Over the last decade, we’ve seen data become parts of our lives; liberating us from the most tedious or mundane of activities. We have access to information, society and a stage of interconnectivity never experienced by those who came before.

This sets the stage for a human compulsion, the compulsion throughout history to record our deeds as well as to delve, re-imagine, and dramatize; to push the boundaries of storytelling every day. Storytellers and marketers alike chase after a new way to speak to their audiences, looking for the new and interesting.

It’s throughout this decade that we’ve begun to hear the whispers in the shadows, as analysts and digital marketers start speaking up about the potential of data, big or small, basic or smart. With all these types of data beginning to play a larger role in our decision making, it may be time to reexamine just how we can tell our stories, and what we can use to tell them.

Common Uses of Data

Today, data is mostly used from an analytical perspective. Simply put, information is gathered and used to help inform decision-making.

One of the most commonly-used applications for this is marketing in social media - with data taken from performance tools, social listening tools and websites, marketers craft characters and personalities to better help focus marketing efforts; such as personalizing advertisements and/or posting cadences for maximum coverage.

Other applications include entertainment-related algorithms, like those found in popular streaming services and video-sharing websites such as Netflix, YouTube, and their competitors. These track user data to cater to user preferences, recommending similar content based on the content already consumed, refining the selections evermore as data is continuously gathered.

While this approach can be effective, the data usually focuses on the target audience, and not on wider aspects such as brand narrative or storytelling.

Storytelling in Traditional Media

Merriam Webster defines a story as “an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment,” usually referred to as the substance of any given narrative, held within a plot structure. Traditionally, the use of data has had little-to-no bearing on storytelling in many of its forms.

With visual media like films, the methods to produce such masterpieces aren’t reliant on collected information in that way, rather relying on various theories and structures used to form plot structure and story. A few examples of these would be concepts such as the Three-act structure, Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, and more. The nature of this work usually meant that creative concepts do not mesh well with the quantitative approach of using data.

Regardless, all media portray a story in different forms. While books and print media are considered the more traditional storytelling methods, musicians can be interpreted to create stories through music and sound, the same way filmmakers do with color and sight.

Data in a New Medium

We’ve seen many kinds of media being used to tell our stories. As mentioned before, most of these did not use data. The latest form of media may not be beholden to such limitations, though.

While the old guard might scoff at the notion of gaming being able to tell a coherent story, gaming has become an industry too large to ignore. In 2020, the global game industry was valued at $159.3 billion, and 75% of households in the U.S had at least one gamer. eSports, the competitive arena of gaming, is also estimated to surpass $2.5 billion in 2024.

Bytes of Possibility

Gaming has the potential to collect a treasure trove of information. A recent article suggests that large developers such as EA, Activision and Epic Games explicitly state their collection of user data, either to improve game experience (by way of players dying frequently at a specific point in the game) or to refine monetization strategies (by checking frequently purchased items or in-game currencies), and it’s becoming more of a norm amongst industry giants to follow suit.

It’s also this collection of data that inspired the use of gamification systems - allowing for further applications of big data.

A New Narrative

Metaphors aside, an increasingly higher number of people are looking to games not only for their potential for data, but also for what they bring as a storytelling medium.

By allowing players to immerse themselves in this medium, a whole new form of narratives is created for audiences to experience - and the variety of genres available in games only expands the potential creativity.

This type of narrative structure, whose creation is enabled through a collection and application of data, is finding more and more popularity as time passes. The way certain values and culture are now being implemented could have significant meaning for how stories can be crafted in the future.

For the Future

This could mean a change in how stories are then marketed towards consumers, and how brands can begin to improve their own storytelling as well. This could stoke a marketer’s need to consider new and improved ways to reach out to the people willing to listen.

For example, it might be beneficial for marketers and brand managers to consider a certain level of immersion when communicating their clients’ story to their audiences, or even for advertisements for their products. New technologies such as AR and VR are improving on a continuous basis, in an effort to bring technology ever closer to life.

The connection between data and storytelling may not be as distant from each other as once thought. Perhaps, in a bygone age, stories were once limited by their medium and the input of information that could be applied.

However, the modern age and the uprising of new storytelling media such as the gaming industry - a media that incorporates data into its narrative to form a cohesive structure - has shown significant interest.

The desire for new kinds of narratives has brought about immersive and experiential new ways of telling a story, while also incorporating methods that bring about new values and unique culture with every piece of content created.