Captology Notebook

People love stories. And for thousands of years narratives have shaped people’s beliefs and behaviors. We believe that storytelling is a type of technology developed before recorded history to pass along the best practices of a culture. Stories embedded in folktales, songs, rituals, and in other forms have promoted honesty, courage, teamwork, fidelity, among other things. Promoting these values—both in attitude and behavior—helped people and cultures survive. Of course, many people before us, such as Walter Ong, have also recognized narrative’s important role. Anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff goes so far as to label humans as homo narrens, meaning that just as humans have a biological imperative to reproduce, they also have an imperative to reproduce culturally, through passing on stories and rituals . In the past century new technologies have leveraged the persuasive power of stories – on radio in the 30s, on movie screens starting in the 40s, and today on TV commercials, hour after hour. Have computers also leveraged the persuasive power of stories? We find little evidence. We propose that narrative has not yet been widely used to make computing-based experiences more engaging or influential. In other words, even a mediocre TV movie generally packs more persuasive power than current examples of interactive fiction or online storytelling. In the last decade, however, one important exception has emerged: video games. In our Lab’s research to find what makes video games motivating, we found that many popular games include segments of narrative, periods of time where the player doesn’t interact; she simply watches and absorbs part of a story. These are sometimes called “cut scenes.” The earliest video games didn’t have cut scenes; they were all about interactivity. A player dropped in a quarter or launched the Atari console and started firing away. But the art of game design has evolved. Today video game designers know (and argue about) the important role cut scenes play in compelling gaming experiences. Consider the latest versions of Mortal Kombat and Pikmin. Although these popular computer games differ in many ways, they have one thing in common: both games shift between interactivity and narrative elements. In the competitive world of digital gaming, interactive games have evolved to include narrative—setting the stage, providing transitions between levels, rewarding player achievements. Weaving interactivity and narrative has become a “best practice” in game design. We propose that the inclusion of cut scenes in video games is an important development in making these games more fun and, ultimately, more persuasive.