“We’re Excited to Chart this Unknown Territory Together”: Storytelling Strategies in Patch Notes Documents

Abstract

Developers often describe changes to online games in Patch Notes. These documents are for players of the game to learn about changes and revise their understanding of the game. The evolution of Patch Notes Documents (PNDs) as a genre with structural conventions is a story of how adding narrative features helps explain changes to a genre-savvy audience. In this paper, I explore stylistic and structural techniques used in the PNDs to construct a consistent narrative of evolution of the online multiplayer game League of Legends (Riot Games, 2009). Exploring narrativizing as sensemaking suggests that storytelling can supplement existing preservation activities for digital games.