Week 3

This week we have been talking about how interactive media, and more specifically games, are very good ways for storytelling.

Since printing press until some years ago, stories have been linear. From a book to a movie, the story was set from the beginning, and the user was just going through that story as an observer. One of the main features why interactive media is having such an impact is because of its ability to allow this observer to actually change the story.

In the article we have read, this storytelling is called "cyberdrama". It includes a main concept, according to the author: agency.

Agency is the power the user has to change what is happening in the story. A lot of modern games are including this more and more often, with lots of different side-stories or endings, or even completely different experiences according to player choices.

We could say choices are good, and players like them. They allow the player to create their own story, it adds replayability, but choices are not only what people need. It is nice if you can create your own story, but sometimes people want to experience a "good" story, a story they like because the argument, the characters or what happens in the world. When the story is created by a writer, even if it's a linear one (i.e. in games like Final Fantasy X), the story and the characters can be developed in the way the writer chooses. The player has no influence in the results of the story, but the player has to succeed in some challenges so both the game and the story continue. In a game with a lot of freedom, the writer cannot develop the story so well, because he does not know what the player has experienced before in the story. Every step in the story should be independent enough so every player could understand what is happening without having listened to the same previous stories. For this reason, the story cannot be developed so well by the author, and the story could be worse for some player than others.

To sum up, choices are good, but they are not a "panacea". There should be a balance between choices and storytelling, so we can still have freedom while experiencing a well-written story.