"In literature, theatre and film everything matters or is conventionally supposed to matter equally - if you've seen 90% of the presentation that's not enough, you have to see or read it all (or everything you can). This is characteristic of dominantly interpretative practices in general. In contrast, in computer games you either can't or don't have to encounter every possible combinatory event and existent the game contains, as these differ in their ergodic importance. Some actions and reactions in relation to certain events will bring the player quicker to a solution or help her reach the winning situation sooner or more effectively than others. There are events and existents the player has to manipulate or configure in order to progress in the game or just to be able to continue it. Events, existents and the relations between them can be described at least in spatial, temporal, causal and functional terms. It's equally self-evident that the importance of these dimensions varies from game to game and sometimes also within the phases and levels of an individual game."

(Eskelinen [online])

Two game titles illustrate this matter perfectly one of them is the Witcher, and the other one is The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion. The former shows the narrative side, whereas the latter functional.

The first game sets the player as one of the profesional beast slayers some time after events from the narrative saga. The protagonist loses his memory and players side mission during the game is to reclaim it. As we get to know soon it can be done only when Geralt, the main character, will abandon his tries to stay neutral, and stand on one side of the barricade in the war between humans and allegiance of elves, dwarves and gnoms. However, this brings consequences and influences future events, not only on immediate, but also the ones far in the future. Also behavior of different characters can change towards the player.

In one of the quests player needs to investigate case of a spy of the organization called Salamadra. After some time of questioning different npc's we gather a wide range of colourful suspicious looking folk. This forces us to ask difficult questions and if we press to much, people we talk to refuse to provide any further explanation, this can result in omitting some side quests. On the other side we can help the Burning Rose champions in scouting future battlefield, which will lead to their win, and their leaders promotion. Since then Geralt would have a strong ally on his side but also would need to stand the fact that he put a hand to slaughtering a band of elves. Also some quests contradict with each other. In the previously explained one we would automatically fail the quest of delivery a letter with a pledge for weapons to a dwarven blacksmith.

In Elder Scrolls series we encounter different type of multiple choices that affect the gameplay, are closer to what Eskelinen says in his essay. I'll take as an example Morrowind. The game just after accomplishing the character creation sets the player completely free to explore the world, and start any quest he wants, though often they are over the characters present abilities. Player can start the quests in whatever order he prefers, also he may choose not to pick them and it won't affect the later storyline but only his statistics and equipment. Also some events are generated randomly, like an attack of a wild creature or an ambush on a track. This makes the game highly replayable.