Samenvatting

This research is about the effect of story on player experience; it aimed to explore the difference between gameplay and story in a player’s experience and strived to measure it. The main problem for this research was one of knowledge; does story affect the player experience? Game creators often wonder if putting a story in a game is worth the time, money and effort. Does it affect the player experience in a positive way? Players wonder as well, if story even has a positive effect on player experience, putting gameplay and story up against each other. That is what this research is for, collecting information about the effect of story on player experience. The problem concerning the necessity of stories in games can be traced back to the long standing debate among the gaming community with two parties facing each other, one on the gameplay side and one on the story side. This also brings forth Clint Hocking’s problem, ludonarrative dissonance, the unharmonious state of a game’s gameplay and story, which, as he describes in his criticism piece Ludonarrative Dissonance in Bioshock (2007), can be experience breaking. Providing more information will hopefully make people think about the harmony that might exist between gameplay and story.