My first blog of 2009 starts with a confession: as of this holiday season, I am a huge fan of the Twilight books. Before reading the first one, my impression was that it was nothing more than romantic fluff for weak-kneed swooners. It’s true that I am a romantic at heart, but I’m also a bit of a literature snob so my expectations were low. Nonetheless, I decided to read Twilight, figuring it’d provide a nice break from my usual dry academic readings, and hoped to at least enjoy making fun of it. Suddenly, I found myself addicted to it like it was made of crack-infused chocolate. It took me only two days to finish it, and when I tried to resist getting the second book right away (I needed to simmer down), I felt hung over and depressed. All I wanted was to be back in that world, diving ahead for whatever happens next. (Note: this blog post eventually gets back to video games. I promise.)

Stephanie Meyer lured me in with enough romance sugar to make my inner high school girl supremely giddy, but that normally wouldn’t be enough to make me read past cheesy things like sunlight skin-sparkle vampires. Despite uninspired language and some silly fantasy embellishments (vampire baseball? Really?), I couldn’t put the book down because of the strikingly genuine character emotion (from the humans, anyway). Bella’s attachments and reactions were vibrant versions of the feelings most high school girls experience at some point, and my favorite kind of fiction is that which includes close parallels to reality in the portrayal of a character’s emotional experience. That mirroring makes it easier for a reader to immerse herself and become invested in the story, and without this thread of truth, the emotion on the page seems hollow. In Twilight, the root of Bella’s intense infatuation and teenage longing clearly springs directly from Stephanie Meyer’s heart and that sincerity had me hooked.

My intense connection with Twilight was a special case, but books regularly stir my imagination and suck me in. Good movies also engage me to the point of intense emotion, and it’s always when I’m the most immersed in a character’s story. Ever since reading Twilight, I’ve wondered why video games don’t inspire those deep, resonant feelings, even when they’re good! I can think of only a couple instances when I felt that way about a game: when Aeris met her fate in FFVII, and during a few parts of Okami. Stories in books and movies move me, but stories in video games usually don’t. Why not?

I’ve got a few theories. The first hinges on immersion. I get emotionally involved with books and movies that dominate my internal dialogue with the content of a compelling story; I feel compelled to keep reading and feel unhappy when I can’t. There is something about temporarily giving control to the story and letting it carry you downstream like a raft on a river. At no point are you asked to make a decision or forced to figure something out before being able to progress. All you have to do is keep reading or watching and you will be taken to the end. Video games, on the other hand, give you the control (you play using a “controller” after all). Often your decisions don’t make big changes to the eventual outcome, but you spend most of the game being an active participant rather than a passive observer. Instead of sitting behind a character’s eyes, you are in the driver’s seat. This makes for an interactive story experience which is great in its own ways, but I wonder if it takes away from the passive role needed to fully relate to a character’s plight or success. Instead of empathizing with someone else’s decisions, morality, and fate, you are operating within your own judgments and choices. Furthermore, if the consequences of your decisions are unfavorable (i.e. the character falls off a cliff and dies), you can go back and do it again until you do it right.  Having control creates distance between you and the character and the consequences of your actions, all of which makes it possible to be emotionally detached.

Second theory: video games are created by a team, seemingly more so than movies and certainly more so than books. Maybe someone with film background can correct me on this, but I get the impression that though there are huge teams of people working on a film, the creative direction comes from a much smaller group of people and/or primarily the Director. Games, on the other hand, are products of team collaboration. There are certain individuals leading the vision, but there are more decision-makers involved in the outcome. Again, I don’t want to slight video games by saying this is all bad. This development process has a lot of benefits, but it also might take something away from the ways in which stories and characters are presented. They don’t feel as personal because there are more persons “writing” them.

Last theory: maybe there just needs to be more games with romance-heavy storylines written by sap-hearted females. If Twilight is any indication, I’d probably be into those. Maybe the moral of the story is that I’m just a weak-kneed swooner after all, who likes romantic fluff the best. :b

I’m not willing to give up on games as a potential source for meaningful story experiences and good narrative art. I want to believe it’s possible, but I wonder if the video game format creates barriers to our typical enjoyment of a compelling story. What will it take for video games to have that kind of impact on people? How can we create profound drama in a game? Here’s to hoping the brilliant developers of the world can figure out how to turn video games into vehicles for truly moving stories.

P.S. Has a game ever profoundly affected you? (Wanting to throw your monitor or TV out the window doesn’t count as “profoundly affected”). If a game has ever sucked you in with a great story, please post about it on the forums! I want to play it!