Reflection - Thoughts on the concept of 'Story'

This is a bit of a bonus post that I'm putting up here in the interest of capturing all of my thoughts on the subject of my current project. This isn't referenced or researched, it is all my own words however - based on what I've read so far. It concerns the nature of 'Story' and a few other random things. I scribbled this down over the weekend just gone in the interest of getting my head together.

We need games in our lives because they take the real world and remove real world consequences, allowing us to expose ourselves to risk and experiment without any truly impactful outcome. Games allow us to experience all of the features of a 'real life' experience - immersion, emotional catharsis - expansion of knowledge - without having to deal with any 'Real' outcome of the actions we take. To take an obvious (and pretty prolific) example - in a game, you can commit virtual murder and experience the consequences of that in the game (as in, say, Fahrenheit), or not (as in any number of first person shooters), and then you can turn off the game and go about life like nothing had happened. There are real life benefits and consequences, but these are not 'in-game', unless you're playing a truly pervasive game; any effects are usually as a result of the act of playing the game, not what happens in it.

The library sector, in particular, is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the advent of gaming becoming mainstream, and receive a new burst of life itself in the process. Computer games are beginning to suffer from a dearth of story, becoming shells that look pretty but are hollow. Technology is moving faster and faster, according to Moores Law, but we aren't finding, at a consumer level - that many new things to do with it. Cat videos dominate the cyberscape, and the concept of the Reboot for major movie franchises has gained wide exposure in recent years. The selfie photo has become an art form. The world is crying out for more new ground to cover, but using new technology. The world is wanting more stories.

Stories do not exist within a vacuum - rather, they take existing information and in themselves remove real life consequences of that information, creating an explorative space to ruminate on different aspects of human experience. The stories, like games, may have real life benefits and consequences - but within themselves, there is merely conjecture on existing information. In short - Stories are Information Gamified.