Ken Perlin: Can There be a Form between a Game and a Story

Transference :

Becoming identified with the character

Many times I find my father and brother yelling at the top of their lungs at the soccer players. "Go left, Go right, what kind of a kick was that!". Why is it that they yell, the soccer players can't her them. Yer when I'm watching a movie I find myself lecturing the protagonist.

Perlin does a great job of ex planing transferring and also the difference between a video game and book. His examples of The Bicycle Thief are the movies in which I find my self auguring with the protagonist. And although I know the protagonist is not real or that his suppose to being falling I cant help but to argue.

The most amazing thing about transference is that its completely voluntary. I sometimes find myself watching movies that I find uninteresting and ask my self "this movie makes no sense this would never happen in real life". We volunteer only when we identify our self with the movie, book, music, or video game.

Agency:

the right to make choices

Agency is viewed as the choice one makes. In a novel their is no choice to make because the story is set in stone. That is not the same case with video games. Video games depend on agency. But I don't believe that because you can make a decision it should be placed above another literature that you can't.

Though you can't choice the actions of the characters in a novel it does not make it less then a video game. The point of having a choices is for the player to learn and become more identified with the game. I believe that that can be done in a novel as well.