The Attack of the Backstories (and Why They Won't Win)

David Myers' essay, along with the broader argument it represents, contends that backstories are not essential to computer game play. Players can engage meaningfully with games through innate semiotic capacities, without any knowledge of a game's conventional meanings. The argument holds that backstories function as contexts of design, aiding role-playing games whose goals are more obscure and depend on contextual knowledge, while remaining largely inconsequential in action franchises such as the Mario and Doom series. Ultimately, backstories belong to the domain of convention and design rather than to play itself, and they may conflict with the novelty that play generates.

The analysis draws its evidence chiefly from observation of role-playing and strategy titles. In Ultima and Ultima Online, players often treat narrative-linked rules as mechanics to be exploited rather than as story elements to be honored. Strategy games such as Master of Orion demonstrate that gameplay balance outweighs narrative in shaping player experience. The central case study, Master of Orion III, is presented as a cautionary example: a heavy investment in an elaborate backstory coincided with commercial and critical failure, as players rejected the game on gameplay grounds while a dedicated fan base praised its narrative. The evidence is anecdotal and drawn from player commentary rather than systematic data, which limits the generalizability of its conclusions.

The work distinguishes between the functions backstories serve for different audiences. For designers, they provide framing and internal consistency; for players, they offer exemplars of possible play outcomes. Because these functions operate inconsistently across action, role-playing, and strategy genres, backstories frequently prove irrelevant or even obstructive to play. The author argues that play is a pre-narrative, unpredictable act that exists outside any theory of causes, so backstories cannot determine or reliably benefit play in the manner they shape novels or films.

The central claim is that computer games constitute aesthetic forms fundamentally different from narrative media, and that backstories impose authorial meaning on what should remain player-generated experience. Scope is limited primarily to commercial computer games of the 1980s through the early 2000s, with examples centered on well-known franchises, and the argument's reach beyond these cases rests largely on interpretation.