Slashdot Mirror
Jaffe Ditches Games With Stories
1up reports on David Jaffe's latest post to his blog, where he rails against games with stories, claiming that moving forward he'll be all about play for the sake of play. From the article: "Jaffe goes onto explain his thesis, believing many modern cinematic games don't properly play upon the raw 'real' emotions videogames can elicit: tension and release, fear and anxiety, triumph and defeat, and confusion and joy over challenges. We're wondering how Jaffe intends to make us cry without playing up the story elements, but we're interested in seeing him try. Maybe Project HL will simply feature an extended Path of Hades sequence ripped from God of War. I simply loved climbing those spiked poles for over an hour."
Good luck. I normally lose interest and never finish games if they have no story.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
http://www.davidjaffe.typepad.com/
;^)
Why someone would put up a news post with a link to a news post about a blog post is beyond me - unless they just wanted to drive traffic to 1up
I know what you mean. I mean, I simply couldn't get into Pac-Man. Why was he eating those dots? What was the backstory with the ghosts? Who could play a game like that which had no plot whatsoever...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
After all, without a story you can do "sequels" (read: Count up the release year and sell it as a new game) more easily.
Games with a harebrained story are a thing of the 80s. Where you could come up with some lame excuse for a story that's not even thin enough for a B-movie and have the player pretend that his block is some kind of soldier shooting some other blocks that represent enemies with smaller blocks pretending to be bullets to free a block that's supposedly the prince... whoops, sorry Mario.
But seriously. What do you want to sell a game with if not story? Graphics? We're already past super realistic 100% accurate graphics. If anything, story is a seller. A good story that keeps you on your toes, making you demand to see what's next, even hard enough that you overcome the most annoying obstacle just to see how it will continue, who that stranger was, who fired that shot in the dark, who is Luke's father...
You can't even sell a beat-em-up anymore without a decent story. Simply because all the rest is, essentially, the same as every other game. What's the huge difference between Half Life and Doom if not the story?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My favorite types of games lately are dungeon crawlers (Grandia Xtreme, Diablo 2, Dynasty Warriors sorta). I've tried Oblivion but the payoffs are simply too few and far between -- I can only finish maybe one quest a sitting for a grand total of like 43 gold and some rat meat.
For me, FF7 was a good blend of story and action (I've read several references to it being the first "boss rush" game). If only they'd let you skip cutscenes entirely (not just fast-read through 5 or 10 minutes worth) I'd be a happy camper.
If it is done properly, this could work out well, imo. I love a game with a good story, for sure, but you know, I don't actually go back and play those games more than once. I know what's going to happen in the story after I've played through once, so a story centered game has little point for me to play again. The games that I play over and over have little to no story, from the old NES and Atari games, to newer stuff such as Guitar Hero, Gran Turismo, or Katamari Damacy (which you could argue has a story, but it's hardly important to the gameplay). These are the games that I play again and again, because it's about the gameplay and none or very little of the enjoyment is tied into watching the story unfold.
Wouldn't a better response to the situation be "People aren't doing a good job with cinematic style games, so I'm going to write good ones?" It seems kind of non-intuitive to say "You guys suck at this type of game, so I'm going to focus on making the kind of game that you get right."
Chess and Go and Poker kept my interest longer than most computer games ever did. And of computer games, Tetris was fun, and I know plenty of people who sunk man-years into Minesweeper, and Solitaire (tells you something about windows users).
I'm glad I'm not the only one that got fed up on the Path to Hades. It just seemed to take the least fun part of the game and stretch it out for ages, just when my interest in the game was already waning. Especially annoying combined with God of War's crappy camera.
Counterstrike, Katmari, The Sims, Gran Turismo, Championship Manager... Nah, there's no good (or at least popular) games without a story...
I'm just exactly the opposite of him. I ONLY play games for the 'story'. (I call it an adventure, cuz generally the plot is a little lame.)
When I get a new game, I want it to be new. New characters, lands, weapons, magic, story, and yes, new challenges. A 'perfect' game for me has all of these. A game with only 1 or 2 is nearly useless to me and I'll quit in minutes. (Tao's Adventure for DS.)
This guy is exactly the opposite. He just wants challenge for its own sake, apparently even if its been done a million times.
Wow.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Anyone who has GMed a RL RPG should know about the 36 plots, and anyone familiar with drama should know about Aristotle's Poetics , which outlines the science of drama: plot, tension, characterization, all the way down to things like color, shape, harmony, and rhythm. We understand all that is necessary to dynamically generate interesting story lines which raise and release dramatic tension. Done by a computer, this could be customized to create stories the individual player finds interesting. Brenda Laurel did some intersting work in this field with her game company, Purple Moon. Although it was a commercial flop, the time may now be right for her approach. She also wrote a great book on computer-human interaction, analyzing it throught the lens of Aristotalian Poetics.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Slashdot's demographic is young males, a group who just so happens to like video games. It's quite simple.
I think that Jaffe is probably hinting more at incorporating story INTO the gameplay, as opposed to using gameplay only as a segway between cutscenes. Including dialogue without taking away the player's control of the character will create a game that's fun to play, not watch. However, have no fear, you will always have the Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid games to tell you good stories.
If video games are created by teams of designers and artists, how are they not art??? www.skylarscaling.com
Luminosity.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Personally, I don't think I would miss narrative being removed from games, as much of the time the stories in games just aren't very good. Maybe it's simply that I'm getting older (dangerously close to 30), but I have much greater expectations from the sorts of stories that games present now. However, much of what is released comes across as something intended for a gamer in their late teens or early 20s. That's all well and good, and if gamers in that age bracket are enjoying these narratives, kudos to them.
Nonetheless, with all of this talk about "graying gamers" I have to wonder how much of it is just lip service from publishers' spin doctors. If we're such an integral part of the future plans of the industry, as some pundits claim, why aren't there more stories that older gamers can get into? It seems that for every Planescape Torment that is released, there are a dozen games that feature banal, emo tales revolving around angsty teeny boppers.
Considering the state of most stories in games, I for one wouldn't necessarily miss them if they went away, as I have little faith that we're going to see a noticeable shift to better crafted stories in the foreseeable future. Sex and violence does not a mature story make, and I really wish people would abandon this 15-year-old, high school kid mentality on the matter.
It really depends. There's no way you can have a good RPG without a good story. In fact, the whole point is playing out the story. I've replayed Chrono Trigger more times than I can count because of the story.
With FPS games, the story sets up the universe and helps me get my head in the game. There's a difference between Unreal and Wolfenstein in feel, but the two draw on the same set of skills.
The same goes for RTS. Starcraft and C&C are essentially the same game, and the story sets them apart. You need to know the subtleties, but playing one is not far from playing the other. C&C isn't the equivalent of a sport in any country.
Another point to bring up is that multiplayer (except for co-op mode) doesn't have a story. I think that some people like games without a story because they may prefer playing against other people, not NPCs.
Some people don't care about the story at all. Some like RTS games or FPS games because they just like that style of play. They want to play the game, regardless of the story. A game without a story will appeal to that segment of the market.
If it is done properly, this could work out well, imo. I love a movie with a good story, for sure, but you know, I don't actually go back and watch those movies more than once. I know what's going to happen in the story after I've watched it through once, so a story centered movie has little point for me to watch again. The movies that I watch over and over have little to no story, from the old Jean Claude Van Damme and Jan-Michael Vincent movies, to newer stuff such as Jet Li, The Rock, or Jackie Chan (which you could argue has a story, but it's hardly important to the movie). These are the movies that I watch again and again, because it's about the action and none or very little of the enjoyment is tied into watching the story unfold.
Wow, I can't believe that I used to be pretty silly, enjoying all of those movies with good stories! ;-)
I'm not sure I'm understanding him clearly... it sounds to me like he's not just making one game without a story, but sticking to an ideal that he's going to be different by making no games with stories. The way I see it, stories CAN be an integral part to a game -- it depends on the type of game though. Let's say you're playing DDR... it's not the type of game that would go well with a story ("Okay... uhm... street-toughs took your girl and you have to dance to free her!"). Now, take that same "story = bad" mentality and apply it to a game like Half-Life ("I have a gun... uh... I guess I'll go shoot some people. ...'nah, I'll just sit here at my desk and sip coffee -- a resonance cascade is only theoretical anyways"). Story can make or break a game, but it whole-heartedly falls on the game type.
I personally enjoy story games, particularly open-ended or multi-pathed ones where there is a good base story but your character doesn't stick to a script.
Stories in games are like stories in movies -- if the cinematography is a certain type, it's fine to not have a story... but it is not possible to apply a blanket policy of story/no story to every piece of film.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
Two-word answer: gank camping.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
We're wondering how Jaffe intends to make us cry without playing up the story elements
If I want to cry, I'll read a sad book ($6.00) or buy a sad movie ($20.00). In a video game ($50.00) I expect any story to follow me, not the other way around. Since I'm very good at wandering off in directions the designer didn't expect and computers aren't very good at creating stories on the fly, things generally work better if there is little or no story to begin with.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
As for whether it's viable to have a game without a story. Sure it is quite possible. You take a game like Grandia or Diablo 2 or Shining Force Neo, the game's story is pretty much an excuse for there to be more stuff to kill because the game evolves around the game engine, not the story. If there was no story in these aforementioned games, it wouldn't bother me very much, if at all (I'd ask to at least have the names of the characters I'm using, though). In fact consider there is no one I know of known for story-writing in games, it'd be far more likely to have a good game without a story as opposed to a good game without say, gameplay or graphics.
Story is what carries you through the game? How many FPS's is there out there now adays? How many more can u create...there is only so much you can with the game play? I dont buy a new FPS because it has an awsome new Particle Cannon or something like that, i buy it for the Story.
The way that you play the game isnt the most important aspect, its weather it draws you in, and keeps you interested.
I dont know who here has played the game Farenheit for the Xbox, but its probobly one of the BEST games ive played to date. And the complexity of the game play is pretty much, move the thumb sticks back and forth....w00t! Not hard, but the story in the game made it like a movie, you were excited to see what happened next, and it was cool because it was like your part of a movie. The game was completely story based, and i enjoyed it more then most games i have played in the past few years.
Story line is 1 of the only ways remaining to make your game original. Sometimes people figure out a good new type of game, but mostly its the same old rehashed ideas, with new stories....that is what makes the half life serice so much better then Quake...and so on...game play can draw u in for a few hours..but eventually it will just repeat. If you have a Story that playes out over 30-40 hours, then then is always something new, and you want to see what will happen next. If all your doing it killing your way through a level, just to get to the next 1, and kill some more things, whats the point?
-EL
OK, every time this word comes up, I want to know what people mean by it (in fact it is the current post on my blog. plug... plug...).
The 1up story has the phrase, "cinematic games," but Jaffe's post doesn't mention the word cinematic at all (commenters have, but not Jaffe).
So, what is so "cinematic" about games? I can understand when people are talking about cut scenes, but other than that, what is so specifically like cinema about some videogames? (Unfortunatly, I don't have a PS2 so I haven't played God of War, so I don't know if there is anything specially "cinematic" about that game.)
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
I don't think it's that young, though. Considering the love that Nintendo gets around here, and the fact that the people posting aren't 8 years old, I'd guess the average age is at least in the high 20s. If there were more teens, you'd get more love for the Xbox.
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The division between gameplay and story is a false one. You can have great games with great story, and great games with no story. Why do people feel the need to argue about this? It's not like Jaffe is suddenly going to banish all bad games forever just based on his next non-story project. More than likely he's just out researching something public domain that he can decorate in spikes and blood anyway.
"Story games suck! My guy has tribal tattoos and bitchin' attack chains!" Yeah. I'll pay attention to Jaffe when he stops being mediocre.
Jaffe says that he immensly enjoys playing games with a good story. However, as a developer, he cannot enjoy playing the games he worked on, because he allready knows the story and every twist of it. Thus, he decided to not make a story-based game, because he does not enjoy doing story-based games. Hard to grasp, n'est-ce pas ?
"We're wondering how Jaffe intends to make us cry without playing up the story elements, but we're interested in seeing him try"
1) Hire people to hype the game over the internet and in the medias.
2) Increase the price of the game by 20$.
3) Make the game unbeleivably hard.
4) Make the end of the game unneccesary boring.
5) Make the game very short.
The results:
Millions of copies sold for an overhyped, overpriced game and millions of people crying for their lost money.
The problem is how Story is approached in most videogames. Most developers desperately want to be in Hollywood, from the looks of things. Games traditionally considered to have great stories (Oh, say, FFnth and MGS) told that story pretty much exclusively through cut scenes. This is bad, this is wrong, this is not how videogames should proceed. Cut scenes should be done away with. Completely? Yes, completely. For that matter, linear naritive structure should be done away with as well, but one step at a time. Videogames stand on the threashhold of becoming a very powerful story telling medium, but it's not stories like we get in books or movies, the game isn't TELLING you a story, YOU are telling the game YOUR story. The game itself is a pallete for the individual artist/gamer to express themselves with, for each player it should be an individual experience, uniquely crafted by you. Whether the technology is capable yet or not is debatable, but undoubtedly this is the way in which developers should proceed with "Story" in videogames.
The gameplay is the most important aspect of the game, hands down. That said, the story is what can enhance or destroy the gameplay experience. Let's face it, most games require repetitive actions with little to no variation. You can only go on so many quests in RPG's or build up a town and crush an enemy town so many times in an RTS, or shoot so many people in an FPS before you just get bored of the game. Sure, they can combine elements from the different genre's and make certain actions or skills unavailable until later in the game or whatnot to expand the gameplay enjoyment, but eventually you'll get bored or tired of the game. Like a previous poster had done, I've played Chrono Trigger about 20 times (and I'm actually thinking about starting it up again) after the year 2000 (game was released for the SNES) because 1) the gameplay was great (anything you did in the past effected things in the future) and 2) the story was captivating and kept me and still keeps me wanted to continue to play more and more to see all the different endings available. I've played 2 of the many C&C games and only finished red alert, but I've bought every Blizzard RTS as soon as they've hit the shelves. Why? Because Blizzard knows how to combine great gameplay and a captivating story to keep you interested in doing the same thing over and over again. Hell, I played that last mission in WCIII 10 times before I beat it. I was completely frustrated with how hard it was, but I kept trying because after all those hours of gameplay, I wanted to see how the story ended. The same didn't happen for me with the other C&C game (can't even remember which one it was) because after trying 3 times to finish it the hardest mission (not even the last mission) I just got frustrated and stopped playing. That being said, if the gameplay was crappy, I'd never play the game. I heard the Spellforce story is pretty good, but after 20 minutes of frustration trying to get used to the crappy controls, I gave up on the game.
Lumines for PSP doesn't have a story to speak of either. Neither does a free software clone of Lumines .
It's not about the games. I guess you're just too dumb to read the GP. It's that simple.
Some of us are lucky enough to enjoy all three steps in our day jobs: we enjoy the industry, we enjoy being able to contribute to conceptual designs and, we enjoy developing and completing projects.
So David doesn't like the workload required to implement his cool ideas. Two out of three ain't bad.
Or perhaps I'm reading his essay wrong.
And the thing is, once you have the IDEA, your fun- as a designer- is really over.
I'm thinking he's got a very limited view of his role here.
Why is it people generalize games saying "all games with stories are inferior to games without" or vice versa.
:( Video games should not be homogeneous... that more than anything else would alienate players. Variety is the spice of life right?
People play games for different reasons. To me it's like you're comparing reading a book with playing a sport.
Read a book: there's story, character involvement, emotion, closure, etc...
Play a sport: there's competition, victory / loss, teamwork, patience, dedication, joy / sorrow / regret, etc...
Sometime I want to play a game like counterstrike, where it's fun to try and get a high score, or just blow off some steam.
Other times I want to play a game like Final Fantasy, where there's characters to learn about, a world to explore, motives to uncover...
Anyone spouting commentary that all video games should conform to one playstyle is building a picture with half of the puzzle pieces
Some people's ignorance of how the video game industry works maddens me.
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse using these two as examples, but they really do show how a beautiful story can be told with video games. Especially if you are concerned with emotions being elicited by the game.
Granted, it also dawns on me that these two games may fall inline with what he means. Sure, they have a lead in story cinematic, but for the most part the entire contents of the game are removed from story elements.
The strongest raw real emotions in videogames are usually not the result of the story. Bad camera angles and controls during endless platform jumping often cause anger, rage, and even physical retribution when the controller meets the wall. One starts to ponder how cruel the world is. Fear and anxiety - random crashing does the job. Will I make it to the next savepoint? Triumph and defeat - what greater defeat is there than finding out 80% through the game that you can't finish Beyond Good & Evil because the key you need to continue appears above the ceiling and while the problem is known, there is no official patch.
Ms Pacman introduced the cut scenes and "story" to the game, which (I suppose) could be said to finish when you see the final cutscene with JR Pacman. However, there was one more level set afterwards, IIRC. (that's a big if; it might have been the repeat of the board prior to getting the Jr cut scene, at which time the boards stopped repeating)
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Most of the people commenting on this are missing his point. He's not against the story, he's against large scale stories that are all told in cutscenes, I must agree with him. Half-life 2 does what few others have done, have interactive "cutscenes". It works well though it's not for everything, Doom 3 and Quake 4 both had well done systems where story is told through out the mission and cutscenes only happen once in a while when you MUST.
I wouldn't say his God of War game was too cutscene heavy though the cutscenes definatly killed the action and feel of the game. Instead of watching as the titan gets close and you jump on him, why not do it yourself as a voice over tells you the story, and then you'd climb up the titan, it'd take a while but the payoff in the size and feel of the game would be bigger.
"We're wondering how Jaffe intends to make us cry without playing up the story elements"
Spawncamping, pure and simple. The only hard part is finding ways to stop people from quitting.
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They'll be saving money on FMV sequences and writers.
Or were you talking about writing the entire story?
Take your average Final Fantasy game -- the story alone could've taken years to write. Next to that, God of War is nothing. But you're comparing it to Ratchet and Clank? That would take a good writer maybe a week or two.
If you want to talk about story without cutscenes, I'd bring it back to Half-Life. Even Half-Life 2 definitely has some cutscenes, some characters and areas that are obviously intended to be scripted and cinematic. Half-Life leaves the player in control, with no dialog at all, for the vast majority of the game. And it still manages to tell a story.
I'd be excited about a game like that.
What God of War was good at was just being fun. The mythology was just there to help, it's easy enough to invent your own. How much do you think it took to get the basic idea for Halo? I know there's much more to it, but come on -- first game is ringworld + star wars + the Chief. Let me make a new one up for you right now: Texas hick is experimented on by the government using alien tech and is now much stronger and skilled with firearms, the Civil War is still going on, and he fights for the south for awhile -- then switches sides and crushes the south.
See? See how easy that was?
The hard part is translating that into a game and properly fleshing it out. Some people do it in cinematics, some do it in-game, some don't do it at all.
And some people choose to ignore why their badass is such a badass and simply make a game that plays well. I haven't finished God of War (rental, had to send it back) but it was a lot of fun. The gameplay was fun and unique, and the over-the-top gore just made it awesome.
Think back to Doom. So many Doom clones, so many boring FPSes -- was the original Doom that much better? Ah, but it was fun and unique!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Instead of Slashdot "word vomiting" about what some other blog said about what David Jaffe said, why not just read what David Jaffe said? He does have some good things to say -- particularly that he doesn't think that single-player adventure games are dead, a bad medium, a bad idea, or anything like that -- he just doesn't want to work on them anymore.
Think about it -- you finish tweaking Tetris, Pong, Street Fighter, etc, you can still enjoy playing them, but by the time you finish Zelda, God of War, or Final Fantasy, not so much, because you already know every surprise, plot twist, minigame, everything the game throws at you is something you've already seen so many times. I imagine it's a bit like writing a book -- after you're finished writing it, you probably can't read it through once, that's what you need editors for -- after all, how many books do you read through more than once or twice? After you finish writing one, you've read through and written and rewritten most of it so many times that you can't stand it.
This isn't always true, and certainly not for everyone. I write differently, for instance -- when I finish writing a story, I certainly can read it again, because I only write once, straight through, only ever editing a sentence or two back from where I am. I almost never do second drafts.
But I can understand why he would be getting sick of doing that, and why it would lead him to say those things. After all, at least part of it is what we've all been thinking. On some level, most of the games we're playing are really still subject to the same complaints people have about Street Fighter -- sure, it has plot, but the plot and gameplay are completely separate. If you're lucky, you get a cinematic after defeating a particular opponent. But this is true of so many games it's not funny -- Halo (and Halo 2), GTA, Doom 3, Quake 4, Final Fantasy, Beyond Good & Evil... Very few games tell any story with the game world and the gameplay. Most just cut to cinematics -- or worse, text or voice (Doom 3's PDAs).
Every now and then, we get games that tell a significant part of the story in the gameplay and environment -- and even then, much of it is the environment. Examples would be Zelda, Half-Life (and Half-Life 2), Quake 4. Yeah, Quake 4 is both, because it does cut to cinematic in a lot of places I wish it wouldn't, but the cinematics, voiceovers (radio), text, and gameplay are woven together so well that it mostly feels like a story is being told, but you don't have to pull too far out of the gameplay and game world to tell it. And I don't mean the gimmicks like still being barely in control on the Strogg operating table. I guess being a long game helps...
And of course, there are also the games with little or no story, or where the stories you live are so much more interesting. Natural Selection, Counter-Strike, UT2004, and the few MMOs that have completely unobtrusive stories, but play well enough to justify it. Nexus TK is an example -- the only reason it's got such a great story is that it's built up over seven or eight years. MMOs are also interesting in that if they do actually advance the story (most seem too afraid to), it's like real life in that it impacts everyone differently; everyone has their own story to tell.
But then, MMOs often get accused of having little or no story, or of simply providing the forum and letting their players do everything themselves. You don't play World of Warcraft because it's a good game, you play it because that's where your friends are, that's where your guild is...
Kind of like MySpace, actually...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I hate to be cliche, but how about minding your own business? I'm sick and tired by now of people telling me what kind of games I should play, how should I spend my free time, and what medium I should prefer for this and that. If I like games with a story, what exactly is the problem? How exactly is it anyone else's business?
Plus, just to be nasty, I can't help noticing that the "go read a book if you want a good story" snottiness is the most thrown around by people who, in fact, _don't_ read books either. It's, in fact, become the standard excuse to be the gaming equivalent of a couch-potato. The same kind that would otherwise flop on the couch and watch football for a few hours, and get their brains completely turned off for the whole duration.
So, yes, by all means, take your own advice. Go read a novel. Watch a movie with a plot. Whatever.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Wow. That article is kind of scary. That guy sounds like a total sociopath and perfectly unable to feel anything or relate.
Who the heck cries while playing a game? I mean, it's a game. I find it hard to believe that the rehashed, hackneyed crap which passes for plot in 98% of the games today would induce real pathos. Maybe I'm just not sensitive enough.
Where is the Blow up Zombies plot? huh? huh?
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been scared by games.
Doom
Clive Barkers Undying is freaky scary.
I could concieve of a game that has sad components that could cause people to cry.
Matter of fact, it would be an interesting challenge.
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Galaga was the story of how evil alien insects where tryinh to get to earth.
Of maybe it was the story of why I was always went broke 25 cents at a time.
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