Through what various bits of reading and research I have done thus far and my own experience I have started considering something which strongly affects the players enjoyment of both a game and a narrative (perhaps in different ways?). That being those little things we all have, emotions.
We as human beings have our very lives molded by our emotions, suffering through times of sadness and anxiety and cherishing our happy and fun moments. Therefore its only natural that as video games strive towards more grandiose goals it is these emotions which must be acknowledged and catered to in order to grant the gamers a truly engaging experience.
At this point I should clarify this doesn't necessarily mean each our characters need to have complex personalities and personal demons, whats important is how much we emotionally invest within the characters because that is where we can really derive memorable and rewarding experiences.
Few out there would outline Mario as a particularly deep character he seems to have fairly simple goals (Save *Insert Appropriate Princess Here*) and he doesn't say all that much. Yet we still invest emotion into him, countless of us gamers enjoy the antics of the mushroom eating simpleton not because we particularly relate to him just because he wields a certain innocent enjoyment. Perhaps with characters like Mario and the contexts in which they fit into an immediate likability is all that is really required for us to click. It may be worth considering here that using the Mario example, such game series have always been aimed at being 'fun-for-the-whole family' which likely explains the limited complexities within.
However we must consider the deeper narratives which the industry seems to be steering towards. One game which drew a great amount of emotional enrichment out of me was Mass Effect 2. I'm well aware Mass Effect faces some scrutiny from the more critical out there as it boasts freedom when the player can still only create limited variations on the main plot. To me however the enjoyment wasn't from the main plot at all it was all the smaller parts. After carrying my character from Mass Effect 1 into 2 it instantly just felt like a continuation of my own chronicles, with even seemingly minor things still adding to the experience. ME2 is packed with small callbacks to the characters experiences in the previous game, and this is what made it feel individual to me. Then through my interactions with the characters (especially those from the previous game) I felt like I had built bonds with these characters each had there own identities and idiosyncrasies that made them who they were. Now I am well aware such moments where there is no prepared dialogue involved me saying hello hearing the same response then leaving, but it didn't matter these characters didn't need to feel like real people for me to enjoy them. Despite knowing they aren't real and therefore I had no 'real' emotional link to them, when the chance came up I could lose these allies in the final mission I did all I could to prevent fatalities. Which I think is enough I never needed them to be totally lifelike they just needed enough emotion for me to engage with them.
These thoughts are however mainly aimed at those genres which bare a lot of consideration to narrative, genres such as sports and racing games rarely (though occasionally) include a narrative as such the main goal essentially being just to win. Which isn't to say such games don't affect ones emotions, I don't think I could argue the emotional investment all those fans out there put into their games of FIFA with there friends I've seen my own brother undergo an emotional rollercoaster even over the course of one match.
However even as I write this I find myself wondering are these emotional investments that different, is my emotional attachment to my Commander Shephard as we save the galaxy any different to my brothers attachment to his Sheffield Wednesday team as hes playing a tournament with his friends.
Its clear even as I'm only scratching the surface of this deep subject matter that the complexities within shall need to be compartmentalized in some form in order for my understanding to improve. Indeed I may find the ideas which I have fired out here to be anomalous once I start delving further. Firstly I feel I must investigate the enigmatic idea of emotional investment, both towards the characters within the game (eg Mass Effect) and also the investment in the players own action within the game (eg FIFA).
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