” to be inside the plot and move the plot forward.
In fact, we can also have several, perhaps biased, “posterior conclusions“:
- Compared to PC and console games, which are richer in game-play and plot, the future of handheld games will require more tools and ways to help “plot development” to compensate for some of the natural experience and perception deficiencies caused by the limitations of end devices.
- Perhaps the most important thing in today’s games is the numerical planning if compared to the story planning because it tests the game’s ability to generate revenue. Taking the card game as an example, the reason why players are willing to keep putting money into it is, to some extent, the expectation of something new. Players hope that the black box can produce something brand new and more powerful, and the black box needs a richer worldview and plot to support it.
- In PC and console games, although the gameplay has been developed pretty much the same way, there are different trending styles of competitive games with various game-play styles in every era. However, they are all vaguely aware that competitive game-play is limited, yet stories can be created continuously. Thus, competitive games will gradually align themselves with episodic games at some level, and also need tools that help “episodic development” to make up for their “episodic shortcomings” on the strength of multiplayer-based game-play.
- As competitive games continue to catch up, games that are inherently plot-driven need tools that can help “dramatize development”, not only to break through the productivity of existing production techniques and tools but also to create new game experiences and create new competitive advantage zones.
- In order to better understand the narrative structures in video games and the patterns of their evolution, we need to discuss the embodiment, characteristics, and inner development of narrative in video games in details.
2. Video Game Narratives
2.1 Narrative Structure
As we mentioned in our definition of narrative, the narrative in games is more about how the story is told, while narrative structure plays a role in presenting the game story and engaging the player. Here, to facilitate the discussion of narrative structure in games, we simplify the game narrative by using the three-act structure mentioned above, based on Majewski’s papers “Theorising Video Game Narrative” and “Game Design Concepts”, the ‘Stories and Games’ chapter launches an exploration of narrative structure.
2.1.1 Linear Narrative
The linear narrative approach is the most traditional and commonly used structure. In a linear-narrative game, the game is often evoked by the starting event, and the game events are connected linearly through different events until the end of the game. In such games, the linear narrative structure makes it impossible for the players to interact with the story, i.e. they do not influence the story, they cannot change the story through game-play, and therefore cannot determine how the story is presented. The game can only be done in one way: the way the game designer writes it.
This narrative approach is more typical of classic games such as “The Last of Us and Uncharted”, where the story is told using a cinematic narrative approach. Despite that players have little choice, they can still enjoy the story very much through the elaborate set pieces and plot.
2.1.2 String of Pearls Narrative
The Pearl String narrative still tells the story in a linear fashion, but the game designers create the illusion of a non-linear narrative for the player by hiding the linear story behind story interactions. In this model, there is ultimately only one game-ending, but the game gives the player varying degrees of freedom, even though the player’s ability to trigger the game’s progression remains under the game designer’s strict control.
This is the kind of narrative we see in more traditional RPGs such as “Assassin’s Creed” and “Tomb Raider”, where there are no endings. However, there are a number of smaller quests that add to the freedom of the game, as well as branching off to tell stories that are not part of the main story, making the world view of the game fuller and more three-dimensional.
2.1.3 Branching Narrative
In this model, the story is designed to branch off in different directions, rather than remain linear. When the player reaches a certain game node, they decide what they want to do, and then the story follows one of several successive paths until they reach another choice point. For example, in “Phantasy Star III”, the protagonist can choose which of two girls he wants to marry (and then the story continues on to the next generation of characters), leading to a total of four branches, each with its own story and its own ending.
Branching narratives have the advantage of interactivity if the game contains enough choices and they can cover everything the player wants to do, the game can respond reliably to any number of player decisions. At first, this seems to be the ultimate solution for game narratives, as it can handle almost anything, but there is one major drawback to using branching stories: they are too expensive to produce. If there are only two options, such as in “Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom”, the author would still need to write four stories. Whereas if there are three choices, eight stories would need to be written, and ten choices, 1024 stories. What is worse, these stories won’t be totally experienced by the player, as it would require the player to trigger the different choices multiple times to experience the stories on different paths.
2.1.4 Parallel Narrative
This narrative structure allows the player to make choices and then folding all of those choices into a number of mandatory events. For example, in “Silent Hill”, the player can make several choices that may push forward the story or reveal some other elements. However, there will still be some episodes that the player is forced to encounter, so they are out of the player’s control.
This structure of parallel narrative solves the problem of branching narratives by maintaining the advantage of a player’s decision making while still keeping the total story manageable. However, because the player is forced to participate in certain events, the entire plot structure is essentially linear again. Players will lose a sense of story direction because no matter what they do, certain parts of the story will be the same.
The more typical ones are “Heavy Rain” and “Detroit: Become Human”, where they allow the player to make a variety of different decisions, all of which will affect the direction of the plots, but key episodes will still inevitably occur, and unlike the legend, both games allow for multiple endings.
2.1.5 Interpolated Narrative
In this narrative structure, the story may have multiple beginnings, midpoints, and endings, and the game is divided into smaller segments that may have multiple disjoint episodes at the same time. Players then choose the path and order to follow. For example, the “Elder Scrolls” series (e.g. Morrowind and Oblivion), in which players can follow certain storylines depending on how they want to improve their characters, and players may find other quests or subplots that they choose to pursue (or not).
2.1.6 Dynamic Narrative
This narrative structure has multiple story starting points as well as multiple endings, and for each mini-story, the player has their own choices and each story is independent and eventually leads to a different game ending.
A typical example is the “Mass Effect” and “Fallout” series, where at the beginning of the game or shortly after, the player can choose their side, and the different sides will trigger a completely different story experience with multiple different endings.
2.2 Evolution of Narrative
By looking at the narrative structure in video games, we can see the continuous enrichment and refinement of the narrative structure in games: from the early linear structure to branching and parallel narratives that incorporate more players’ decisions and choices; and to the more dynamic narrative structure with more story endings. In the early days, players couldn’t interact with the story in the game because no matter how they played the game, it was always linear in structure and the player didn’t make choices that affected the flow of the game or the storyline. Modern games, on the other hand, facilitate player interaction with the story by giving players more choices to influence the story and allowing them to autonomously generate and control the story based on their own decisions.
Additionally, the role of the narrative in the game has changed. In earlier games, the story existed more to provide background information for the game so that the player could achieve the objectives. Nowadays, game narrative and gameplay are considered equally important by developers, and a good narrative structure can often help the game to be a great success and provide a better gaming experience to the players.
At the same time, as games themselves become more advanced and complex in terms of both technology and gameplay, game narratives have evolved in a variety of ways. It can be seen that in recent years, the production of independent games has increased dramatically, and more and more experimental games have appeared, which has further broadened the game narrative.
But where is the future of video game narratives headed? That’s going to be what we’re going to discuss in the next part.
3. The Future of Video Game Narratives
In the above study, we have discussed in detail about the characteristics of video game narratives, the structure of narratives, etc., and in this part we want to try to discuss a more interesting topic about the future of video game narratives. In fact, it’s a difficult topic to carry out, as we can never really predict what might happen. It’s the same with looking ahead to the future of any form of technology.
Games, as a way for human beings to figuratively represent the fantasies in their brains, also use some almost artistic expressions to show their attempts to be creators or to create different worlds and scenarios for themselves and the outside world, among which they construct diverse possibilities of “events” and “actions”. When we shape the plot of a game, we often construct a worldview beforehand. And before we construct this worldview, we think about what kind of philosophical themes the game explores or what kind of metaphors for social issues it carries. Ultimately, we try to build a completely different worldview or a system that is implicitly tied to the real world.
Therefore, we will set up the historical, social, economic, and political elements of this worldview, which will be described, either in text, illustrations, or animations, depending on the style and theme. Since a specific worldview is made up of people, we then need to design specific characters and the stories behind them. When we have a worldview and a story, placing ourselves in that scenario, a narrative is created. Or we join the world from God’s perspective, as if we can “see” the flow and development of the world from a four-dimensional perspective, knowing each person’s story and history, and what they can and cannot do. And so, once we add our own perspective to the world, a narrative is created. If we also want to participate in the world as it unfolds, rather than just view its past, present and future from afar, that’s when the plot, or our own plot, occurs.
The logic of the above framework is in fact based on the general knowledge of the existing game industry in the process of perception, design and development, on the basis of which the game engine and its functions are born in the form of a more segmented “elemental” development. For example, our perception of a table in the real world is the “table” itself and the different shapes of different tables. But with the perspective of a game engine, the table is no longer a table, but a closed model of some sort in three dimensions plus specific textures and materials. Another example, when we build the concept of “camp” or “race” in a game, we use the game engine to reconstruct a set of characteristics that belong to these types of attributes, such as skills, equipment, items, etc., to form a complete set of story foundation to further complete the narrative development. However, the existing engines do not seem to have a “modular” development process, as they prefer an “elemental” one: the accumulation of elements to achieve a “modular” construction in the middle level.
And of course, if we think about it, do we assume that the narrative of future games is presented through “modularity”? Still not sure, because the ‘modular’ way of understanding the world is a spatial perspective rather than a framework for understanding people or characters. Standing under the logical framework of “elementalization” or “modularization”, we naturally analyze the composition of the world and create the elements that we consider essential in the world like building blocks, and then we look at the world that we have created with joy and feel a kind of “creator” attitude in our heart.
However, when discussing narratives, we seem to forget that a narrative cannot be called a narrative if it is devoid of people or characters, it can only be a scene or a description of the environment. As human beings, we perceive the world in a way that we can understand, and although we cannot prove or disprove the existence of the “Thing in itself” and what the “Real-world” originally looked like. But as a recursive correlation, when we create a world or space in our minds, we ourselves are bringing our own perspective into it, rather than absolutely abandoning our power and capacity as observers. So when we describe a worldview or narrative, we’ve already naturally made the assumption that we’re already in that world.
If we look at the game’s narrative from a “character or role” perspective, as a species of “human”, we naturally face various constraints, of which physical constraints refer to constraints at the level of spatial physical conditions, such as gravity, collisions, etc.; mental constraints refer to the absolute mental unfreedom resulting from our inability to understand the premises of the “Thing in itself” and the “real world”, as well as the relative mental freedom (which we can think about) restricted by a carbon-based body. On the basis of constraints, we will have a variety of goals, which can be divided into two categories. The first category refers to naturally occurring goals, such as survival, reproduction, exploration, etc.; the second category refers more generally to goals derived from goals based on the first category, elimination, eating, etc. With goals, we evaluate the extent to which they are being achieved, or even when we are faced with judgments and decisions that we cannot evaluate and choose, we actually do evaluate. Therefore, not from a priori but from posterior and rational reflection, there are three types of degrees of realization: realizable (using the correct path, the goal must be achieved), unrealizable (using any path, the goal must not be achieved), and unknown (the path of realization cannot be known, the goal may or may not be achieved). These three types of realization states, in turn, can be understood as three different logics or paths of how things develop, fatalistic (a goal must be achieved/not achieved), causal (the goal must be achieved if the path is correct; it must not be achieved if the path is incorrect), and probabilistic (the distance is correct or incorrect, and both may or may not be achieved).
Here, we shift our focus from the issue of the characteristics or endgame of being a human to the issue of the approach. As an implementation of the path, characters or NPCs in the game partially recreate what we would do in the real world, and add in certain behaviors that are “allowed” in a particular worldview. Overall, we can suggest that the first type of behavior is more heavily focused on the realization of the process, and when the process is completed, the feedback stops, whereas the second type of behavior is more heavily focused on the realization of the goal, and when the goal is completed, the feedback stops. Although there is a rather literary saying that the curiosity and exploration of the universe were planted in our hearts forever when we first looked up at the stars, in fact, from a biological point of view, when the so-called “curiosity” appears, we produce certain hormones that make us feel a “sense of mission” or “sense of purpose”, we can say that in order to satisfy our curiosity, we initiate a series of behaviors. When we are chasing and satisfying our curiosity, in most cases our goals will be vague and many times we will think that we are initiating different behaviors in order to explore the process itself. Of course, we need to constantly adjust our behaviors and strategies based on the feedback from different behaviors and environments. Such feedback can come from the physical level, acting on physical structures, or from the mental level, acting on mental structures. Both types of feedback can come from within the person, as well as from the external world. For example, behavioral feedback on memory and learning, and the influence of external states on the way people make decisions.
On the other hand, why do we explore the perspective of “people” rather than “events”? When it comes to game scenarios, we believe that the future of gaming is a kind of world simulator, specifically a way to explore ourselves. In the past, the AI used in the game field is more like state machines and decision trees, which basically has no learning and iterative capabilities, and is very different from the neural network-based AI used in other industries. We can even say that traditional game AI will never be able to simulate the decisions and behaviors of real humans as closely as possible.
So the essence of this question is not so much about what vehicle or pathway can simulate or recreate a human being, but rather how we understand the narrative orientation of our humanity in the real world. Obviously, as participants in the plot as carbon-based creatures, we are advancing in one direction, but we even fantasize a virtual plot at any time, in which we have an infinite number of narrative possibilities, an infinite number of opportunities for retracing our steps. “Westworld” gives us a relatively modest way of creating “real NPCs” through Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to interact with us in the real world, with infinite possibilities for certain narrative frameworks to occur. This scenario assumes that we have implemented AGI, while at the same time implementing AGI is based on the premise that we already know ourselves better.
We can also easily have another question about whether or not our biotech comes with this when we implement AGI so that we can upload our brains and become cloud creatures. Therefore, there is a trade-off, or a different choice orientation, where the decision point is AGI and the clouding of the human brain. One orientation is that if we can’t use our carbon-based bodies to achieve infinity in the real world, why not try to give up our carbon-based state to enter a silicon-based civilization and achieve truly infinite possibilities by clouding our human brains; the other orientation is that we can use our carbon-based bodies to experience infinite possibilities in the real world and whether it makes sense for us to upload our brains to the cloud again.
Fortunately, these kinds of questions can be left to philosophers to explore, and we are more concerned with ways to achieve AGI, while we also believe that the video game is not only the best carrier for the realization of infinite narratives and possibilities but also the best place to experiment with our progress towards AGI. Narratives in video games can be approximated as our replication of the real world and the realization of scenarios or worlds in the human brain. So we should experiment; and at the same time, as part of the human beings, we must also experiment and explore the possibilities as well as the diversity of our future development.
About rct
rct was founded in 2018, a member of Y Combinator W19, and is comprised of talents across AI, design and business. The team is passionate about using AI to create next generation interactive entertainment experiences. Our mission is to help human beings know more about themselves. So far, rct is backed by YC, Sky Saga Capital, and Makers Fund.
Writer：Jialin Zhu, Yan Zhang, Xiaolong Mou
Editor：Heng Li
Designer：Yuxiao Hu
References
[1] Frasca G. Ludology meets narratology: Similitude and differences between (video) games and narrative. 1999[J]. Da< http://www. ludology. org/articles/ludology. htm>[Accesso: 18/01/11], 2012..
[2] Majewski J. Theorising video game narrative[J]. Bond University, 2003.
[3] Koenitz H. Narrative in Video Games[J]. 2019.
[4] Qin H, Patrick Rau P L, Salvendy G. Measuring player immersion in the computer game narrative[J]. Intl. Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 2009, 25(2): 107–133.
[5]https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ChrisStone/20190107/333798/The_evolution_of_video_games_as_a_storytelling_medium_and_the_role_of_narrative_in_modern_games.php
[6] https://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/level-9-stories-and-games/
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces
[8] http://m.youxiguancha.com/yanfazixun/55764.html
[9]Hefner D, Klimmt C, Vorderer P. Identification with the player character as determinant of video game enjoyment[C]//International conference on entertainment computing. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007: 39–48.
Images
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG3Ljax8UvQ
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWmEu7Yqrb0
[3]https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ts411C7Uj?p=4
[4]https://www.bilibili.com/video/av60499343/
[5]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuVifhjOxhE
[6]https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1ag4y1z7i2/?spm_id_from=333.788.videocard.0
