Games as a Language

Been thinking about narrative and stories in games, and one sleepless night I got an idea. I will now ramble a bit about it.

I'm of the oppinion that games are not stories. If you want a story you should read a book or see a movie. These are both superb mediums at telling stories.

Stories in games are actually the actions the player take. The moves, choises, actions, confrontations etc. In this sense all games are non-linear, as you play them each differently each and every time, and you get a possibly different story from the game every time.

One way of thinking about it would be to have a narrator/speaker sitting beside you as you play and then retell you the session in an exiting way. You could also imagine the story of a game in the conversations between gamers after a lan party. "Did you see the move I did when I ..."

This would implicate that games are actally not a media (carrier of information/stories) in the sense of you getting some story from the developer. Quite the opposite games let you create your own stories.

A game is a language.

The letters are your choises (push button A, move mouse right), the words and sentences are combinations of choises that make some meaning (easy to imagine as a combo in a fighting game), the rules of the game on different levels are the spelling and grammar, paragraphs are your choises to complete some goal, etc.

When thinking about a game as a language this way the traditional story elements of games become quite strange (i.e. mid game cut scene). Imagine the english language as it is, but in the middle of all novels there is a mandatory pre fabricated paragraph!

I don't actually know if these thoughts are meaningful or productive. But it would be interesting to analyse a few games in regards of their "language" capabilities.