"Narratology vs Ludology" by Sherry Jones (July 29, 2014)

#Metagame Book Club
Track 1: Game Studies
Week 2: “Narratology vs. Ludology”
Sherry Jones
Game Studies Facilitator
@autnes
http://bit.ly/metagamebookclub

Watch Live Webinar to This Lecture!
Part 1 of 2

Watch Live Webinar to This Lecture!
Part 2 of 2

Guiding Questions 1
1. According to Marie-Laure Ryan, what is narrativity? And, what is
hypertext?
2. What does Marie-Laure Ryan mean by hypertext is a text of which its
meaning cannot be exhausted?
3. What are Marie-Laure Ryan's criticisms of designing narrative-driven
digital media based on the Aleph analogy and the Holodeck analogy?
4. According to Gonzalo Frasca, how are ludus and narrative similar and
different? Why does he call for a ludological study of video games?

Guiding Questions 2
5. Why does Jesper Juul argue that game-story translations is a problem?
6. How does Gonzalo Frasca distinguish narrativity from narratology? Why
does this distinction matter?
7. What does this statement mean?: “The real irony of the ‘ludology vs
narratology’ ‘debate’ is that virtually all the so-called ludologists are actually
trained in narratology.” (See article by Janet H. Murray)

Game Studies Texts
What is Narratology? Narrativism? Ludology? Narratology vs. Ludology Debate?
● Beyond Myth and Metaphor - The Case of Narrative in Digital Media
by Marie-Laure Ryan
● Ludology Meets Narratology: Similitude and Differences between
(Video)games and Narratives by Gonzalo Frasca
● Games Telling Stories? - A Brief Note on Games and Narratives by
Jesper Juul
● The Last Word on Ludology v Narratology (2005) by Janet H. Murray
(PDF + Slides)
● Ludologists Love Stories, Too: Notes from a Debate that Never Took
Place by Gonzalo Frasca

“Beyond Myth and Metaphor - A
Case of Narrative in Digital Media”
by
Marie-Laure Ryan

Main Argument
Marie-Laure Ryan argues that the software industry,
which believes that computers can enhance, advance, or
represent storytelling, is operating under narrative
myths that promise much, but are too impractical or
inviable for implementation. The software industry also
ignores the effect of different types of media on a
narrative. To explain the problem, Ryan begins by
offering an in-depth definition of narrative, which
includes several characteristics, to help us identify
narrative and narrativity.

What is a Narrative?
● “Narrativity is independent of the question of fictionality.”
● “Narrativity is not coextensive with literature nor the novel.”
● “Narrativity is independent of tellability. (Narrativity ≠ Storytelling)”
● “A narrative is a sign with a signifier (discourse) and a signified
(story, mental image, semantic representation). The signifier can have
many different semiotic manifestations. It can consist for instance of a
verbal act of story-telling (diegetic narration), or of gestures and
dialogue performed by actors (mimetic, or dramatic narration).”
● “The narrativity of a text is located on the level of the signified.
Narrativity should therefore be defined in semantic terms. The definition
should be medium-free.”
(Ryan 1)

Two Narrative Myths
● Ryan argues that digital media operates on two
Narrative Myths: Myth of the Aleph and Myth of the
Holodeck. The two myths creates over expectations of
the degree (and potentiality) of the design of
narrativity in digital media.
● A translation problem exists when transferring
narrative-to-computers (as digital media have their
own parameters/limitations).
● I will discuss Ryan’s two myths in depth.

Narrative Myth: “The Aleph”

Narrative Myth - The Aleph (Pt. 1)
● Myth of the Aleph - “The Aleph” is a short story
written by Jorge Luis Borges. It refers to “a small,
bound object that expands into an infinity of
spectacles, and the experiencer could therefore
devote a lifetime to its contemplation.” (Ryan 2).
● Ryan argues that the concept of the Hypertext is
strikingly similar to the concept of the Aleph.
Hypertext theorists argue that the Hypertext is a
textual object that can offer infinite, non-linear
narrative possibilities.

● Hypertext theorist George Landow argues that
hypertext is a textual object that “reconfigures” the
text at the discourse level and at the plot level. Since
hypertext provides a non-linear narrative, the
reader would be able to construct infinite number
of discourses and plots by engaging with the
hypertext.

● Ryan finds Landow’s claim problematic; she argues
that logic, time, and causality matters in the sequence
of a plot, in that the sequence helps make a narrative
coherent. When taken out of order, logic, time, and
causality, which are elements for making a coherent
narrative, are disconnected, and thus the entire
narrative meaning is lost as well.
● The reader would have to “piece together” disparate
pieces to make meaning/sense of the hypertext’s non-
linear plot.

Ryan suspects that readers would have very difficult time
with interpreting non-linear hypertext, much less consider
each reading of a hypertext as a new story:
“If it seems utopian to expect of readers to be able to
provide missing links to connect segments in a narratively
meaningful way for each different order of appearance,
the Alephic conception of a new story with each
reading becomes untenable.”
(Ryan 3)

Readers would see Hypertexts as puzzles that can be
“solved”:
“What we have, instead, is something much closer to the
narrative equivalent of a jig-saw puzzle. . . . Just as we
can work for a time on a puzzle, leave it, and come back to
it later, readers of hypertext do not start a new story
from scratch every time they open the program, but
rather construe a mental representation over many
sessions, completing or amending the picture put
together so far.” (Ryan 3)

Narrative Myth: “The Holodeck”

Narrative Myth - The Holodeck (Pt. 1)
● Myth of the Holodeck - The Holodeck refers to the
Virtual Reality space/cave on the “Enterprise,” a
starship in the TV show, Star Trek. The cave creates a
fictional, virtual 3D simulation that allows visitors to
play a fictional character within its environment.
Interactivity between humans and simulated virtual
characters and environments, help instantly generate
the plot (Ryan 3).

● According to Janet Murray, the author of Hamlet on
the Holodeck: “The Holodeck, like any literary
experience, is potentially valuable in exactly this way.
It provides a safe place in which to confront disturbing
feelings we would otherwise suppress; it allows us to
recognize our most threatening fantasies without
becoming paralyzed by them” (25).
● Ryan questions Murray’s assumptions about the value
and practicality of a “Holodeck” on several fronts.

● “The viability of the concept of the Holodeck as
model of digital narrative is questionable for a number
of reasons: technological, algorithmic, but above all
psychological.” (Ryan 3)
● Problem #1 - Technological - Ryan points out that true
VR immersion (where the player loses him/herself in
VR) requires an AI that will automatically construct a
plot based on user’s unpredictable actions (in this
sense, the AI would serve as a story-generating
system). Current VR technology does not allow this.

● Problem #2 - Psychological - Ryan questions Murray’s
claim that the Holodeck can “allows us to recognize
our most threatening fantasies without becoming
paralyzed by them” (Qtd. in Ryan 4).
● In fact, Ryan argues that the VR experience may be
psychologically straining for the player/interactor to
play a main character in the Holodeck, since being the
main character can expose one to greater
psychological harm (such as mentally sensing pain,
torment, anguish, depression, guilt, etc.).

● Furthermore, the player/interactor in the Holodeck
may develop adaptation issues when switching
between reality and virtual reality. The
player/interactor may find the world of VR too
attractive to abandon.
● Ryan offers of Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek as an
example of someone who experienced mental pain
when she had to “delete” her virtual lover when her
virtual life interfered with fulfilling duties in her
physical life.

● Danger of having the interactor experience alt. plots:
● “Interactors would have to be out of their mind-
literally and metaphorically--to want to submit
themselves to the fate of a heroine who commits
suicide as the result of a love affair turned bad, like
Emma Bovary or Anna Karenina. Any attempt to turn
empathy, which relies on mental simulation, into first-
person, genuinely felt emotion would in the vast
majority of cases trespass the fragile boundary that
separates pleasure from pain” (Ryan 4).

Lecture By:
Sherry Jones
Game Studies Facilitator
Philosophy, Rhetoric, Game Studies
@autnes
Writings & Webinars
Access Slides: http://bit.ly/gamestudies2

"Narratology vs Ludology" by Sherry Jones (July 29, 2014)

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