People who seriously identify with the term narratologist are like the earliest filmmakers who tried to emulate plays. Rather than embrace their new medium, they tried to emulate the storytelling techniques of the past, adding things like playbills, giant blocks of expository text on screen, and intermissions to their features. Similarly, narratologists are game developers trying to emulate the last great new medium, film. And like the earliest filmmakers, they’re adding things like transmedia, expository dialogue, and long cutscenes to their games in hopes of capturing the magic of the last great medium.

It’s such a false dichotomy because the people who are opposed to narratologists are not ludologists, but rather people who think that games are a unique medium with unique limitations. The way the debate is framed though, mostly by narratologists, is that the people who oppose them are opposed to any storytelling in games, missing the more subtle point that games are a different medium with different challenges.

I often ask people in the narratology camp if they can think of a way to tell a tragedy in a video game. Most people who seriously consider this question come to realize that it’s difficult, simply because player control prevents the possibilities of tragic flaws in the main character. It can be done, but only by tricking the player– sort of like what Spec Ops: The Line did. And how often can you do that before it becomes old hat?

This is the real opposition to narratologists. It’s coming to realize that games are unique in their storytelling strengths and limitations. It’s not “games are games” or “games are stories”, but rather games are uniquely different in how they tell stories.

What about this?
http://www.costik.com/gamnstry.html

Some people call it narrative space. Others call it possibility space. I think if there’s any distinction in the two, it’s that “barrative space” implies a more conventional story telling space, where as “possibility spaces” may or may not call on any form of real world subject matter.

Chess, for instance, DOES tell a story in every instance of place, but it’s hardly Shakespere. It’s too abstract for area-man to consider it what he knows and loves as a true story. I think narrative spaces attempt to give rise to the possibility of conventional narratives (with protagonists, story arcs, conflicts, portrail of character through conflict), whereas possibility spaces don’t mind either way. I could be wrong. I wrote too much about this on antifactory.org already.