From intertext to outcome: an archeology of classic video game narrative

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn modern digital games, open worlds, multiple character selection and abilities, and an ever-changing cast of online characters present limitless possibilities for story generation. Classic games from the Golden Age of video games (1977–1984) offer far fewer possibilities—most often a singular character, and a singular, inevitable outcome. The player loses after expending multiple lives to linearly conquer levels and achieve a high score. This is the in-game narrative, driven by the economic necessity of maximizing returns from arcade machines; console games in the same period were not bound by the same design goals and constraints. Classic games have rich, contextual narrative connections, including intertextual relations, transmedia storytelling, and transfictional expansions. The immersive engagement (twitch) of the player in the arcade game is both immediate and performative, as is the discourse of play, and it produces an outcome narrative, focused on level achievements, duration, and/or score, as well as key gameplay events. This is complemented by the individual situational narrative (including business and technical aspects) regarding the circumstances of play. Both formal narrative analysis (for contextual and in-game narratives) and anecdotal interviewing (for individual situational and outcome narratives) are used to construct a narratological archeology analysis model with examples.