**Introduction

Lore in almost all cases is one of the biggest draws to a game. It can cause the game to sell

really well if done properly, or cause it to flop if the lore is a jumbled mess. No game will succeed if

the lore is not present or shoddy. When it comes to developing a story that garners interest, there are

always certain boundaries, and boundaries that can be broken. Within the medium of video games, lore

plays a vital role to the believability and fullness of the story. In practice, it is one of the most essential

pieces to the game's design due to its influence on architecture, morals, and content.

**Literature Review

Along with that lore comes many new terms, either re-purposed for the game's story or created

entirely fresh for the game. This means that a common lexis is present and few terms need to be

explained before I go any further. To start, the basics of games and lore will be covered specific to the

game Dark Souls, which will be used as an example for this research.

Terms:

RPG: Dark Souls is an RPG, or a Role-Playing-Game. An RPG is any game or game system that

allows the player or players to have a pivotal role in which they have some say in the game world. This

system gives them key decisions to make such as “Do I save their life for my gain, or sacrifice them for

the greater good?” and other such choices. An RPG can also allow a player high levels of control over

the personality, physical traits, and statistical traits (Combat style, weapon choice, etc.).

Lore: B. Choi, J. Huang, A. Jeffrey, and Y. Baek discuss in The Development of a Scale for Fantasy

State in Digital Games the objects that go into creating a believable, living fantasy world. More

specifically, they give four parts that make up what the game world and its lore should have. These four

parts are imagination, identification, analogy, and satisfaction.

Imagination: Essentially, fantasy is used to stimulate a person's mind to create images and

ideas that help to make the game and its content more interesting. Any good lore has no obvious

failures in the construction of the games plot, history, or story mechanics, and no interesting

mysteries easily solvable by anyone, even to the story's characters. Dark Souls does this well by

making the player actually have to find the story, rather than feeding it to them. Instead, they

give the player a small bite of information with the linear plot, but all the other information is

on the edges of that stories branches and in all the dark corners of the game world. This creates

an interesting puzzle to be solved and a lore that can be read into and formed based on opinion

and still be technically right. According to this article, it is described as the experience of things

that just won't happen to you. Usually these things are impossible even under the perfect

circumstances and have an air of science fiction or high fantasy to them.

Identification: This is summarized as a connection to the game world. Obviously, a story has to

connect with its followers. If it does not, the readers/players tend to get left out and put off from

the story. A lore and game world that includes the players and plays on their likes or dislikes

tends to be more successful than perfect people in a perfect world. Usually, a story has a

character that has traits similar to the player, or similar enough to connect to on some level.

Through the course of the story, the character overcomes their faults and triumphs joyfully. The

player/reader feels accomplished as well because they helped the character overcome their fault

and in turn overcome their own (even if it was all just in their head).

Analogy: Described by the article as “experience related to the real world.” For instance, if the

country you live in is having tough economic issues, you are more likely to play a game that

deals with that than a game about everyone being wealthy. If the game is believable and broken

just like the real world is, people are more easily drawn to dealing with those problems than

they are dealing with the problems of 'everybody is rich' or 'nobody can die.' Analogy also gives

a sense of immersion, or a feeling of actually being in the game world. Dark Souls does this by

having minimal Screen elements and a fleshed out, logically built societal system and

architecture design. For example, you will never see a modern American home next to one of

the castles in the game, and you also won't see a surge of prosperity and happiness in an

abandoned city. Things appropriate and realistic are always portrayed in order to gain

interest/immersion from the player.

Satisfaction: While described as “the level of satisfaction being given to environmental

factors.” For instance, if a given location in a game makes players really happy, then they are

satisfied with that area, regardless of their reason. If it is a visually appealing place or otherwise

does not matter. What does matter is that the player can continually come to that location and be

satisfied with it. It is a simple explanation but it holds utmost priority in development. If you

can get a player hooked and really going at the story or game, then you have gained a profit and

fan that will continue to return for at least a measurable chunk of time.

Developing Lore to Engage

I find that, more often than not, developers like to use story to enhance flavor or add a sort of

'story gimmick' to their game. The main issue is that the player plays the game for its mechanics, and

ignores the story more than anything else. Take Call of Duty for example. It has very little story lore to

go by, except that you are fighting terrorism in a very realistic setting. For some this is enough, and the

game's main draw is the game-play mechanics. However, you don't find players immersed into the

game world. Instead, you find players talking in the Meta of the game, working around role-play to get

to higher efficiency. Other games, such as Bethesda's Skyrim, focus almost solely on Lore and story. In

these cases, players tend to get drawn into the world and try to play it as if they were actually there

rather than playing a game. In other rare cases, players create lore and a community existing in the lore.

Dark Souls is one of these, although a unique exception. Dark Souls has the lore already placed within

the game world, but the player must find and piece it all together. What ends up happening is players

coming together to create a cohesive tapestry or lore with the pieces left for them. In another instance,

K. Moltenbrey's OUT OF CHARACTER article discusses a game where a fresh, new lore that never

existed was created. In the original Halo game, several players came together and created a long

running series of short episodes that followed a story of their devising, completely running off the rails

of what the game's story already had. The series was a massive hit, gaining thousands of fans and

spawning a whole studio of content creation.

What is so important about this creation of lore is how it engages the player or players. In Call

of Duty, there was no engagement, and the game diffused into skill only combat with no immersion. In

Skyrim, the player was fully engaged by lore and explored to their hearts content despite simple game

mechanics. In Halo and Dark Souls, people went out of their way to create an interesting lore for them

and others to enjoy. What I find in all these examples is the desire to engage in learning new things to

increase the level of immersion and satisfaction in the game as a whole. I draw that a game's lore has a

higher level of importance than almost any other factor in a game.

Perspectives on Lore

The viewpoint which the player finds themselves on a games lore falls on the shoulders of their

choices. Waelchli describes that a players behavior directly corresponds to their decisions in games and

their interaction with it and others through online social connections. If a player can develop lore by

making decisions, then their behavior can also influence the lore of a game. For example, a player who

takes things slow and waits things out decides to let a dragon live so that he can sneak by unharmed

may have a lasting impact on the story, whereas a player who seeks only challenge takes on the dragon

and sends the game in another direction entirely. Of course, this only works with games that have a

well thought out lore. In a game where the community is very high above the game lore, a player's

behavior only affects their score. There are few ways around this, but some developers enable systems

to keep players from developing such a meta before it happens.

A game's Artificial Intelligence, or AI, handles all logical processes not done by the player.

Anything from non-player characters patrolling an area to stock market fluctuations are handled by

these AI. Naturally, a good AI system will be deceptively human, and a bad one can range from too

powerful to unbelievably stupid (S.Cass). AI that fits a games lore takes a lot of work to pull off. First,

the AI must follow the conventions of the game world and lore. If no one goes to the dungeon, the AI

doesn't go even if the player is in there. If the guards are overly cautious, then they will check every

sound they here instead of drinking a beer. So long as the AI looks and acts like someone would in that

situation, immersion is intact and the lore is strengthened to a greater degree. Information can be carved

from in game characters in this way. For example, if one of the main characters prays to a god of luck,

then we have learned that religion is taken seriously and that there is a god of luck. We can use this

information to further engage ourselves in the lore and to develop it further based on other information.

There is one issue that cannot be easily dealt with, and that is players who do not seek out

information for various reasons. A game's lore can only be seen if it is sought, even if it is given to you.

Some players may try to find ways to get around finding the lore, or even find a way to accomplish

something without doing any work. These players are known as self validators (C. Heeter, B. Magerko,

B. Medler, J. Fitzgerald). Self Validators hate challenge and risk, so any kind of game can turn them

away, and a story that has good lore that must be sought out can pose a challenge they do not want to

take. Instead, they choose to research and experience the lore through someone else's experiences. This

negatively impacts a player's view on the lore because they do not have the proper identification and

immersion to accompany their knowledge. Much is lost in this situation and even the best story can fall

apart at the seams.

Time and Lore

For many, a long and detailed history tends to be favorable over a short, spotty history. I believe

this is because of the level of detail and scope it gives to the lore and the player's purpose. In a game,

the longer you have to do things or the longer you last in a game session has a massive impact on the

player footprint on lore(J. Zagal, M. Mateas). For example, in Civilization, a strategy game, sessions

can last as long as several millennium (in the game), but only a few hours in real life. The decisions

you make in that scenario have a greater gravity than a game like Animal Crossing, which runs on real

time. Both decisions may be equally important to the progress of either game, but the effect the

decision has on the player and his understanding of the game world and lore are drastically different. In

Civilization, researching nuclear technology for 50 years has a certain mood to it that makes it

distinctly important. In Animal Crossing, buying a shovel has the same affect on game speed and

advancement, but feels much more small in comparison.

**Entering the Conversation

Lore is such a pivotal factor in games that it quickly becomes a tool for various ends. That end

ends up being marketing most of the time. This is an issue that causes the quality of the lore and its

concreteness in favor of shallow, unrealistic characters and ideas. These games tend to have a short

lifespan and do not have a large following after 12 months. Companies make cash grabs with these

games until they are forgotten, then refresh the game by making a similar sequel. It is a very vicious

cycle that dominates the game industry and it hurts both players and developers ten years down the

road.

When a game is developed with a lore that surpasses all the requirements of good lore, the game

almost always is seen alive and well several years later and is considered something similar to literature

if video games had such a category. Payout in the long term is always higher, as fans dedicate

themselves to a series that continues to fulfill them and meet their expectations. So while it makes

sense that companies should want to create a quality lore for their games in order to have a greater

foothold in the market, companies still treat the market with a 'cash-cow' perspective and create

templates on which multiple games are created, hurting their sales down the road as people realize how

cookie cutter everything is.

One of the most successful ways of doing any sort of story work, is to leave it open to

interpretation. This makes it easy for both the developer and the player to get what they want. The

developer does not have to spend countless hours explaining why something happens rather than

focusing on more pressing issues, and the player gets to use that imagination they love so very much.

For example, during my observations, I made a few conclusions here and there based mostly on

opinion and little bits of information scattered about. I concluded that Oswald of Carim, a Non-Player

character who acts as a forgiveness mechanic, must be either superhuman or in divine favor. My

reasoning behind it was the fact that he could make people who wanted to kill you suddenly not want to

kill you, and various other actions such as keeping a self updating book of the guilty, which acts as a

multiplayer mechanic. However, other people may disagree. Both VaatiVidya and EpicNameBro,

popular youtube content publishers who specialize in Dark Souls lore and gameplay, have differing and

constantly changing views on this matter, ranging from ordinary crazy person all the way to divine

crazy person.

A better example would be a controversial character called Solaire. He is the leader of the

warriors of sunlight, a multiplayer group dedicated to helpful cooperative gameplay rather than PvP.

Solaire is very powerful in comparison to many other NPCs and has a main goal of becoming “like the

sun.” Basically, some believe he may be the lost son to Gwyn, the main villian, the game talks about

occasionally. I believe he is just crazy and has no divine powers period, despite the evidence. Others

tend to float between yes and no depending on their most recent finds and opinions.

What really matters here is that the lore is diverse and it sparks both a discussion, and a search

for the truth. The players are on their own with no input from the developers, as this is what they

intended. This kind of lore development brings a whole lot to the table is it literally turns the whole

story development process on its head and outsources the player to create it for themselves.

Of course, there is always a danger to going too far. If the objective of the game is so far out of

reach, and every obstacle is a mountain to climb, it does not matter how well done the lore is, nobody

will look for it if they focus solely on surviving the game. A. Gunraj, S Ruiz, A. York say that a game's

purpose is to be anti-oppressive, enabling the player to engage the game in a way that gives them

control in a positive light. Too many people create games where you can abuse certain object and

players just for fun. This causes the appreciation of the game to drop considerably and it reception to

become tarnished. Simply put, lore and gameplay should be balanced to a point where the player looks

for the lore, but also focuses on the game.

**So What?

No matter how you look at it, lore becomes incredibly important to a games quality and

longevity. Players benefit from quality lore by being able to fairly use their imagination to create the

lore on their own with the assistance of clues in the existing game. It makes perfect sense that lore of

this caliber is something all games should aim for because of the amount of payout it gives them over

an extended period of time. If anyone wants the game industry to continue succeeding or wants to

continue to have interesting stories in video games, then they need to vote with their wallet and push

developers to start implementing some process of their choosing the yields lore that is both interesting

and cohesive without revealing too much.

Works Cited

P. Zackariasson, M. Walfisz, T. L. Wilson (2006, April 1). Management of Creativity in Video Game Development: A Case Study [Online Article] Available: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=d014da5f-ad84-410e-8cfc-91fa72fb5d55%40sessionmgr110&vid=2&hid=105

P. Waelchli (2010, October 1) Playing with Process: Video Game Choice as a Model of Behavior [Online Article] Available: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5cc01829-fe53-454a-af9b-db771e819186%40sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=105

K. Moltenbrey (2005, Nov. 1) OUT OF CHARACTER [Online Article] Available: http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=eb336b9f-58ae-4f9d-8ce5-b212b93b3b65%40sessionmgr112&vid=2&hid=105

S. Cass (2002) Mind Games [Online Article] Available: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1088444

C. Heeter, B. Magerko, B. Medler, J. Fitzgerald (2011, May 31) Game Design and the Challenge- Avoiding, Self-validator Player Type [Online] Available: http://gel.msu.edu/carrie/publications/Jan24-Self-Validator.pdf

B. Choi, J. Huang, A. Jeffrey, Y. Baek (2013, May 1) Development of a scale for fantasy state in digitalgames [Online Article] Available: http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/edtech_facpubs/73/

J. Zagal, M. Mateas (2010, August 15) Time in Video Games: A Survey and Anaysis [Online Article] Available: http://sag.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/07/27/1046878110375594

EpicNameBro (2012 – Present) Dark Souls Lore [Internet Video Series] Available: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4825DBA198EBE9B9

VaatiVidya (Circa 2013) Dark Souls Lore [Internet Video Series] Available: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWLedd0Zw3c5RCXboUsPwHsZJlXB2CzCz

A. Gunraj, S Ruiz, A. York (2010, December 31) Designing Games for Ethics: Models, Techniques andFrameworks chapter 16 Power to the People: Anti-Oppresive Game Design [] Available: http://www.metrac.org/resources/downloads/power.to.the.people.chapter.pdf