THE ENDLESS STORY
Storytelling in games is slightly different. 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 for breaking these rules.
In his book Present Shock Douglas Rushkoff calls this the "Narrative Colaps". At the dawn of the 21st century he sees the end of linear stories. 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 ordinary story lines. Today it looks like that we´ve overcome Aristotle´s plot structure or Gustav Freytag´s dramatic arch or pyramid. Looks like that we are bored about this old paradigm. So have we already seen to much?
In fact modern stories in social media and games seem to be the opposite of traditional storytelling. In "the old days" we hang on a story as long as possible, we followed a hero on his journey, his call for adventure, his quest and trials. 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. What´s different is the exposure of the "ending" of a story. While in traditional storytelling the recipient wants to know the resolution as soon as possible, the gamer in contrast wants to avoid it. The principle of a modern game is NOT to come to an end. Rushkoff calls this the "endless story" - somehow described by Michael Ende in his novel "Neverending Story" and analysed by James Carse in his theory about "Finite and Infinite Games".
The Gamernetwork Extra Credits is doing a great job in explaining how the Hero´s Journey is still used in Video- and Computergames - you should know that Game-developer see Joseph Campbell´s theory more as a a framework than a rule. Two videos explain these differences: "Hero´s Journey" Part 1 - Part 2.
