Outside Your Heaven

Selling The Public On Video Game Storytelling: A Curated Reading List

Posted: 31 Jul 2018 03:02 PM PDT

A while ago Bublup asked me to curate some content for them. They are launching a service that lets you easily collect online content (websites, articles, videos, etc.) and share it in an instantly polished, presentable manner. Each collection is called a roll, and they wanted me to do some rolls for them on topics I'm familiar with in the world of games and new media.

To me, this felt like being asked to prepare a set of references I'd normally use in creating a talk, only without giving the talk. When you browse through my rolls, you should see how the chosen articles form a progression of ideas that amount to a coherent perspective, if not an argument.

Someday I might use these as bases for talks, but for now they work as online reading lists. With this in mind, I tried to keep most of the content short, accessible, more journalistic than academic. I was encouraged to cite my own articles in making my arguments, which is why in each roll you'll find links to my own work when relevant. Finally, keep in mine most of these are meant for a non-gaming audience. I'm playing ambassador in most of these, which is itself a special kind of curation challenge.

To kick things off, here is the intro to my first roll, a primer on the state of video game storytelling.

Imagine if you told someone you love movies and the response was "Oh, I saw one once. They are those things where you watch murder and explosions, right?" Like in cinema, video games have an artistically mature, socially aware, thriving art/indie scene. Unlike cinema, it has almost no visibility in the mainstream.

This is a primer to get you started on what the hell games have been doing for the past 30 years, and specially the last 15, during the rise of the indie/art movement in video games. It is not exhaustive, nor does it represent all types of games that tell stories. It's not a college class in game storytelling. It's just a bag of tricks from my brain designed to do one thing: give you a basic foothold on what game storytelling is, the unique qualities that set it apart from other media, and what some of its essential, non-embarrassing examples are.

Video games as a storytelling art form are not "waiting to happen". They have happened. Now find out what no one wants you to know.

To check out the full roll follow this link.

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