Suspension of Disbelief in Video Games

I would argue that video games do not employ [[!Suspension of disbelief]] in the same way as traditional storytelling in a book or film. In Lord of the Rings (books or films), for example, it would be strange and take me out of the story if Gandalf started explaining how to turn a page or fastforward, repeated the same conversation over and over, or had a glowing quest marker floating above his head. Yet in a video game, those are all regular occurances.

I wonder if storytelling video game has more in common with collective or collaborative storytelling than a story with an author/audience dynamic. In a game, suspension of disbelief might come into play ahead of time in the rules. It's more like playing cops and robbers as a child. We know that stick bears no resemblence to a gun, but if we all agree ahead of time that it is a gun, then we stick to that and ignore our disbelief because it's fun. Same goes if the robber suddenly explains they have a bullet proof vest and the game collapses into an argument about the rules (a bit like being interupted by a tutorial in a video game). This sort of thing would not fly in a traditional film or story (random action hero racing about with a stick that shoots bullets would need quite the explanation to not be jarring), yet in a video game it is the accepted norm (this blocky pixel box is a gun, press X to shoot, go have fun).

Perhaps there are different applications or areas of [[!Suspension of disbelief]]? I feel like in a film, for example, you might have visual, audio, and narrative (which can operate separately. A narrative might make sense but look jarring because of effects or poor casting). In a book, you might only have narrative (though if you're in a noisy or distracting setting in real life, visual and audio might impact, but that is outside a creator's control). In a video game, you might visual and audio but narrative is more compartmentalised into consequences/rules. A stupid fetch question that makes no sense for your level 99 hero is not as jarring as if your sword made objects catch on fire when you touch them (but if you put rules in place, ex: this is a magic fire sword, that would be grand).

I need to read up some more in this area.