I typically describe class (the teaching kind) as a narrative, across the macro level (the term, the major) and the micro level (each day). Games, I have also pointed out, need narrative (well, most do).
Nice to see Slate's N'Gai Croal of The Gaming Club make that assertion while discussing GoW2:
Was Epic's handling of Maria's fate a failure of craft or art? I say it's worth thinking hard about, especially when writing for a mainstream audience like yours in the Times and mine at Newsweek. Because when we avoid such questions, we're gulling our readers into believing that story and gameplay are mutually exclusive—or that games are just like other media.
Narrative! (A.k.a., story). Important to gameplay. Yup.
