Markku Eskelinen, an independent scholar and self-professed "ludologist", in his response to Jenkins' paper "Game Design as Narrative Architecture", says:
According to the well-known phrase of David Bordwell, narration is "the process whereby the film's sjuzet and style interact in the course of cueing and constraining the spectator's construction of the fabula." In games there are other kinds of dominant cues and constraints: rules, goals, the necessary manipulation of equipment, and the effect of possible other players for starters. This means that information is distributed differently (invested in formal rules, for example), it is to be obtained differently (by manipulating the equipment) and it is to be used differently (in moving towards the goal).
By systematically ignoring and downplaying the importance of these and other formal differences between games and narratives as well as the resulting cognitive differences, Jenkins runs the risk of reducing his comparative media studies into repetitive media studies: seeing, seeking, and finding stories, and nothing but stories, everywhere. Such pannarrativism could hardly serve any useful ludological or narratological purpose.
Do you agree with Eskelinen's dismissal of Jenkins' approach? Why/why not?

I largely disagree with Eskelinen's very biased and narrow dismissal of Jenkins’ approach in his paper "Game Design as Narrative Architecture". Basically, in my opinion, Eskelinen has ignored every attempt Jenkins has made to establish the fact that games are NOT stories through his statement “He assumes computer games to be a storytelling medium among many others”. This is clearly not the impression I got while reading Jenkins’ paper.

Jenkins had stated very plainly that although many games do have narrative aspirations, “not all games tell stories”. Jenkins made no attempt to fit all games as storytelling devices. Having stated that so clearly at the beginning, it was clear that although he didn’t write in a ludologist’s point of view, he didn’t necessary disagree with them either.

Jenkins had never implied that his paper gave a totally objective or complete picture of games. Instead, he merely meant to focus on a different aspect of games in his paper. Much of his paper centred on spatiality in games. This discussion wasn’t relevant to every single computer game, but to the kind of games Jenkins was talking about such as Half-Life and Majestic. Jenkins couldn’t possibly cover all aspects of games in this one paper. For Eskelinen to read this paper and assume that Jenkins was referring to all games was unfair.

Eskelinen stated that while Jenkins looked for “superficial similarities” between games and stories, he ignored “crucial and incontestable” differences. This was evidently not true. Jenkins mentioned that “the experience of playing games can never be simply reduced to the experience of a story”. This statement shows Jenkins’ acceptance of the fact that games and stories are different kinds of media.

I feel that while Jenkins may have downplayed the “dominant cues and constraints: rules, goals, the necessary manipulation of equipment, and the effect of possible other players”, Eskelinen had also dismissed the fact that games can indeed be used to tell stories. Ultimately, they both had done their job in their field of work. It is impossible for these two individuals to write from a totally unbiased point of view. Jenkins wrote from the point of a “narratologist”, while Eskelinen wrote as a ludologist. Their views shouldn't just be compared, but be integrated to give a fuller picture of games.