Moving Pixels Podcast: The Role of Story in Video Games

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast. For the initial editions of this new feature at PopMatters, we will be hosting a mini-series of sorts. A number of regular contributors to our Multimedia Section and the Moving Pixels blog here at PopMatters, G. Christopher Williams, Rick Dakan, Nick Dinicola, and Thomas Cross, will be spending the next six weeks discussing the topic of storytelling in video games.

For our first episode, we decided to look at “The Role of Story in Video Games,” focusing our discussion on the history of story in video games and how gaming has been transformed over the past few decades in light of narrative becoming an almost inseperable part of the game enthusiast’s experience of the medium.

In the upcoming weeks, we will continue to look at storytelling, but we will be focusing on the types of stories that games tell and how they do so more or less successfully, including love stories, war stories, and stories involving mystery.

So, without further ado, we present this first episode. Please let us know what you think of this new feature, and we look forward to providing a number of weeks of interesting conversation about games and the kinds of stories that they tell.

This episode is available for download or by clicking on the audio player below:

#1 Storytelling [MP3]

     

This podcast is also available via iTunes.

Join us next week for a discussion of love stories in gaming, be they between plumbers and princesses, women and monkeys, or pac-men and women.

Our podcast contributors:

G. Christopher Williams is the Multimedia Editor at PopMatters.com. You can find his weekly updates featured at the Neuromance blog.

Rick Dakan is a regular contributor to the Moving Pixels blog as well as to the Gamma Testing podcast.

Nick Dinicola is also a regular contributor to the Moving Pixels blog.

Thomas Cross contributes frequently to the Multimedia section at PopMatters.com, and he also pens the Diamond in the Rough column for GameSetWatch.