Dev Shawn McGrath Lays Down Some Smack: storytelling in games is worthless

[Nalano]

This is a horrible misinterpretation of his logic.

It is very difficult to misinterpret "So attempting that is a worthless endeavor."

And quite frankly I call into question his sci fi credentials, considering that sci fi was considered for a very long time - and in some places still is - to be incapable of being good literature.

Additionally as Nalano said and SirDavis demonstrated, if you watch a trailer for a game and you can't figure out what it's about (lets say red dead redemption) then you're a moron. You must be assuming everyone is a moron.

And Nalano said other people would fill in the blanks, not that'd you immediately recognize it as a game. The only moron is you sir.

Did you just namedrop me on both sides of the argument?

Da fuck, guys. Da fuck.

[Kadayi]

This is a horrible misinterpretation of his logic. He does make the observation that all game stories are complete shit, but I don't think he'd be opposed to a good game story. I read him as suggesting that the industry shouldn't bother with that, though -- it should focus on doing what it does best: interactivity.

Interactivity as the storytelling resulting from a response to a player action? So like there being choices presented to the player and the game responding to those choices? Interesting..because that just about sums up exactly what games do.

[Namdrol]

This is a horrible misinterpretation of his logic.

welcome to the internet.

[Namdrol]

A comment that I agree with from "Miyamoto wonders: Is story really necessary when gameplay will do?" article.


http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...#comment178835

By definition I would say a game is great when the mechanics and structure alone completely support it and are compelling. So by my definition Silent Hill and Uncharted are not great, because their is nothing that compelling about their gameplay once the stories and settings are removed. But then again I think those are crappy games even with their stories.

But I wouldn't go so far as to say you have to agree with me.

In a comment below someone mentioned this discussion pretty much shows the division of 'game purest' and those more inclined to stories and cinematic experiences. The sad part for the purest camp is the other side tends to dominate the industry. Mainly due to publishers recognizing the mass market appeal of the story driven, cinematic experience with shallow gameplay.

Most people don't actually like games, they don't like to lose, they don't want to learn, they don't want to be challenged. They like to feel something and get passively fed narrative. There is a reason TV is still king.

[Nalano]

A comment that I agree with from "Miyamoto wonders: Is story really necessary when gameplay will do?" article.

"Most people don't actually like games, they don't like to lose, they don't want to learn, they don't want to be challenged. They like to feel something and get passively fed narrative. There is a reason TV is still king."

He's one step away from calling the consumer world 'sheeple.'

He must really not like customers. One wonders, indeed, why he works for Terminal Reality, considering the only two PC games they made since he started working there were licensed from TV shows.

[deano2099]

A rule of thumb to check if something is a good game:
- if you like to play it despite story and despite graphics, only good mechanics can explain why you're doing it.

We don't apply that to any other type of entertainment or art though. We don't say a film is only a good film if the cinematography stands alone as enjoyable regardless of plot or dialogue. We don't say a novel is only a good novel if you can read any page in isolation and enjoy the beauty of the prose despite not knowing the context of the story.

Yet there are of course novels and films that fit both those descriptions. But no-one would ever suggest that they're the only ones that have a right to being 'good' novels or films.

[c-Row]

Also, I've been seeing a lot more traditional ads for video games of late: Billboards plastered on buses for AssCreed, constant TV spots for BlOps2, the whole nine. I fully expect GTA5 to have similar campaigns closer to launch.

I haven't seen busses advertising video games around here, but after what seems like an eternity billboard ads for video games finally seem to catch on in Germany as well. Last time I noticed, there were a lot of Borderlands 2 posters up on my way to the office. I fully expect GTA5 to be advertised there as well at some point.

[SirDavies]

We don't apply that to any other type of entertainment or art though. We don't say a film is only a good film if the cinematography stands alone as enjoyable regardless of plot or dialogue. We don't say a novel is only a good novel if you can read any page in isolation and enjoy the beauty of the prose despite not knowing the context of the story.

Yet there are of course novels and films that fit both those descriptions. But no-one would ever suggest that they're the only ones that have a right to being 'good' novels or films.

I think you are turning it around. They core element of games is gameplay, hence the reason why games with bad gameplay are usually bad games. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to enjoy a movie with a bad script, or a book with poor grammar and spelling.

[deano2099]

I think you are turning it around. They core element of games is gameplay, hence the reason why games with bad gameplay are usually bad games. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to enjoy a movie with a bad script, or a book with poor grammar and spelling.

Plenty of them exist though - well movies with bad scripts but amazing cinematography. Poor spelling and grammar isn't so much the case with books (they're equivalent to bugs I'd say) but something The DaVinci code has bad writing but is still quite enjoyable because of the plot.

Yes, interactivity is the one thing games bring along that is unique to the medium, just like visual elements are unique to film. But you don't have to leverage the medium's unique factor to make something good. You can have films with brilliant dialogue and dull cinematography (see: Clerks) and we still call them good films. We don't say "ah, well may as well be a radio play".

[Tactful]

A film or a book is a method of delivering a story. A game can also be a method of delivering a story, but the interactivity in the medium can stand alone as enjoyable in the same way the prose of a book or the cinematography of a film can. It's more prominent in our medium because story evolved after gameplay... but there are analogues in other mediums. Bad writing can take you out of the story in a book, bad cinematography can unimmerse you from a film, and bad gameplay can dull your sense of a story.

[b0rsuk]

There is no movie without visuals. There is no radio play without sound. There is no game without interactivity.

Interactivity is the important thing in games. If a game has good mechanics, people will forgive it everything else. Chess has crappy graphics and no sound. Master of Magic had pages of bugs patched and looks bad. People continue to play roguelikes instead of other games. Day Z has bad-looking zombies with awful animation, cumbersome interface and GLARING AI bugs (zombies start acting retarded when they enter a building). People like these games a lot despite of their flaws.

A game can include a story, but it's not playing to the strength of the medium. Name a game with a story that would not be better off as a book or a movie.

[Kadayi]

There is no movie without visuals. There is no radio play without sound. There is no game without interactivity.

A movie is more than visuals, a radio play is more than sound and a game is more than interactivity (a DVD menu is interactive...that doesn't make it a game..to paraphrase someone else).

[Nordom]

There is no movie without visuals. There is no radio play without sound. There is no game without interactivity.

Interactivity is the important thing in games. If a game has good mechanics, people will forgive it everything else. Chess has crappy graphics and no sound. Master of Magic had pages of bugs patched and looks bad. People continue to play roguelikes instead of other games. Day Z has bad-looking zombies with awful animation, cumbersome interface and GLARING AI bugs (zombies start acting retarded when they enter a building). People like these games a lot despite of their flaws.

A game can include a story, but it's not playing to the strength of the medium. Name a game with a story that would not be better off as a book or a movie.

Billy Wilder is one of the greatest film director ever, and none of his films could be defined as visually strong by any strech. Clearly his strenght lies more in the writting part of filmmaking. Therefore according to your logic his movies are a waste of time as he should had dedicated all that misguided effort writting novels instead of directing, as he was not "playing to the strenght of the medium".

P.S: Long time lurker now posting. Hi RPS!

[NathanH]

Silly thread. A game doesn't have to be particularly good at being a game to be a good something. My example is gamebooks. These are pretty rudimentary and weak as games. But they are still good at being, well, I don't really know what the right term is. It's not quite story because they're getting something out of their interactivity: they would not be particularly good novels in general. It's not game because they're not particularly good games. Last time I discussed this on here we spent a while using the rather cumbersome term interactie because we couldn't think of anything better, but that's obviously horrible.

Now, you can not be so interested in that because what you like about video games is that you like games rather than... these other things. I am somewhat in that position myself. But there's no need to be silly and claim that games can't be better at doing whatever it is they're trying to do than they would be as a non-interactive thing. That's as silly to me as the people who want to call everything video games just because they're in something that'd generally be considered a video game engine.

Games that are not good at being games but good at other things could probably be improved in most cases by focusing less on the game aspect (there are games that try and fail to be good games as well as good whatevers, that would be better off reducing some of the game stuff), but that's just a little refinement. They'd still be interactive things with some gameplay in a video game engine.

[SirDavies]

I don't see how "not playing by the strengths of the medium" can be interpreted as "might as well do nothing at all". There is no doubt that gameplay is the key element of gaming. That doesn't mean that games can't choose to focus on something else. Every medium has it's strenghts; no matter how hard movies or videogames try, they cannot tell a story with the same volume or depth a book can, but they can do many other things. Videogames are interactivity, thus it is logical that when they take that interactivity away (via long cutscenes, walls of text, QTE-activated cutscenes...) they are breaking their own rules. My opinion is that videogames should stop using other mediums so much and focus on using interactivity as a way of conveying whatever they want to convey. Otherwise it feels like when a writer spends too much time describing the visual space instead of focusing on the story, or when a narrator in a movie talks about stuff unrelated to the images, hoping to better contextualize the story but creating a situation that -again- goes against the nature of his own medium. You are free to disagree.

[Namdrol]

My opinion is that videogames should stop using other mediums so much and focus on using interactivity as a way of conveying whatever they want to convey. Otherwise it feels like when a writer spends too much time describing the visual space instead of focusing on the story, or when a narrator in a movie talks about stuff unrelated to the images, hoping to better contextualize the story but creating a situation that -again- goes against the nature of his own medium. You are free to disagree.

It would be nice, but it's not the really what the mass videogame audience wants. As I posted before, this guy says it better than I can:

Most people don't actually like games, they don't like to lose, they don't want to learn, they don't want to be challenged. They like to feel something and get passively fed narrative. There is a reason TV is still king.

And it is obvious that he is right by the way single player big time games are designed. As companies get more and more data on their players, the games become shallower and easier in terms of gameplay.

I have to admit, I didn't really understand how such expensive games like AssCreed3 and Saints Row 3 could have such poor gameplay because I was under the impression that people bought videogames for the same reason I do: challenge and mental stimulation that arises from well crafted deep gameplay.

Now that I understand that the bulk of bigtime game sales (speaking only of single player here) comes from those wanting to vegetate in front of their tv, it makes sense. I feel pretty stupid for not recognizing it until recently, but at least now I can move on and not bother with big budget single player games in the future. I'll still keep an eye out for Demon's Souls type gems tho.

Looking over the games I purchased this year that I wouldnt have if I was quicker on the uptake wrt deep challenging gameplay not mattering to big devs, I have Borderlands 2, Hitman: absolution, Max Payne 3, ME3, Xcom, Dishonored, & RE6. What a waste of $300+.

[Nalano]

Otherwise it feels like when a writer spends too much time describing the visual space instead of focusing on the story, or when a narrator in a movie talks about stuff unrelated to the images, hoping to better contextualize the story but creating a situation that -again- goes against the nature of his own medium. You are free to disagree.

Goodbye JRR Tolkien and Martin Scorsese.

What a dumb metric. Is Pulp Fiction - which made heavy use of cinematic flourishes and tricks - leaps and bounds better as a movie than 12 Angry Men - which was a media port of a stage play? Is Michael Bay the best auteur in the industry?

[SirDavies]

Goodbye JRR Tolkien and Martin Scorsese.

What a dumb metric. Is Pulp Fiction - which made heavy use of cinematic flourishes and tricks - leaps and bounds better as a movie than 12 Angry Men - which was a media port of a stage play? Is Michael Bay the best auteur in the industry?

As I said, you are free to disagree, though I believe your point to be a huge exaggeration of mine.

[Kadayi]

My opinion is that videogames should stop using other mediums so much and focus on using interactivity as a way of conveying whatever they want to convey.

The two cornerstones of how we as a species communicate are sound (music, language) and imagery (pictures, diagrams, text, etc) and combinations there of. Unless your proposal is to make gaming a touch based/movement only medium there's really not a lot of opportunity to escape from the influence of existing media when it comes to communicating understandable information to others.

Even a visual director (a Wes Anderson or a Tomas Alfredson) is still reliant on verbal and written narrative to put across a story line.

Can games get away with it? Sure. I'd say journey is a fantastic example of a game that is very much a unique interactive experience, but even that falls back on cinematic and orchestral cues to elevate the mood in places.

[deano2099]

There is no movie without visuals. There is no radio play without sound. There is no game without interactivity.

Interactivity is the important thing in games. If a game has good mechanics, people will forgive it everything else.

Just because it's what's unique to the medium, doesn't mean it's the most important thing in every game. The visuals are really not the most important thing in Clerks. The tune isn't the most important thing in a lot of country albums. They're using the medium to tell storeys instead.

And people won't always forgive everything else for good mechanics. MGS4 for example has some pretty neat mechanics, but it's too overloaded by story to enjoy if you don't engage with it.

A game can include a story, but it's not playing to the strength of the medium. Name a game with a story that would not be better off as a book or a movie.

Putting aside the obvious one people will come up with: Planescape - Torment (of which the book was downright awful), I'd suggest 9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors and Ever17 as stories that not only are better as interactive 'games', but couldn't be told any other way.

Same goes for Christine Love's work (Analogue and Don't Take It Personally Babe...).

As an example of why: a lot of films and books will put the character in a difficult position, forcing him to make a difficult choice. When that happens, you might ask yourself "What would I do in his shoes?" - but you don't have to answer. In games, you do. Even if the consequences of the decision don't actually matter one bit (see complaints about the Human Revolution ending) the act of forcing the player to choose is huge in and of itself. That's something no other medium can do.