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Will Wright's Dream Machines
Mike writes "Will Wright writes in Wired Magazine, primarily centering his focus on imagination, how it affects the way we play games, and how it is affected in turn by the games we play. From the article: 'Games cultivate - and exploit - possibility space better than any other medium. In linear storytelling, we can only imagine the possibility space that surrounds the narrative: What if Luke had joined the Dark Side? What if Neo isn't the One? In interactive media, we can explore it.'"
You should take a look at what Will Wright is actually working on before making a broad statement like that. He knows what kind of crappy spiral MMOs are taking, he's trying to innovate beyond trying to get the outfits skimpier and the blood shinier:
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=837260333
The developer maybe, but that might not be the final developer. As a (former) coder on a MUD with an internal TCL scripting language, I was most of the time happily surprised to see what the people who build areas in the MUD came up with. A lot of that made me go "I never would have come up with it", but still I'm the one who made the original code which made this possible.
So possibilities don't end where you fantasy ends, it ends where the combined fantasy of others end. And that is often much further and in a way different direction that you can come up with.
bash$
As much as I love the Elder Scrolls, they are not "open-ended" because the end of the main storyline is the same no matter how you play.
For Example, in Morrowind you could only destroy the tools, not use them to make yourself a god, or use them to make the Three gods, gods again
But they are awsome in that they are open games, with many many diversions which allow for multiple hours of fun without playing the "main" Game. And with the PC versions you basicly have an almost unlimited ammount of extra fun, (though you would need at least two people making mods for each other to keep this going...because if you make everything it's not too fun to play, since you know where everything is and the correct way to end it.)
Mr. T carries a postage stamp in his wallet at all times on the back is a list of all the fools he doesn't pity
In most games, what you are saying is correct.
But there are plenty of games which are based on randomness and emergent behavior that isn't canned. For example, the Sims/Sims2 and Sim City narrative isn't canned. The game simply provides a sandbox that the player is able to create their own story in. Same goes for games like the Civ games, or The Movies. MMPOGs have narrative that comes from player interaction. Even the new Elder Scrolls: Oblivion game gives you a whole dynamic world that you can create all sorts of unscripted stories in (although it also includes scripted stories... so many that it creates the illusion of them being almost unscripted). Even GTA, which most of the story goals are canned, it allows for completely uncanned ways to accomplish those goals within the world (most players of the GTA have done all sorts of crazy things that the origional programmers never intended, that are completly new and emergent).
It only stands to reason that as machines become more powerful, that there will be even more ways to allow for a dynamic story. Some sort of cellular automata of narrative elements, or something like that.
There are plenty of linear, canned option games out there... but the real power of the game as a medium is the open endedness of it.