So the director of Pirates of the Caribbean wants to make a game.  Bully for him.

But he says something that is a real pet peeve of mine.  I quote:

“Verbinski said he was not only interested in creating new genres, but that he wanted to explore the different aspects that make the game medium unique as well. For example, he said he was interested in new approaches to narrative, and would like to see a game that evoked strong emotions instead of simple excitement. However, he also said he’d like to explore gaming with no narrative at all, since the interactive nature of games means the developer doesn’t necessarily have to impose a story on the audience.”

Okay, the part about a game that evokes strong emotions is good.  That part about a game that has “no narrative at all” is what really gets me going.

Yes, games are unique among varied mediums of entertainment where the narrative is not always on rails.  The consumer has choice.  Unprecedented control really.  Games such as The Sims it is often pointed has no direct narrative, instead, the narrative is created by the player.  Hail the great strength of the industry.

I don’t buy it.

Even a piece of art as vapid as orange banners draped in Central Park has a narrative.  No one is necessarily going to interpret that piece of “art” the same way, but by interacting with it, they enter the artist’s view of the world nonetheless.  My point is that when something is created in a game, while there may be no clear cut narrative, the creator still made a contract with the consumer.  And that contract is that the consumer is entering a world that the creator has made.

Look, there may be no “story” per se in a game as interactive as The Sims, but there still exists a narrative.  Will Wright gave people a world where they could create virtual towns, with virtual people, who have virtual dogs, and have virtual sex.  A virtual representation of our world.  But the point is that the world still has limits.  Space aliens don’t come crashing in.  Ninja armies don’t go careening around in T-Rex attack robots.  You get the idea.  The setting, the tools, the milieu was defined by the dev team.  They defined the world that players could play in.  Instead of creating a single path to explore, they created a bubble for players to explore.  There is a narrative, the shape just morphed.  Don’t get me wrong, The Sims is an impressive piece of work.  But it’s playing house, except instead of plastic doll houses and stick thin female dolls, its all on a computer.

This probably sounds fairly nitpicky, but it’s one of those things that rubs me wrong.   It probably has to do with my frustration with the current state of narratives in the industry.  Stories are so bad as it is, that whenever developers get excited about the next “Web 2.0″ esque game, I get really antsy.  I almost see it as if they’re deliberately trying to dodge the problem instead of facing it head on.   As if they’re trying to dodge the possibility that there can be a good narrative and interaction at the same time.