The Endless Story: Storytelling in Games is different

We should acknowledge that storytelling in games can be slightly different and has to in contrast to novels or movies. In our enthusiasm about Joseph Campbells world-formular "the Hero´s Journey" we might forget that not every plot of a computergame follows his rules and there are good reasons.

Douglas Rushkoff alerted us in his book Present Shock  about the "Narrative Colaps". The end of linear stories in the 21st century. Why? Well, since the 50s remote control has teached us how to interrupt tv shows, to jump from channel to channel and from story to story. We got used to switch from plot to plot and learned to anticipate story lines. Today it looks like that we´ve overcome  Aristotle´s plot structure or Gustav Freytag´s dramatic arch or pyramid. Are we bored about this old paradigm? Have we seen and heard to much?

In fact modern stories in social media and games seem to be just the opposite of traditional storytelling. In traditional storytelling we hang on a story as long as possible, we follow the hero through his journey, his call for adventure, his quests and trials and we can´t wait to come to the end. We read a book as quick as possible to find out how the hero´s journey might end, to learn how the hero will cope with all the mess and how he will return to his old world. Whether it´s a happy or a bad ending.

Storytelling in games is different. Joseph Campbell´s Hero´s Journey get´s a slight different interpretation and what´s key is the different exposure of the "ending" of a story. While in traditional storytelling the recipient wants to know the resolution of the end as soon as possible, the gamer in contrast wants to avoid the end as long as possible. The principle of a modern game is NOT to come to an end. A principle which Rushkoff calls the "endless story" - somehow described by Michael Ende in his novel "Neverending Story" but even better analysed by James Carse in his theory about "Finite and Infinite Games". And that´s just one difference between traditional and modern storytelling. The team of Extra Credits is doing a great job in explaining how the Hero´s Journey is still a useful concept to explain Video- and Computergames but Game-developer see Joseph Campbell´s theory more as a a framework than a rule. Two videos explain the differences: Part 1 - Part 2.