User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-4028641-20151007072528/@comment-1827503-20180211064656

Shambala108 wrote: Many of the arguments listed above (and in other threads) for keeping certain video games valid tend to ignore the issue of having the same narrative for all users. But like it or not, it is one of the rules for determining valid sources.

Let's take a look at this passage of the rules again, shall we? These are the three reasons why stage plays are invalid - which I believe to be the closest case we have to video games.

You may see something in the evening performance [of a stage play] that wasn't there during the matinée. Or by the time it comes to your town, an entire section might have been removed from the performance. An actor that was at the Glasgow run may have given a line-reading that was meaningfully different to the guy playing the same part in London.

Only one of these three sentences is relevant to what we understand a video game to be. Video games are not ephemeral: the same content exists for any user of the game.

To bring the analogy full circle, the difference is in how video games are played: a user who was playing the game in Glasgow would have experienced the same content as the user who was playing the game in London. However, they are likely to have experienced this content, the "line-reading" so to speak, with variances in order and/or context.

Does this mean that this hypothetical video game would not have the same narrative for all users? That remains to be seen, but I believe that given our current understanding of the four validity rules alone, we need not discuss the nature of a narrative at this time.

Under the rules as they currently exist, there is not yet a reason to declare all video games invalid. Declaring that "variable narratives are invalid" is the easiest way out, but we should ask ourselves why variable narratives are invalid before trying to define what a variable narrative is or isn't.