Yet Another Lazy Post

But at least this one has some original content. And it brings the return of an old topic. Here's a slightly edited email I wrote:

Interesting--_____'s article is a reaction to one I had flagged to read and possibly share today:

The online game that Mr. Haarsma designed not only extends the fictional world of the novel, it also allows readers to play in it. At the same time, Mr. Haarsma very calculatedly gave gamers who might not otherwise pick up a book a clear incentive to read: one way that players advance is by answering questions with information from the novel.

“You can’t just make a book anymore,” said Mr. Haarsma, a former advertising consultant. Pairing a video game with a novel for young readers, he added, “brings the book into their world, as opposed to going the other way around.”

I thought it would make an interesting companion read with this:

The days of children reading traditional books are numbered, claims the man spearheading a campaign to improve literacy in schools.

Publishers must adapt titles to the demands of modern young readers who spend more time on the internet if they are to succeed in persuading the next generation to read, says Jonathan Douglas, the director of the National Literacy Trust. . . .

Publishers and the book trade must reinvent the book. They have to produce more graphic novels. Children are much more visually conscious than they were before – and the book trade must reflect this.

"Reading is not a static activity. It has always changed from one generation to another, depending on where literacy skills sat within society and what texts were available and why."

The NY Times article and _____ both ask, "Do video games lead to more reading?" I'm not sure. I think I'm coming to believe two things, though: 1) Reading is just one way to tell stories and communicate information. Other methods are just as valid and effective, depending upon the circumstances. Video games can be one of those ways. 2) Each format requires a slightly different type of literacy. They are related and not mutually exclusive, but they are different.

So before my comments, first some other questions: Why do we emphasize the importance of reading so much? Because print has been our primary means of communication and success in reading has largely been essential for success in life. But what if new technologies are changing that need? What if other types of literacy are becoming just as important--if not eventually moreso--as reading? Should we continue to hold up book reading as the highest, purest form of literacy?

I think one of the biggest differences I see between reading and gaming is involvement. Readers obviously get involved in a good book, react both emotionally and intellectually, and can grow and take action as a result of the experience. Nevertheless, the actual act of reading is passive. Video games allow you to step inside the story and be part of it; your actions can determine the direction it takes and even the outcome.

That desire to be part of the story is a major element in storytelling--across the formats--I see anymore. The Internet has allowed for a huge subculture of fanfiction to develop around books, where the fans aren't content to just accept the stories they're given but extend those stories themselves. The most convincing research that video games can have a positive impact have been around MMORPGs (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games) like World of Warcraft. Success requires teamwork, planning, coordination, and communication skills--you can't really do much by yourself, but have to interact with others.

And that's where the role-playing comes in. I'm still an advocate of old fashioned paper and pencil role-playing like Dungeons & Dragons. And the most fun I have when playing is not the die rolling combat moments, but the character interaction moments. You visualize your character's background, personality, motivations, and the like and then react to the others around the table as that character would. They do the same and soon you are creating stories together. The same kinds of things can happen with MMORPGs. You and a game can do that alone, but the more people you throw into the mix the more dynamic and unpredictable and original it becomes. It's quite common for both RPG and MMORPG players to spend hours writing about the games--creating those background stories as prep work, recapturing an adventure in their characters' voices, etc. Reading and gaming are related and intertwined, but in reading you recieve the story and in gaming you help create it.

But even in the most creative RPGs and MMORPGs, some game designer has created the game universe, set up the scenario, written the greater backstory within which the gamers' stories take place. There are indications the future will be more fully collaborative than this. The man who invented SimCity--a game meant to simulate the founding, growth, and governance of a city, which has led to many spin-off simulation games based on real life--has just created a new game called Spore. In it, the player creates life. Beginning with a single-celled organism. And develops it into a creature, then into a population. Eventually you create an entire civilization that expands into the greater world, having to realistically interact with whomever and whatever it encounters. And then eventually you can develop enough technology to travel into space and begin exploring other worlds and interacting with the civilizations you find there. And the entire thing is a MMORPG, which means all of the other creatures you encounter on the various worlds are themselves created and controlled by other players. So instead of the game designers designing the universe ahead of time, the players themselves are creating the universe as they play. It's all meant to be entirely interactive and organic. (At least as I understand it--I haven't actually played.) But I see that as the future of gaming and a growing type of storytelling--we will all be creators together.

Anyway, I've rambled on for too long. Let me close by sharing another quote from another article:

"The aim of my course is to produce 'transliterate' writers – ie, literate across many different kinds of media. When we think 'literacy' we think about print and transliteracy is about shaking off that domination of print which has, in a sense, I think, been a distraction.

"The internet has caused us to rethink what we mean by literacy: the [traditional] idea of literacy implies that before print people were illiterate – but, in fact, people simply were literate in many other things, such as oral and visual culture.

"One of the writers from my course is Alison Norrington, a chick-lit author: she learnt how to take her stories beyond the book on a blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, by making little movies, by sending her heroine into Second Life. Another is Christine Wilkes, who has a filmmaking background and wrote an interactive memoir using design and programming. You don't need to be able to read and write much to tell a story.

"Will books exist in 50 years? Definitely, but they will also be just one of the many ways we experience art. I feel quite cynical about the cloak of preciousness that's been woven around the novel: it's such a recent medium – we've only had it a few hundred years and yet you often hear people say, 'We've always had novels.' No we have not!"