'Medium Specific Content'

Recently, having played Her Story and Gone Home within a couple of days of each other, I've been thinking about why I liked Her Story and didn't like Gone Home anywhere near as much. While at a glance they may not strike you as particularly similar, I think that they do share a lot of aspects, which is why my preference surprised me:

-Firstly, they are both games that a lot of people like to say aren't even games, preferring the term 'interactive movie' or similar phrases, usually in a seeming attempt to justify them not liking them. They review games like these, saying things like 

"This is not a game. It is an interactive movie trying to sell itself as a game. It is a gimmick to sell to people who don't play video games or don't know what a video game is.' - frumps, Metacritic

"Another non game artsie project, this doesn't actually have any type of game play mechanics, this is more like a DVD porno with interactive features. If you want something like this thats way more interesting rent a porno with multiple selectable endings and viewing angles." - coustoe, Metacritic

as if it 'not being a game' means it fails to deliver an enjoyable experience. Not liking experimental games like Her Story and Gone Home is fine, but trying to claim they aren't games and so are by default bad is just ludicrous. It is no coincedence that the very same people who say these 'aren't even games' also are the ones with the most negative reviews.

-Her Story and Gone Home also both have to rely heavily on their stories for player enagagement, as with a lack of real gameplay features other than clicking on things to watch/read them, the gameplay itself is not going to provide any more appeal than answering blank emails.

However, the main difference between the two games (and the reason I much preferred Her Story) is that one is a good example of 'medium specific content' and another isn't. 

Correct! You guessed it - Her Story is and Gone Home isn't. 

What I mean by 'medium specific content' is content that cannot be transferred across entertainment mediums (or 'media' if we're being fancy with our correct plurals). So let's say we have a piece of content, a story perhaps. This is not 'medium specific content' since the story could be in book form, it could be a film, a game etc.

Her Story is 'medium specific content' as it can only be portrayed in a game. If you made a film of the story of Her Story, you would completely miss the point. If you go and watch the 'movie' version of Her Story, with all 7 of the featured police interviews in chronological order, it's still an interesting story, but it completely loses the essence of what makes it so good. The game's story is unravelled in a random order by the player according to their decisions, and so having it spill out in order ruins the experience. 

Some games, however, are clearly not 'medium specific content', and the recent trend in film adaptations of games displays this perfectly. Currently, there are blockbuster films being make of the World of Warcraft universe, The Last of Us, in addition to the Unchartered and the Assassin's Creed franchises just to name a few. Sure, these films will most likely be terrible, but they could in theory be good, and would successfully transfer the content to a different medium. Gone Home falls into this category as it doesn't have the elements above that can't be translated. A telling criticism of 'walking simulator' games like this is that you can get the same experience from watching a video of someone playing it. The story and gameplay of Gone Home also could be transferred over to an atmospheric horror movie with the camera from a 1st person perspective.

Now that we've established what 'medium specific content' is, here's why it's important to me. I feel that to produce 'medium specific content' shows a lot about a game. Firstly, it shows that a lot of thought has gone into how to make said game. Rather than just having a good story and making a game around it, it shows that there is a focus on how the game works mechanically. While you may say that there are no mechanics in a game like Her Story, in my opinion it is a hugely mechanically driven game - mechanics are not the same as gameplay. Her Story is so good because it is a game which limits you to 5 clips per search term, forcing you to keep trying different words to find crucial clips, piecing together a puzzle.

So that's it - 'medium specific content'. Not sure it's the best label, but it's something I look for and appreciate when I see it.