Reading through the Gamasurta Article 'Plot is overrated Game narrative is all about your characters' the idea and discussions around throwing out the three act structure got me thinking.
People were going with the idea that it works in certain situations and in others it simply doesn't and much of this references back to movies and the way they're mapped out.
What got me thinking is the fact that Games aren't movies but a lot of the time they are viewed as the closest reference. I think this is a poor reference because of one factor and that is time.
A movie will have to be seen and experienced within a couple of hours, you can't keep people watching for more than that or else they'll simply lose interest after too long. Likewise you can't reference a game to a T.V. series because that too can only capture the attention of the viewer for so long, no to mention both have time constraints based on budgeting, production and marketing.
Then this led me to think why not reference games to books. Books are designed to be read and experienced at the will of the reader. They can be put down and picked back up with no loss of experience, granted the reader comes back every day or so. Unlike a T.V. series which is another extended experience, the reader of a book can simply put it down whenever they want. There are suggestions where chapters are defined but the reader can stop mid sentence, paragraph or even page, unlike a T.V. series which you have to watch until the end, unless you want to loose track of what's happening.
Since a book can be read at the readers pace it allows them to control the narrative in a sense. Each readers experience will be different depending on where they stopped and started. A reader always has the choice to read from start to finish, chapter by chapter, but they can also skip what they like, they can stop and start where they like and in a sense form a different experience than intended.
Where this comes in with games is they like books have a narrative under their control. Interactivity plays a large part in this but also how the player progresses through the game. The player can choose to save at the preset locations, stop and reload whenever they choose, or they can save, move forward for a bit, come back and save, stop and reload. They like the book can experience more or less than what was intended and is due to the player or readers decisions on how to experience the material.
In the sense of the three act structure books do follow this, but they don't necessarily have to, much like games and that's simply because they don't have the time constraints like movie's or T.V. series do in which they must put so much content in a certain time frame, the structure helps map this out.
(I'm not sure if I should post this on their page, I feel a little intimidated)
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