Actions Speak Louder Than Words

The headline this past week was: nobody cares about your stupid story. When Ken Levine wrote down these words for his GDC discussion on telling stories in video game, I wonder if he was already picturing the headlines and aftermath. Certainly we can expect that he knew such a statement would be, for those with short attention spans, the penny on the rails that causes the trainwreck, and any attempt at justifying and clarifying the position would be the background noise after the bump that nobody ever actually gets around to reading. After all, you have the name behind Bioshock, arguably the most literary infused action game with its Objectivist overtones – and how many of us actually even know what the hell that means? – telling us all apparently that story telling in video games is an exercise in futility, which is, of course, a dramatic over-simplification on what proved to be a more complicated talk. But, Levine Describes Complicated Layered Approach to In-Game Storytelling, doesn't exactly make for good headline material.

It is interesting that in the roiling wake of 2007, which offered up some of the best video game storytelling done since the hey-days of Sierra and Infocom, that I so strongly believe that the story in games is secondary or even tertiary to the mechanics of the game itself. It was not Levine's "nobody cares about your stupid story" statement that got my head nodding like a Brett Favre bobblehead in an earthquake, but rather when he talked about a development style that allowed the evolving game to inform the story rather than trying to force a square peg into another square peg. Don't start with the story, start with a framework, then a game and find a story that works into it. Simple. Revolutionary.

And, at the end of the day, he's right. It is always story that should be sacrificed for the sake of gameplay.

There are a lot of ways that I'm not necessarily like other graduates sporting a fancy English degree from a state university. I've never served coffee professionally. I've never smoked clove cigarettes. I don't like The Great Gatsby or anything by Hemingway. I'm not a voracious reader, and I am far more likely to be playing video games than absorbing James Joyce or even Stephen King. I don't even particularly care for deep reading and literary analysis, even though it's the sort of thing that I can do in my sleep. And now, of course, I espouse a not-necessarily-popular point of view that storytelling in video games is the sort of thing that is disposable.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the story and endless interpretation available in a game like Bioshock or Portal. I think they are both ground breaking games establishing in very firm ways that good storytelling is possible even in action games, but on the flip side the fact that Halo 3's story was obtuse, confusing and clumsy didn't really come up as much of a strike against Bungie's epic in my book. I am perfectly happy swimming in the warm surface water of my games rather than plumbing the depths of the Mariana Trench that is the subtext and complicated backstory, particularly when we have to face the fact that most people who make games don't make good stories. Maybe this is why I was able to like Max Payne so much.

It's reassuring to see Levine get it so right, particularly while being revered at the same time for his storytelling accomplishments. The truth is, even if I was just stuck in Rapture and told nothing more than, "hey, there's a bad guy here and you should kill him" the fact of the matter is that the gameplay stands on its own while the story is really just some nice window dressing. I like the fabric and patterns well enough, but having the curtains up or down isn't going to make a difference for the view through the window. Bioshock isn't a worse game if you never listen to a single one of the tape recordings left from its dead citizens, in the same way the Mass Effect is just as good if you never explore its Encyclopedia Galactica.

It's easy enough to say that these elements enhance the game, give it depth and texture, and for some people that will be true. But Ken's big idea seems to be that the world itself should tell the story, that being a participant in the elements of the story and playing them out is far more powerful a method for our unique medium than being any kind of passive observer. It's not that he's saying there's no room for storytelling, but that we need to think of it in a different way. In fact, at times, I am taken out of Bioshock because I feel compelled to listen to too many tapes, and while they are elegantly written, what I really want to do is load up some ammo and shoot some splicers. Even the largely praised short stories in the recent Xbox 360 hit, Lost Odyssey, while translating fairly well into English and occasionally moving, also tend to drive me out of the actual game, like suddenly hitting the pause button and flipping through the chapter of a vaguely related book. It's one of the better implementations of the annoying trend in these games of too often subjecting me to ten minutes of overt info dumping.

This brings us to the standard argument; that storytelling may not be particularly critical to action games, but in a genre like role playing games they are crucial. Well, that's somewhat true, though I can't remember for the life of me what the actual details of the story were in Baldur's Gate or even Ultima VII was to any meaninglful degree. What I remember is the set pieces, the game, the combat, the artwork, the visuals and the sense of place. I don't remember being moved by the story, which is most often a fairly short framework counter-pointed by a lot of fighting between the occasional story chunk and side quests. I don't remember being compelled forward so much because of the awesomeness of the narrative, which in most cases is just the standard fantasy fare, but by the gameplay.

That's to say nothing of games like Diablo or even Mass Effect where the game mechanics take even more of a center stage. While it's nice to have some purpose, and I'm not suggesting that there need to RPGs with no storytelling elements, if the story is good but the game isn't fun I'm not going to play. I'm not so sure the reverse is true.

The truth is that if I'm looking for complicated narratives with strong plotting and character development I have far better places to turn. It's just not what drives me to play video games. That some people take the care to add a story to an already excellent game is a gift that I can certainly appreciate, but it is almost academic to do so. Ostensibly I suppose World of WarCraft has a deep and rich backstory that elevates play for some people, but I think I'm firmly in the class of players that just likes shooting fireballs at dragons. Like I need a reason to do that!

Comments

I definitely agree to a point. The reason I play a video game is usually to A: Provide entertainment for myself, and then B: To rule the mechanics, and then finally C or D: Be immersed in a great setting and storyline.

In my experience the standard WOW player will talk your ear off about what he/she did the night before with their group, not the background of the story. In a MMORPG game the story is basically left up to you which is why MUDs have been so successful for many years starting with the Zmud text based games all the way to the current graphical incarnations.

When a developer sets out to tell an incredible story it usually ends up being quite tedious and limiting. I think the advent of multiple endings in gaming proved that many players don't care about acting out every part in exactly the way the developer wants them to.

However to defend plot design...

Being immersed in the setting of the game to me is very important, more important than the story. Most players want to hear thumping disco and people shouting random things at you in any GTA game like players want the wizzing bullets, burning structures, and chaotic scenes of war in a COD game as well.

I think there is difference between whether the game is driven primarily by a storyline or if the storyline is there merely to immerse a player into the setting of the game. I do care about the story in most of the games I play but only if it helps to immerse me in my own role that I can then tinker with as I see fit.

Then again it is probably all a matter of taste.

Games require re-thinking what a "story" means, in the context of this particular form of entertainment.

Games are not particularly good vehicles at telling "this happened, and then that happened" narratives.

What they are excessively good at is allowing you to experience an event. They let you see for yourself what the lines and lines of narrative exposition in a book desperately try to paint in your mind. Dialog and cutscenes exist to provide context for the events you're experiencing firsthand.

The best games take me to interesting places and let me experience something neat. I've been playing the first Brothers in Arms, and I appreciate that the game doesn't pour on the narrative. Instead, it sticks with providing some simple-to-follow context, and lets me experience commanding a squad while under fire, ducked behind a stone wall by a beautiful European countryside home. Indeed, some of the few stumbles in the game's narrative come when the pre-mission voice-overs are taken a little too seriously.

*Legion* wrote:

Games require re-thinking what a "story" means, in the context of this particular form of entertainment.
...
The best games take me to interesting places and let me experience something neat. I've been playing the first Brothers in Arms, and I appreciate that the game doesn't pour on the narrative.

Exactly right, IMHO, and better put than the version I was writing. I think Half Life 2 (especially Ep2) gets this right as well, the storyline is mainly told in hints and background chatter. The plot is basically what you do as Freeman.

As RPG players we seem to be conditioned to think that story means long cutscenes and lots of dialogue, but games aren't movies.

I've read these viewpoints from quite a few people, and I do understand the idea that all other aspects, story included, should be secondary to actual gameplay. That being said, I think one of the things that was demonstrated in titles such as Bioshock, Mass Effect, and COD 4 was the fact that a story that has depth and quality can flesh out a game and add a huge amount to the experience. Having listened to the idea of diminishing returns in certain aspects of game design, perhaps game designers will look at these marquee titles and realize that even if they are butting up against limitations in things like graphics, they will recognize that storytelling is one way they can enhance the game with absolutely no limitations.

I do not believe that story is critical to a game being successful or innovative. If that were the fact, I would not have so much fun playing puzzle games, which for the most part succeed with absolutely no storyline whatsoever. However, I think that we have reached a point where the games with a story that forces questions, addresses issues, and actually force us to think about the things that have happened in the gamet will be the ones we talk about for years to come

Motion Pictures started as little penny arcade machines, and were used to express so many different ideas (news, documentary, talent shows, abstract art) but it was narrative film - stories - that propelled that medium to the world's most popular: 40 million tickets sold a week in the 1940's in the America alone.

In theater, song, literature, even poem and painting, story has always been important. Game developers just haven't figured out the right way to do it yet. Perhaps the technology isn't there yet, or perhaps we don't know how to take "story" and make a game out of it.

Ken Levine probably speaks to a certain business reality in the industry right now, game plots' bang-for-buck isn't so hot right now.

Excellent article.

The problematic of how games approach story is one of the primary concerns in the games industry, because it is specifically at this point that gaming is differentiated from all other entertainment mediums/ forms of representation.

The majority of games think of story in the same way that movies and novels do, as a linear progression of events, or perhaps adding a slight mutation in branching plots and multiple endings (really just adding more heads to the same monster). This is the first I have seen where the game world, the space for dialog between player and game, is named as the primary site of story.

Games have something that no other media has been able to accomplish, an entirely new possibility for storytelling in this interaction between player's internal narrative and game world/story. We have not seen such an advancement in the ways we tell stories since the conception of the novel. Or because that followed earlier patterns of epic poetry, tragedy and comedy, we haven't seen such an advancement since Aristotle laid out the elements of storytelling in his "Poetics" 2400 years ago.

I could go on, but I already did:http://salmontorpedo.blogspot.com/2008/02/storytelling-and-internal-narratives.html

Zelos wrote:
*Legion* wrote:

Games require re-thinking what a "story" means, in the context of this particular form of entertainment.
...
The best games take me to interesting places and let me experience something neat. I've been playing the first Brothers in Arms, and I appreciate that the game doesn't pour on the narrative.

Exactly right, IMHO, and better put than the version I was writing. I think Half Life 2 (especially Ep2) gets this right as well, the storyline is mainly told in hints and background chatter. The plot is basically what you do as Freeman.

As RPG players we seem to be conditioned to think that story means long cutscenes and lots of dialogue, but games aren't movies.

Having recently finished HL2: Episode Two, that was the first game to come to my mind, as well. Without resorting to cutscenes or drawn-out story segments, it really draws the player in to the story through the atmosphere and sparse conversations, and by allowing the player to really feel like they're making things happen. I've become engrossed in the Half-Life story to the point where I'm already hotly anticipating it being continued in another episode -- more than I can say about most other games. Half-Life's story-telling is a lot different (and slicker) than something like Lost Odyssey (which I am playing at the moment), which has a more artificial, jerky feel.

Here. Here.

Yeah I guess you're right about the story thing. I say it reluctantly but it's true, clearly gameplay and fun are the biggest factors when you're talking video games. I think of some of my favorite games and it goes both ways. There are games that I played forever because they were balanced and fun and could really care less about an engrossing or nuanced storyline (mario cart, starcraft, street fighter) and then there were games that I played over and over strictly because of the story (wasteland, fallout, final fantasy II) . . . .

The thing is though, and you mentioned this briefly, you have a lot of game developers out there writing the storylines for these games and frankly they suck at it. So when something somewhat intriguing comes along (read: bioshock) that has some pretty serious storyline ambition you're kinda left a little wanting because it's good, but it's not that good.

What would happen if you brought real writers into the fold? Not game developers, not hack fantasy/sci-fi novelists I'm talking real honest to goodness solid writers. Maybe then the story element to these games will exist on another level, one that is both more engaging and ambitious.

I keep coming back to comparing video games to film in my own mind, what would it take for video games to start attracting some core writing talent like the movies did back in the 50's ?

Where? Where?

But seriously...

As someone who plays games to see them, rather than to beat them, I for one do care about story. I suspect the soundbite was more aimed at developers who sacrifice gameplay for story. Good examples of this are Final Fantasy X with its unskippable cutscenes, Xenosaga, with its half-hour long cutscenes, and Black with its also unskippable cutscenes.

I don't care about stupid stories, though, and agree that gameplay should never be sacrificed to plot. In fact, I'll posit Three Laws of Game Design, inspired by Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

1. A game designer shall never, by action or omission of action, allow gameplay to come to harm.
2. A game designer shall add consistent style and background to a game, except where it conflicts with the first law.
3. A game designer shall add plot, story and characters to a game, except where it conflicts with the first two laws.

So my response to the article is a qualified "Hear, hear".

Hans

I remember reading that the late, lamented Looking Glass created Thief: The Dark Project by coming up with the story first, then creating missions that fit within that story. For Metal Age, though, they created the missions first, then wrapped a story around those. Though I enjoyed both, I always found the latter game to be the more enjoyable and memorable one, and I think that was part of it.

hidannik wrote:

3. A game designer shall add plot, story and characters to a game, except where it conflicts with the first two laws.

So my response to the article is a qualified "Hear, hear".

Hans

The 3rd law should read: ""Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important." "

And yeah, "Hear, hear."

Bourbon wrote:

What would happen if you brought real writers into the fold? Not game developers, not hack fantasy/sci-fi novelists I'm talking real honest to goodness solid writers. Maybe then the story element to these games will exist on another level, one that is both more engaging and ambitious.

I keep coming back to comparing video games to film in my own mind, what would it take for video games to start attracting some core writing talent like the movies did back in the 50's ?

"Real" writers wouldn't help game stories any more than "real" writers helped movies in the 50's. The revolution that made films really stand on their own happened when directors started focusing on the strength of the medium, telling their stories visually. Narrative and character are secondary to visual storytelling in film, just as they are secondary to interactive storytelling in games.

Fiction writers are good at telling stories in their chosen form: novella, graphic novel, screenplay, teleplay. The crossover writer who is good at all kinds is rare. Likewise the skills that make someone a good fiction writer (cooking up an interesting conflict, bringing environments to life with vivid description, making characters and dialogue feel real) aren't all that germane to interactive story telling. Other parts of a game production team handle those things.

Games without engaging narrative or compelling characters generally aren't remembered as classics. They are more like mechanical exercises in gameplay, like board or puzzle games, or match-four casual computer games. Sure, they can be a fun diversion. If the game is strategically rich enough, or socially interesting, they can become classics in their own right. Usually though, a game that's only about the gameplay will never rise to the level of a game where you find yourself immersed in its world, driven by the conflicts in that world, feeling like your actions meant more than a numeric score or a kill count.

There's definitely room in the gaming universe for all kinds of games: from those that are all about the strategy or mechanics of gameplay, to those that are all about the game environment, characters and the player's role in the game world. For my part, I hope for designers to push the boundaries with the latter sort of game.

I tend to agree with you and Ken on this one. I am a huge proponent of the importance of story in everything, not just games, but somehow video/computer games just don't cut it for me. I only know of one exception, and that is the Neverwinter Nights game. It's a CRPG that can be played single-player or multi-player. The original campaign for the game was, even by the developers' admission, more of a tack-on to demonstrate what you can do with the game, as it was originally designed to be a platform for people to build and run adventrues with (or for) their friends. But the Expansion packs both purported to be very heavy on the story, and as I understand it the stories were far better put together.

I say "as I understand it" because I never played through more than a few hours of the NWN game or expansion in single-player. Oh, I started every one of them, but after about 5-10 hours I found myself saying, South Park style, "Don't care, don't care, don't care." (BTW, if you have never seen the Towelie episode of South Park it is actually quite relevant to this whole discussion - go watch it.) The story really wasn't all that great, and I just couldn't get drawn into them. The gameplay was okay, but it wasn't really all that amazing. So I never finished them.

However, *multiplayer* Neverwinter Nights ended up being, hands-down, my most played computer game ever, and I have been playing video/computer games since the original Civilization. The reason is this: with a competent Dungeon Master (or Game Master as we snobby types prefer to call ourselves) and a good group of players, the potential for a good story *emerging* from the interactions is incredible. With a live, intelligent person serving up the story and allowing it to evolve with the actions of the players/characters, you can achieve real drama of an almost literary quality. I've had players cry because of things that happened in the game that actually meant something profound to them, in the way a good film can make you cry. I've even had one player quit because the (pretend) animosity between her character and another's was so well-played. (No, that wasn't a good outcome, but it illustrates how involving the medium can become when done "well" :o)

To me, the limitation of any single-player game will always be that the system can only respond so much to the player's actions. Even with a well-written dialog tree, it's still canned dialog that may or may not express what I as a player want to say or do, and it will almost certainly not express it the way I would have. And as far as gameplay actions, there is a very clear, strict limit put on the player as to what actions are possible. It's these hard limits, the inability to dynamically respond to what the player does, that keeps single-player games from becoming a true dramatic medium. Even sandbox games where the gameplay is emergent have a critically important limitation: while they may respond dynamically to player actions, they do not respond *intelligently* to player actions. By that I am not referring to A.I. per se, I am referring to a human level of understanding and creative thinking, such that the mind behind a live story-driven game can imagine an infinite number of possible reactions and deliberately choose one that will propel and enliven the story, or add carefully-chosen meaning to the response that strikes a chord with the player and creates a connection to the story and game world.

Somehow Neverwinter Nights, despite its technical limitations, was "good enough" at overcoming those basic limitations (or perhaps, more properly, providing a way of circumventing those limitations) and it did something magical for myself and the small group of friends who campaigned for almost 3 years. There are parts of that story (and I do mean the story, not the gameplay) that I doubt I will ever forget, and even though it was a couple years since we stopped those friends and I still talk about what happened and reminisce about some of the more memorable moments from that experience.

I think what it boils down to is what the average gamer expects out of a game he plays. For me, when I sit down to play a game my entertainment value is completely related to how well the game mechanics are and the "fun" quotient of the game itself.

Much like going to see an action movie if the suspension of disbelief is reasonable and quality of action scenes is high I will feel that my money was well spent. Does having an interesting and original story make it better? Absolutely, but having a great story with laughably bad action scenes will leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I didn't get what I came for to see.

I play a game for just that, play. Ninja Gaiden had a laughably bad storyline yet I think it's one of the best games I've ever played. Kane & Lynch had a very good storyline, up until the point where I stopped because the gameplay was so horrid. There is a point where poorly executed story can adversely affect your experience such as Metal Gear Solid 3. There were so many damn cutscenes I felt like I was playing an interactive movie more than a game.

In other media story is very important for it moves the audience through the tale. In games, you move yourself through gameplay. That's why gameplay is all important in this field and will always be so. With the buzzword now being emergent gameplay, it gives the designers an almost impossible job of coming up with a story that fits. Could you imagine writing a story where the protagonist has a huge variety of actions he/she could take and is not directed by you the writer? It's a writer's nightmare.

Hello GWJ. This topic riled me so much I signed up just so as I could offer a rebuttal:

It is about the story. It is all about the story.

Mind you, I am not talking about the shoddily scripted, confusing excuse for a plot that you choose to tack onto your game. No I mean it is about my story. They story I create for myself as I immerse my self in the world of your game. It is about the great adventures I have, the risks I take and the challenges I overcome.

Sure gameplay is important but it is not everything. I don't even think it is the most important thing. Superb gameplay without immersion will keep me divereted for an hour or so when I am supposed to be working but you won't capture my soul with it. I sure as hell amn't going to pay €50 to play Tetris, never mind €15 a month.

Why is the Guitar Hero franchise so phenomenally successful. Not because of the gameplay (push coloured buttons in response to a pattern of coloured lights). No, Guitar Hero is successful because of the story. The many stories in fact. Each player invents their own intoxicating vision of rock stardom filling a million imaginary stadia with electric noise.

When I want somebody else's story I read a book or watch a film. When I play games I want to create my own adventure, my own story. I need you the game developer to make that possible.

I agree that good games don't require stories to be entertaining. I also agree games aren't well-suited for traditional storytelling. Yet I can't think of a single game that included a well-told story that wasn't better for it.

Most of my favorite games--including Half-Life, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Beyond Good and Evil, Ico, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Portal, the Zelda titles, Psychonauts, Bishock, to mention a few recent examples--seduced me with their storytelling and character development. They were good games first and foremost, but they would not have been nearly as engaging without their stories.

So I don't think applying stories to games is "mostly academic." I know not everyone feels the same way, but I want more stories in my games, and I want them told better. How stories get told in games--how developers try to overcome the limitations, etc.--is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating aspects of the medium.

mbp wrote:

Superb gameplay without immersion will keep me divereted for an hour or so when I am supposed to be working but you won't capture my soul with it.

I disagree with you there, I can't have immersion without superb gameplay. For me they go hand in hand. I can not be immersed in a game if I'm fighting the controller to do what I want myself on the screen to do.

mbp wrote:

Guitar Hero is successful because of the story. The many stories in fact. Each player invents their own intoxicating vision of rock stardom filling a million imaginary stadia with electric noise.

This confuses me a little. Guitar Hero has no story, none. Whatever story there is comes from your own imagination. Are you agreeing with Levine or disagreeing? Because this statement basically proves Mr. Levine's point, which was that you shouldn't force a story down gamers' throats. I think it was your opening statement which seemed to connotate one stance and the rest of the post which argued the opposite that's confusing me. Maybe you could clarify it for me.

I've been thinking about how BioShock in particular tells its story, or makes story available, or whatever.

1) The aforementioned recordings. I always worried that I'd missed one, and that killing all the splicers in the area would net me no reward other than ammo or whatever. I consider the little bit of story in a recording my reward for a good job with the shooty shooty. I like playing them while I run into a dangerous section. Multitasking.

2) Cutscenes. Oh, but wait, they were in first person, and interactive. Yeah, I could move around a little sometimes, watching something happen from behind unbreakable glass. Wait, get a sandwich, back to the game. I could choose not to watch, or look at the floor instead, etc. Sorry, that's still a cutscene. I'm not fooled.

3) People shout at you over the radio. I love that one. It works brilliantly, as long as the people shout interesting things and never, ever repeat themselves. Worked in System Shock, works in BioShock. Worked in hundreds of other games, too.

4) Atmosphere? Is that story? Is it just art design? I don't know.

I liked the story in BioShock, and I think there's just the right amount of it, but it isn't told in any innovative way. It just barely works, and any time they pull the old unbreakable glass/can't-move-legs, must-swivel-head trick, it's much worse than a cutscene, or just not having the scene at all. It's so cheesy. BioShock, Half-Life, stop immobilizing my character in various ways whenever you want to show me something. Even a tram is too restrictive. Let me off the tram.

Relevance of story is dependent on game type and designer's ability to implement the said story well. If the game type is a CRPG and the story is implemented well, then its better to have it there than not.

mbp wrote:

When I want somebody else's story I read a book or watch a film. When I play games I want to create my own adventure, my own story. I need you the game developer to make that possible. [/i]

Quite honestly I believe that's the point that Elysium is going for. Without mechanics, there is no game. With the right mechanics in place, and a minimal framework in the way of story, the player can create their own "story." I use quotes here not to diminish what the player experiences -- because, really, they and their internal story are the key -- but to signify that the player's story is different beast then that of the game's creators.

Thanks for the article, Elysium. It's helped me crystallize some of the more nebulous thoughts I've had on the matter. Principally that of "the experience is the story", versus authorial narrative.

Elysium wrote:

There are a lot of ways that I'm not necessarily like other graduates sporting a fancy English degree from a state university.

One of us! One of us!

I'm willing to concede that, despite our similarities, you and I are not entirely alike. For example, I went to a private university -- and I'm not a filthy Minnesotan.

*Legion* wrote:

What they are excessively good at is allowing you to experience an event. They let you see for yourself what the lines and lines of narrative exposition in a book desperately try to paint in your mind. Dialog and cutscenes exist to provide context for the events you're experiencing firsthand.

The best games take me to interesting places and let me experience something neat. I've been playing the first Brothers in Arms, and I appreciate that the game doesn't pour on the narrative. ... Indeed, some of the few stumbles in the game's narrative come when the pre-mission voice-overs are taken a little too seriously.

You're right in this. The old writing admonishment is worth repeating: Show, don't tell. A game is about an experience, or a short string of experiences. Even some of the biggest stories in RPG history tend to amount to a few days in the life of a character (but for all the grinding). Perhaps this is a crucial split in gamers, but while some "escape" into games because the games free them of rules, restraints, and consequences, others seek escape because they want to be someone else – to experience a few poignant hours in another life.

souldaddy wrote:

In theater, song, literature, even poem and painting, story has always been important.

*Legion* wrote:

Games are not particularly good vehicles at telling "this happened, and then that happened" narratives.

I'll speak from why I know more personally here. Poetry is generally a pretty crappy medium for an extended narrative. Most epic poems could tell their story more easily and powerfully if they were freed of their verse, though a random quote pulled of its context might not seem quite as eloquent. Poetry, like games, is much better suited for individual experiences or moments (though of course both can add context to experiences by juxtaposing them with other experiences).

There are two things on my mind right now in terms of where games might want to start looking. The first is genre theory, especially for detective fiction. The second is a poem I ran into today. It's written by Lewis Warsh and titled "More Than You Know." If anyone wants to talk about either, I'd be delighted to join in.

[quote=Trainwreck]

mbp wrote:

I think it was your opening statement which seemed to connotate one stance and the rest of the post which argued the opposite that's confusing me. Maybe you could clarify it for me.

You have seen through me Trainwreck. The truth is I probably agree with Mr. Levine that "I couldn't care less about your stupid story". However I care very deeply about one story and that is the story I create myself as I play through the game. You see for me gaming is all about escape from reality and losing myself in a virtual World. Ken himself is strong on the importance of immersion but I am deeply concerned that the "stupid story" headline is being widely misinterpreted to mean that immersion is nothing, gameplay is everything. I am worried that game developers will pick up on this and all we will be left with is a million versions of peggle.

You are right of course that if the game play is so broken that you have to fight the controls then immersion is lost. Stalker Shadow of Chernobyl failed for me on just such a point. If you were to apply Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory to games then I believe that gameplay is a hygiene factor - it needs to be of a certain standard or the game is a write off but game play on its own does not make a superb gaming experience. For me immersion is the motivation factor and superb games must have superb immersion.

Yes Guitar Hero does not supply a story but I believe that every player invents their own. The immersion of pretending to be a rockstar is where the game scores. If you stripped out that intoxicating fantasy what you are left with is a game where people press coloured buttons in response to a sequence of flashing lights.

I love games and narratives, and games with strong narratives are what I search for. But stories are more than dialog - stories aren't just voiceovers, cutscenes, etc. Narratives are also told through mise en scene, when there is no dialog present, and Bioshock is full of that. You can express a story without words, solely with a series of images. Games where the ambient sound, the lighting, the background or "set" contribute to a narrative are the type of games I enjoy.

Maybe narratives in games are difficult because of the interactive nature of the medium. It's an active medium, one in which the actions character in the narrative are not scripted. But I feel like there is real promise there - that games could be more immersive than other more passive mediums. In Bioshock, there is a point where you as a character are forced through action to take on the perspective of other characters, and that part resonated with me. In Portal, the main character is presented with a situation were she is denied her freedom (and the "scene" with the companion cube reinforces this) - but there is a point where she can choose to not be obedient, and it's that point that the game feels like it comes off the rails. I enjoy those games where the narrative is told through player action - and to the extent that there is choice behind that action.

I'm not a huge fan of prior / recent attempts of story telling in games, but I'm optimistic and excited about the possibility (enough that I continue to search for games that tell and allow a player to take part in a story). I can't reduce it down to gameplay vs. story because the games I hope for would tell the story through the gameplay. I can't separate style and background from plot, story, and characters because all of those contribute to the story.

Poetry is generally a pretty crappy medium for an extended narrative. Most epic poems could tell their story more easily and powerfully if they were freed of their verse, though a random quote pulled of its context might not seem quite as eloquent. Poetry, like games, is much better suited for individual experiences or moments (though of course both can add context to experiences by juxtaposing them with other experiences).

Yes, then why have the Iliad and Odyssey survived thousands of years and not Homer's Tone Poems on Greek Life? I see a difference between a medium's strengths and the audience's desire.

Elysium wrote:

I can't remember for the life of me what the actual details of the story were in Baldur's Gate or even Ultima VII was to any meaninglful degree. What I remember is the set pieces, the game, the combat, the artwork, the visuals and the sense of place. I don't remember being moved by the story, which is most often a fairly short framework counter-pointed by a lot of fighting between the occasional story chunk and side quests. I don't remember being compelled forward so much because of the awesomeness of the narrative, which in most cases is just the standard fantasy fare, but by the gameplay.

I think these few sentences really get at the crux of the issue. Unlike the novel, where unless the author is really, really great or annoying as hell, the story is by and large the reason for reading. Movies are largely the same, but in many cases the story exists to put the action in context or to give the beautiful people a semi-plausible excuse to take a shower together.

In games, speaking broadly, the story gives a context for the gameplay. It isn't the main attraction, but it helps make the main attraction more accessible. A game can be worth playing without story or plot. Either because like porn, the action is enough to keep our attention, or in the much more rare cases of movies like Slacker the director is messing around with the questions like: "what makes a film worth watching?" or "what happens if I make a movie without a plot?" The former is much more prevalent than the latter, but the latter seems to get more attention from pointy-headed types.

If I were teaching a pointy-headed seminar on textual analysis of video games, I'd have everyone read Umberto Eco's short essay How To Recognize a Porn Movie When You See One. The pointed-headed crowd could smoke their cloves and nod at the deep thoughts, the rest of us could laugh, because we get the joke.

Oso wrote:

Unlike the novel, where unless the author is really, really great or annoying as hell, the story is by and large the reason for reading.

I don't agree with that statement at all. I just thought you should know that, because I bet you really, really care. I can't imagine why people re-read books if they only care about story, unless everyone has Alzheimer's and I just never noticed. Or forgot.

Oso wrote:

Movies are largely the same, but in many cases the story exists to put the action in context or to give the beautiful people a semi-plausible excuse to take a shower together.

I agree with that one, though. That's how I watch movies, mostly. The people showering together is a nice image and you should develop it more.

I wonder though, staring at my own comment, if I am wrong about my initial instinctual assessment. Listening to this weeks podcast was a bit enlightening on this subject. I think it was rabbit that pointed out how he would file away a game for awhile until he had at least become numb to the game before slipping it back in.

Gamers might do this to refuel their techniques but ultimately it is because the story is what drove the excitement of game play in epic games and in a very unique way. The value to the player in a replayed game is that their original struggles and choices throughout a great epic game could be altered, thus altering their own new future in the game itself via "morale" or adventure choices that would possibly change the ending itself.

Example: In KOTORII I first played a Dark Sided Jedi (lotsa shocking), then I played again as a Light Sided Jedi (lotsa boosting). A year later I kept myself right in the middle as a Gray Jedi (a bit of both) only deviating extremely for the benefit of entering the cave on Korribban and then returning to the straight middle path for the rest of the game. It took a bit but the ending was completely different then my previous incarnations. And you know what, I loved the story all three times.

I think Levine was dead wrong, or more likely he might have been playing tongue-and-cheek with an attentive community of developers and media journalists to see what they would do about his bombastic idea. A story must be dynamic in any epic plot-driven video game, and ready to change at a moments notice.

I'm sure a few of us older gentleman come from the days when we decided our fates by rolling dice on a table of GURPS, RIFTS, and of course D&D. Did you ever try to screw up your GM with some random ploy to see if he/she could deal with expanding their own tale? While a storyline in a video game should be directed in a way to immerse the player into a setting I would also hope the goal of any developer would be to build a game that was as dynamic as possible. The rest of our stories are from multiplayer nights in games like HALO3 when "so-and-so" teabagged "whats-his-name". But that's just dangling plasma guns around.

I think I'll wait a bit before I replay Bioshock and I think most people might feel compelled to replay it again (If they haven't already). Why? Well certainly it isn't because of the mechanics. Maybe I'll take all the little ladies out this next time, be a bad guy.

If I want to play a game without a story there is Tetris, chess, and quite a few other games that fail to immerse me in a story but still get the job done for less investment.

Nyles wrote:
Oso wrote:

Unlike the novel, where unless the author is really, really great or annoying as hell, the story is by and large the reason for reading.

I don't agree with that statement at all. I just thought you should know that, because I bet you really, really care. I can't imagine why people re-read books if they only care about story, unless everyone has Alzheimer's and I just never noticed. Or forgot.

Oso wrote:

Movies are largely the same, but in many cases the story exists to put the action in context or to give the beautiful people a semi-plausible excuse to take a shower together.

I agree with that one, though. That's how I watch movies, mostly. The people showering together is a nice image and you should develop it more.

I apologize for the double post but...ah well.

Nyles it looks like you take gaming seriously and you make very articulate arguments.

I am very sorry for your loss.

I keep thinking that there is a parallel here between video games and my first love, board games. The dynamic between gameplay and story is akin to the relationship of mechanics to theme in board games. Theme/story can't be the end-all, but it can serve to enrich our experience. In board game development, themes often come after the fact, but mechanics are honed over time. The mechanic has to be right, or you just don't have a game.