This week’s symposium was quite fascinating. I am with Brian and Jasmine, or probably even less knowledgeable about video-games, my knowledge base spans from ‘they take first priority over girls’… thanks guys! to crashing into walls on a scooter thing and falling into the abyss on my little brother’s Mario Kart Wii game. However, despite my lack of understanding of video-games, I was really interested in the discussion of whether they could be considered hypertext narrative or not. The consensus was generally no; intentional hypertext usually links different types of content to the original text, something completely different, but on the other hand, video-games exist in “a World”. They provide a diagesis. Everything in some way relates as it all exists in this fictional, yet consistent and comprehensive society.

I furthermore liked the discussion about what makes a game? And this supported the hypothesis that video games aren’t hyper-textual narrative. Games (which don’t just mean video games) are driven by the aim of winning. Narratives, or stories on  the other hand don’t share this specific objective that is crucial to defining a game. Hypertext is primarily about narrative, even if it is non-linear; but games are not really about the story. They can have very cleaver story-lines that the avatars follow (so I’m told) but there is still the overwhelming desire to win the game. That is why you “play”. Hypertext is structure in the making.

I like how Adrian put into perspective reality t.v. shows such as Survivor and XFactor as ‘games’ bought into reality. There still exists a story for the audience, but it is centered around the characters/ players trying to win/ acheive something.

I remembered this point from high-school and it is just annoying; ‘Everything is a text, everything that communicates meaning is text’… so a pencil is a text, a chair is a text, I am a text… Ok… I get it… but I don’t like it and I just don’t want to talk about it!

And finally, some food for thought…I really like Brian’s idea of creating an online forum to store his family history in a hyper-textual way. I think this is a really cool idea!