Plot, Participation, and Playing Pretend: Narrative Pleasure in Single-Player Video Games

Long relegated to low-brow pop culture for teenagers, video games have emerged as the hot new area of media studies. With many styles and systems, games form a confusing group that is part technology and part toy. They are accepted for their fun but their power to connect with audiences and tell compelling tales is widely ignored. Games have merit as a storytelling medium, producing narratives where interactivity supports plot and where emotional connections between players and avatars induce engagement on multiple levels. As game storytelling techniques become codified, video games move toward an integrated narrative form, one that uses play and imagination to craft immersive stories.