泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌 _ Importance of a narrative in a video game

泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌

[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]

 

Importance of a narrative in a video game

 

The film is generally called 'gesamtkunstwerk (a total work of art)'. It delivers artistic beauty of arts and photograph by images which is visual arts and shows the beauty of music and literature by sound effects and lines. So, in that respect, a video game, I think, is also very close to comprehensive artwork because it contains visual images, sound effects, and stories. Today I'd like to talk about the narrative, one of the most important parts of the total artwork.

In fact, hardly domestic game users read a story. Less than 10% of players probably cleared story mode of StarCraft which, I estimate, millions of Korean have played. It is common for players to skip lines while playing RPGs. The situation has made game designers not be interested in a narrative. From a conversation with them, I found that they are satisfied with a story where players are not be inconvenienced to play the game.

Isn't a narrative in a video game important? Actually, I debated this topic a few years ago when I taught students a video game script at a university. I remember that most students limited screenplay role as a means to help a player to keep playing the game. Honestly, I never deny the function of the story in the game. Limited role of the narrative, I assume, is maybe underestimated.

There is a term of OSMU (One source multi-use) in Korea. It means that a content source enlarges reproduction and widely spread in different areas. Many novels, films, cartoons have been used for material for video games and they will do so in the future. Of course, I've seen the opposite. Resident Evil and Super Mario were turned into movies and many contents have been created based on video games. It's possible because of the value of a game screenplay as a story. A game story is generally based on literature and it consists of a series of choices of interactive narrative. A video game with stories in a number of different sequences is referred to as a nonlinear gameplay-video game. In spite of the differences, a video game with advanced methods and a higher level of immersion tends to have a more attractive story. It means that a game, which properly conveys a central theme of it to players, is more likely to have its charming story. Game script is one of the most important element to increase in immersion.

With recent domestic video games in play, it's hard to find a theme or a message of the story. Aside from a casual game or a game without narrative; for example, playing a go-stop card game without a story doesn't really matter, gamers often don't know why they have to enjoy the game when they play RPGs without narrative or too simple storyline. Recently we easily see many domestic games in the overseas market. Unlike Korean game users, users in North America or Europe generally read the screenplay very carefully during playing the game. The game story would be considered an important part to evaluate games under the current situation where the appearance of Korean games on the foreign market is a crucial issue. With imagining a movie based on a domestic video game a few years later, I hope that game developers become more interested in the game story.

※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.

   (http://www.khgames.co.kr)

    Translation by Kim Ki-hui