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storytelling vs. gaming

Playing a game, any kind of game, is inherently open-ended and interactive. Whether you’re playing chess, Go, or Super Mario Bros., you don’t really know how things will wind up or what will happen along the way. Narrative, on the other hand, is neither open-ended nor interactive. When you’re watching a story, you surrender masochistically to the storyteller. The fun is in not having control, in sitting still and going ‘Yeah? And then what happened? And then?’
Clive Thompson, Oughtta Stay Out of Pictures — Why video games shouldn’t be like the movies

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