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."

Comments

no story? Baloney

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

Good luck. I normally lose interest and never finish games if they have no story.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AKAImBatman]

If a game has mediocre game play (the vast majority of them do) then the story is what saves the game and makes it worth while.

I hate to be cliche, but go read a book. Life is too short to play lousy games just to "experiece" a thoroughly rehashed story.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

You can't sit there and tell me there's no story in Street Fighter (maybe initially, but by the alpha series there was a shitload of backstory) and to be honest I did enjoy most of those games (don't try and tell me that STUN Runner or SFRUSH are good games though)

I though impulsively that they'll make FPS games with no story, and no that we've seen close to a bajillion FPS games, the only thing now that can really make one better than another is story. Story and Gameplay. and if someone like Jaffe could make a game chock full of gameplay w/o the story, don't you think it would have been done already?
Also fun never had anything to do with what I said earlier. I had a shitload of fun playing GTA2, but did I ever finish that? hell no.
GTA3 and Vice City though, had me hooked enough on the story to actually want to finish them. same with HL 1 and 2. Not the same with Doom3. . .

And one more thing I wanted to bring up is that, all those games are old school. Try and find a good storyless game like those in the past 5 years? Did you? I didn't think so.
Old school games are fun because that's all they are, old school games. They were often hard or challenging, which kept you saying "Just one more level" or "I just need to hold on to the spreader until the boss."
Now however, videogames are just as much digital expression of either technological advancement or creative expression as they are games now.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AKAImBatman]

You can't sit there and tell me there's no story in Street Fighter

I can and I will sit here and state that Street Fighter II was without a story.

don't try and tell me that STUN Runner or SFRUSH are good games though

Don't try to push your personal preferences on everyone. STUN Runner and SFRush are awesome games. Just because you don't like them doesn't change the fact that millions of fans would agree with me.

if someone like Jaffe could make a game chock full of gameplay w/o the story, don't you think it would have been done already?
[...]
Try and find a good storyless game like those in the past 5 years? Did you?

Allow me to introduce you to my good friends Sid Meier and Will Wright. Say hello guys! Hey, can you tell us about your great new games like Civilization IV and The Sims? How many millions of dollars did these games net you? You know, I hear that you guys managed to pull off these games with no storyline what-so-ever! That's just incredible! I've heard about games like Roller Coaster Tycoon, but your offering take the cake!

Isn't technology incredible? Now back to AcidLacedPenguiN for a gloomy weather forecast.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AKAImBatman]

Plot != Storyline

The plot is the fairly static concept of what you're doing, while the Story is the narrative that slowly exposes the plot. The old games had a plot, but they lacked any sort of narrative short of an end-game sequence. This has been hashed, rehased, and hashed again every time this subject comes up on Slashdot; always to the same conclusion.

Sorry.

Please deposit 25 cents for another lesson.

Plot does not always matter

[why-is-it]

Good luck. I normally lose interest and never finish games if they have no story.

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...

I dunno, he's got a point

[voice_of_all_reason]

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.

What about dynamically generated stories?

[spun]

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.

One word

[BlackCobra43]

Luminosity.

Jaffe Ditches loves games with story...

[grumbel]

If you read the actual blog instead of that summary of a summary, you will find out that he is not tired of games with story:

As a game player, I find myself enjoying single player action adventure games more than I have since I was a kid. I get immersed in them more, get more wrapped up in the stories (even the ones told thru cut scenes), and actually feel like I am living the adventure.

So he isn't tired of playing them, quite the opposite, he loves them, what he is however tired of is developing those games, since the experience developing them is a lot less entertaining then the experience playing them.

Re:EA will rejoice

[winmine]

What do you want to sell a game with if not story?

What about gameplay? As in, the expansive decision making process that defines games as a distinct art form?

What's the huge difference between Half Life and Doom if not the story?

You're being aggresively ignorant; I don't see how it's possible not to see the difference between Doom's constant survival action and Half-Life's paced and thoughtful puzzle mechanics intermixed with unique and hectic battles. They're practically polar opposites from map architechture to the underlying mindset the game expects out of its players.

Stop paying attention to this guy

[StocDred]

Jaffe is just dropping quasi-incendiary weblog bombs to keep his name out there. He has one of the shortest resumes in the business, but everybody bends over backwards to hear his latest "insight."

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.