Stanford Conference Puts Games Under Spotlight

Thanks to GameSpot for its pair of articles discussing initial proceedings of a day-long Stanford-hosted symposium on games, and further discussions on storytelling in games from the same event. Highlights included Kevin O'Hara of Sony Online Entertainment discussing "encouraging players to create the content for the game themselves" in Star Wars Galaxies, and Will Wright of Maxis commenting, with relation to storytelling in games: "I've never really wanted to tell a story in a game", with Sheldon Pacotti, writer on Deus Ex and its sequel, arguing "...a good game lets players create their own stories."

Comments

I'm going to buck the trend here

[Mukaikubo]

The first thing I want to know, when deciding if I'm going to get a game, is how interesting the story is.

There is a single solitary thing that every game I love has in common, and that is an engrossing story. Deus Ex (the first), Alpha Centauri (I nearly wigged the first time I transcended and read that ending Book of Planet text), a couple RPGs (Final Fantasy 6/7, Chrono Trigger, et alia), some old text adventure games, and so on.

I'd say about 50% of my enjoyment of a game is the story, with most of the remainder going to gameplay and music clinging to a few grim percentage points. Graphics factors in not a single whit.

Re:I'm going to buck the trend here

[Haeleth]

I have to agree. Storyless games can be fun for a quick blast, but the only games that have ever kept me up late at night have been the ones with very strong stories.

In fact, though I suspect I'm about to place myself in a tiny minority, I'll go so far as to say that even gameplay is unnecessary. The last action-based title I played to death was Deus Ex - and the aspects I liked of that didn't involve the much-hyped "emergent gameplay" of the sequel. Most of my gaming time these days goes to "visual novels" - basically nothing but story, music, and (static) visuals, with the gameplay limited to making the occasional choice.

A lot of people say things like "give me action; if I wanted to read a lot of text I'd get a book". Well, to each his own, but all I can say is that if I wanted to do a lot of mindless hacking and slashing I'd get a sword, and I turn to my computer to exercise my mind and imagination, not my mouse hand.

Maybe the companies quoted in the story don't want my money anyway, but if they do they'd be well advised to change their opinions...

Re:There are two different concepts getting mixed.

[darkmayo]

"but would people be as obsessed with GTA3/Vice City if they had no story to speak of?
"

Probably not so much, behind the story is a great gameplay but the gameplay is molded by the story. If there was no story line then I could see the gameplay of GTA moving from a single player game to a multiplayer game. Without the story you take away the main reason for conflict so the developers would have to look elsewhere for competition/conflict which would be other players.