Authenticity Versus Validity: A New Approach to Video Game Design
In: Cultural Perspectives of Video Games: From Desiger to PlayerSearch for other papers by Adam L. Brackin in
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With new forms of interactive storytelling that have arisen in the last decade such as transmedia and alternate reality games, Facebook games, and infinite-quest model video games, new approaches to agency and authorship within video game story systems are required which recognise gameplay as a cooperative storytelling process which expand upon older ludological and/or narratological models. Proposed is an authenticity versus validity model which distinguishes between the meaningful and the realistic. In this context, validity is defined as scenario which is standardised or normalised even at the expense of the realistic, while authenticity is a simulation which is realistic or believable at the expense of aesthetic concerns. One such example can be found in non-player character dialogue. Highly validated prosaic dialogue in Shakespeare or Beowulf can be considered to have epic meaning, but not be especially realistic for daily interaction, whereas discussions around the water cooler will feel much more authentic, but not rise to the level of meaning expected from a quest-giver. More than just this, the concept stretches across the entire range of aesthetic decision making during the video game design process to include many other forms of agency promotion. The key concept within the model is that while traditional authorship implies that an author writes for an audience who either accepts or rejects the story, interactive story gives functional agency to the player and therefore gives the player more authority to participate in story decisions, and if pushed far enough with non-linear and ergodic models of gameplay, effectively gives authorship itself to the audience as gameplay transcends to roleplay. This can be visualised as a spectrum thusly:
-- Increasing Interactivity & Authentic Experience --->
[ Audience <---> Player <---> Authorship ]
<-------- Increasing Validity and Epic Meaning ----------