Narratology and Ludology
From GameLabWiki
"Serious writing about games has hardly been around long enough to have developed factions. And yet it has. Why can’t I write about your side without obvious bitterness? And why can’t your side address my side without airily dismissing its goals? " [1]
Ludology
(Huizinga/Jasper Juul/ Robert Callois) The Discipline that studies the Act of playing a game. The Field of Ludology includes researchers such as Johann Huizinga the father of Ludology with his 1955 work Homo ludens, in which he first emphasized playing as part of individual- and group-development. Games should be understood as systems in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by specific rules, which eventually result in a quantifiable outcome. [2]
Narratology
Many ludologists have argued against the use of narratlogic explanations when it comes to games, as they see them as inherently non-narratologic or at least their narratives being out of the focus of research studying play. They aren`t movies or books making them a new form of text and such, subject of ludology (Juul, Aarseth).Frasca argues, however that if a narrative is included in a game, studying the NARRATION (not narrative) should nevertheless be part of studying the game. Computer games, according to Huizinga, share many key aspects of representation with more traditional mediums such as movies or books. Despite this fact, they are deserving of its own approach, which is owed to a few major differences, including its unique relationship with the recipient. Games "read" their player and test their participation by presenting them with roadblocks in form of gameplay-challenges which hinder progression. As such they present a unique type of text, which is read, but also reacts and reads the reader.[3]