Are game stories just emotional porn?

What does pornography and game narratives have in common? A few days ago I read a blog post talking about games having about as much story depth as the stories in low budget porn movies. That comparison got me thinking. Do games contain stories to cover up the fact that they cater to our most basic emotions? Or is there actually a deeper meaning?

Basic emotions are emotions that live in the deepest parts of the human brain. They involve anger, hunger, sex drive, and panic/fear. They are so basic that we often can´t control them ourselves, we just react with them. Another part of the brain handles emotional relations to the world around us. Likes and dislikes. If we move on to the higher cognitive parts of our brain, one of its most basic functions is to make meaning out of what we see around it – it makes stories.

Stories are a part of how we structure and experience the world. Some branches of psychology even claim that these structures help us structure our personality and by telling ourselves who we are, we become the stories about ourselves. If you think you are the most positive person on earth and love everyone around you, you will probably become that person eventually.

Is it just emotional pornography then?

The short answer is, “no”. The long answer is, “maybe”.

The brain doesn’t need a story to react with a basic emotion. As I stated above, basic emotions are not something we control (okay, some people CAN become angry or fall in love at will…but they are the minority). So a game doesn’t need a story to get you screaming and yelling in frustration or joy. It just needs to hit the right emotional buttons.

Pornography works the same way. Pornography does not need a story to engage your sex drive (or anger). It caters to your emotions with its audio and visuals, and those two things get the deepest part of your brain working. It arouses you in a positive or negative way, but nearly everyone will have some sort of basic emotion when they see it.

So why would you wish to add stories to media like this?

Because experiencing the deep emotions is not always enough. After the emotions are gone, or perhaps while they are appearing, it is quite possible to experience a feeling of “wrongness”. I scared myself the first time I, as a young boy, hurled my Sega Master System controller through the room in anger for no apparent reason than a few dots on a screen moving in an unexpected way. Others have had similar experiences. However if you add a story to these moving dots, it changes things. Call them “Space invaders”, and then suddenly the higher cognitive parts of your brain take over. They give you a purpose for experiencing the basic emotions, and in doing so they justify to your “self” that it’s okay to get angry, it’s okay to get happy.

Pornography works in a similar way. We have the act of sex being portrayed, but just having that, with no story; then no explanation is often not enough. Adding a story, however simple and primitive it might be, gives the sexual act some sort of justification to the self. You now know who is doing what to whom and why – even though I admit it’s often no more advanced than “I’m Mario the plumber, I like you princess, if we get it on ill help you out of the castle…” But still it is a justification.

So are stories important?

I often see people arguing either for or against narratives in games. “They don’t need to be there”, “They do need to be there” on and on. But often people seem to be forgetting that stories provide a psychological incentive to experience a certain emotion. Also they help facilitate the emotion. Another emotional often related to stories is the higher level of satisfaction that can be obtained by experiencing a good work of art/storytelling. This experience is not as such provided by the basic emotions, but by the higher cognitive functions that only gets activated by stories – or the attempt to make a story out of something.

So do we need stories in games?

The answer is impossible to give. I would however like the many MANY people discussing this subject to try and think about the psychological and inner workings of the brain. Often this angle is totally left out of the discussion even though it is more documented than most other claims on narrative experience.

I will end this post here, but rest assured I will blog more about it in the future. I would however very much like to hear your point of view on this, so feel free to comment away.