Toward a framework for emergent narrative analysis

Abstract

This dissertation aims to formulate a new framework for analysis of digital games centred on their potential to produce emergent narratives. Emergent narratives are essentially unauthored narratives that emerge dynamically from game systems as the player(s) interact with them. The fact that narratives of this type exist independently of any fixed text makes them difficult to study using traditional narratological frameworks, leaving space for the new analytical framework this dissertation proposes. To support the proposed framework, the paper also explores Structuralist narrative theory and endeavors to position game narrative and emergent narrative within these this theoretical structure, refuting academic claims of the incompatibility of games with traditional narratology. And in order to judge the usefulness of the proposed Emergent Narrative Potential Framework, the dissertation concludes with a proof of concept analysis of the paper’s central case study, EVEOnline. In the process, this dissertation offers a well-supported defence of digital games as a narrative medium and of the applicability of narratological theory to emergent narratives. It proposes an analytical framework that focuses on specific elements of game systems determined to be most vital to facilitating narrative emergence, and effectively applies this method of analysis to the highly emergent gameplay systems of EVE Online.