On myths, stories, models and games

While myths tend to be understood as a genre of narrative, I argue that it is more useful to understand myths as models for knowing the world and things in it. In doing so, we can also use myth as a way to understand gameworlds. Games both make use of existing ‘real-world’ myths as well as ‘emulating’ the process in the creation of fictional worlds that we can play within. Understanding games and myths as models allows us to put them together to better analyse how players inhabit and behave within games, and how they interpret them, both with reference to the gameworld itself as a self-contained ‘universe’ as well as with reference to the real-world influences that the developers are undeniably influenced by.