Nintendo Was Hard Pt. 2: Story vs. Discovery

To make my point here, I’m going to break down the ways video games motivate us to play into two categories: story and discovery.  Consider Oblivion; the game had a distinct (if somewhat uninteresting) central story that dictated its action and progression.  It also had a strong emphasis on exploration (which was more interesting than the story, but that’s neither here nor there) and discovery.  Here’s where things get tricky: it also had an RPG skill development model, which, in my taxonomy, falls under discovery – the unlocking of new gameplay elements.