Stories in Games Matter, Right?

1up has a piece looking at what exactly David Jaffe meant when he said he was 'no longer doing story'. They examine how this ties into the Lester Bangs discussion, and hear from some other designers on where they think story falls within the realm of game design. From the article: "Warren Spector: Games are all about the player experience -- about DOING things, not about watching things or hearing about things. And that means that a narrative game has to put the player experience first and the narrative second. However, left to their own devices, most players aren't very GOOD at crafting compelling experiences -- just as most readers aren't good writers, and most moviegoers aren't great directors. And that's where story comes in."

Comments

FP?

[dosius]

Depends on the game really. For 1:1 fighters and FPSes, and platformers, yeah. I like a story. But games like Tetris, nah.

-uso.

It's not that important.

[mashuren]

Good gameplay can save a game with a terrible story. But a good story can't save a game with terrible gameplay.

Re:It's not that important.

[Gulthek]

But a good story can't save a game with terrible gameplay.

Counterexample: Interactive Fiction (Infocom) games. Of course I don't think their gameplay is "terrible", but it is certainly lackluster for most people when compared with graphical games.

Re:It's not that important.

[Sentry21]

I look at Fable as an example contrary to your assertion. Fable had good gameplay (the core was solid, anyway), but there was no reason for me to progress. I didn't care about my characters, I didn't care about the world, I didn't care about my sister or mother, or the town I grew up in. I played through the game in the hopes that there would be something redeeming at the end, and not just 'You killed the bad guy. The end.'

Fable was a disappointment in that a lot of the gameplay innovations that were promised were never delivered on, but it was such a bland game that there may as well not have been a story. It would have been just as compelling if the 'story' had just been presented as 'Go here and kill this guy', which is not far off from what they provided.

When I compare that with a game like Jade Empire, where I actually felt bad for doing bad things when I was playing evil, and felt good for doing good deeds. I read every letter of the scrolls I found, because I was truly interested in the world around me and in finding out the history of the world and who the people were that I was always hearing about. The gameplay in JE wasn't that fantastic - in fact, it was astonishingly repetetive - but I enjoyed the game immensely more than I did in Fable, because it was a compelling story that I wanted to unfold, and because I had an emotional investment in the characters and their situation.

You don't need a good story to have a good game (look at Mario or Tetris), but for certain genres, it is imperative that the developer give the player a reason to progress. If the gameplay makes up for the poor story, then fine, but I'd rather have a good story.

Re:It's not that important.

[grumbel]

### Good gameplay can save a game with a terrible story. But a good story can't save a game with terrible gameplay.

Ever played Dreamfall? Actual gameplay in that game is really almost non existant, almost no puzzles, a fight system that is plain awefull and a sneaking system that isn't exactly much fun either by any means. Even for an adventure game its really very low in terms of gameplay. If it wouldn't be for the story and art there really would be exactly nothing worth to play Dreamfall. The story however is great and thanks to it and the awesome art direction that game still scored reasonably well (5/5 at Gamespy, 8.1 at gamespot, 7.5 ign, etc). A good story can certainly boost a game a lot and be the only reason to play a game in the first place.

That of course doesn't mean that gameplay is unimportant, a story like Dreamfall with some actually good gameplay inbetween would be great, better then the game it is now. However good gameplay really isn't a requirement, the only important part is that gameplay doesn't get in the way of the story, if you die a hundred times and just get stuck you won't ever find out how the story continues, so it that is of course a thing to avoid, but lack of challange or actual play really can be quite secondary to some games.

Re:It's not that important.

[lgw]

The lack of good gameplay (relative to text adventures) is precisely what turned me off to modern interactive fiction. I liked the Infocom games, on the whole, but while the story is much better in modern IF, the player doesn't contribute much. You mostly walk from one page of the book to the next.

It's nice when a game has a good *backstory*, but the story inb a game is only interesting if you the player help create it (or at least the game does a good job of giving that illusion).

Re:It's not that important.

[identity0]

Gameplay isn't everything. There are these things called 'movies', which are basically no gameplay and all story - or sometimes, all special effects and no story. They still manage to entertain.

Hell, there are more to games than just gameplay ans story, too. I've played games just because I liked the music and art, like Jet Grind Radio, or character designs like Zelda Wind Waker and Pikmin.

JGR and Rez were interesting because they had a 'feel' or 'aura' that I liked, and I mostly played them to immerse myself in the world created by them. They both had passable gameplay and some story, but the main thing about them was that they made you feel like you were a very cool, skilled character in a interesting world. That kind of immersion is what draws me to a lot of games.

Why do I play Rogue Squadron instead of Random_Space_Shooter? Because I get to fly an X-wing. Why Pikmin instead of some other puzzler? Because the characters are so darn cute, and I want to imagine these guys running around in my garden (yes, I am a guy). Playing Pikmin actually reminded me of playing with Legos as a kid, or keeping fish as pets. That kind of thing is the appeal that drives games like Nintendogs, Sims, or Animal Crossing.

I can deal with crappy play mechanics as long as it doesn't prevent me from progressing. But imagine if there were a game with good gameplay, but terrible story. Take the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game. Now imagine Disney or McDonalds releasing a clone, where you do all the same things, but all the actions have been changed to 'kid-friendly' versions. Instead of carjacking, you ask people nicely, and they give you their car. Instead of getting a blowjob, you get a nice shoulder rub that increases your health. Your missions include delivering burgers, squirting people with a water gun, and other wholesome activities. All the game actions would be the same, it would just be presented in a completely different manner. It would suck.

Also, the old adventure games typically had gameplay that was not so good, but relied on story, humor and drama to keep things going. Unfortuantely, the majority of the gaming public seems to agree with the "story sucks" sentiment, so we are not seeing those anymore. I think 'Trace Memory' for the DS is the only old-fashioned adventure out there right now. Man, I wish they would release a new Roger Wilco or Kyrandia game.

It's really simple.

[truthsearch]

You can make a game where there's no story at all and the player gets total freedom. That can get boring if the average player doesn't know how to create an experience or there feels like there's no point to being in the game. You can make a game where there's a strict story and the player has few options. That can get boring because the user doesn't have to think much.

So every game needs to strike a balance depending on its goals.

If stories mattered in games

[hey!]

Wouldn't they hire great known writers to create game-friendly stories, instead of cobbling some kind of nonsensical mishmash together themselves?

And I don't count movie adaptions, because you already know how the story ends.

Re:If stories mattered in games

[supabeast!]

"Wouldn't they hire great known writers to create game-friendly stories..."

Call me crazy, but I doubt that too many great known writers would want to write for video games. Maybe game companies could get people who churn out pulp gaming fiction or horror novels to come on board, but that would likely churn out the same derivative crap we get now, although the dialogue might be a little better.

Re:If stories mattered in games

[hey!]

Call me crazy, but I doubt that too many great known writers would want to write for video games.

Douglas Adams comes to mind. But his sort of game is kind of anachronistic.

Perhaps this is catch-22. Maybe the game industry doesn't have any great stories because the it has not attracted any great story tellers. Maybe great storytellers aren't attracted to games becuase there aren't any examples showing that you can tell a great story through a game.

Maybe game companies could get people who churn out pulp gaming fiction or horror novels to come on board, but that would likely churn out the same derivative crap we get now, although the dialogue might be a little better.

Who knows can say for sure whether there is potential for a terrific writer to do satisfying and creative work in the game medium until somebody actually does it? On the other hand if it's impossible (as I suspect may be the case but am not sure) then we'll never be able to be certain. Yet I do not think the problem is that gaming is beneath the dignity of an author. Supposing some day a great writer, like a Neil Gaiman, wrote a story centric game that (a) demonstrated that there is serious creative potential in the medium and (b) made him a lot of money, then I'd bet writers would be all over gaming like white on rice.

One potential might be for journeyman writers to work on creatively weak aspects of games, such as dialogue. If there were enough of them, and potential existed for telling great stories in a game, then sooner or later some dialog tweaking drone will write the next American Gods, only it will be in the computer game medium.

Re:If stories mattered in games

[joystickgenie]

This is an idea that is brought up in the industry quite a bit. There is a view that people in the game industry can't be good writers and can't fit a story together and that if we hire pro writers the problem will go away.

There is a problem with that though people who write book scripts and screenplays have no idea how to write for a game. In books and screenplays the writer has complete control, the writer has complete control of the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the story, character in the story, and setting of the story. The writer has complete control over all of these things.

All of those factors can be taken away from the designer through games. Game designers do not have that luxury where and when, those aspects are completely up to the player because they have direct control over the characters actions. The what, and how is only partially in the designers control, you may know they have to do a certain action but you don't know what item or skill they are going to use to do it. The who and why can even be taken out of the designers hands at times, in the care of games where the player gets to make a custom character you can't make and references back to who the character is or why he wants anything.

Games are a unique medium where you have to try and tell a story without forcing a the player down it. Every time you define a who what where when why or how in a game the player feels like they are in less control over it. There is a balance you have to keep in games between what is defined and what is not. You have to give the player control over things at times and at other times you have to take it way. This is a balancing challenge that takes a lot of practice and understanding of the medium to work out. Just hiring a professional writer will not solve the problem telling stories in games correctly in fact it may make it harder to overcome. Games need designers who can write compelling stories. Designers have to be able to think like a programmer see like an artist and write like a professional writer while keeping in mind that they will not be in control over the final product. This is very hard to come by hence why stories in games is such a challenge.

Re:If stories mattered in games

[Sage Gaspar]

"Great known writers" don't know how to write a good game. A good story makes use of the interactivity of the medium, and I'm not talking about being able to run and shoot.

An excellent, fairly recent example of this interactivity is Shadow of the Colossus, where at key points in the game you're given control over the character during a situation where you have absolutely no chance of prevailing. It dials up the dramatic tension by several notches and allows the player to experience the story rather than having it dictated to them. There have always been games where you're "supposed to lose" -- I'm looking at the standard RPG hallmark of the unwinnable battle -- but mostly these are cliched sideshows to the main action; you might as well have a cutscene for all they're worth.

Movie adaptations, by the by, have yet to turn out a game with a good story.

Re:If stories mattered in games

[supabeast!]

"Douglas Adams comes to mind. But his sort of game is kind of anachronistic."

Not to mention that his games were custom-written for his fanbase. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing - it made a lot of sense in the 1980s when his books were explosively popular in english-speaking nations - but at the same time, neither of his games really had any appeal to anyone who wasn't already into his work.

"Supposing some day a great writer, like a Neil Gaiman, wrote a story centric game that (a) demonstrated that there is serious creative potential in the medium..."

It could happen, and I would like to see it happen, but I don't think the industry has been in a position to do so for a long time. I think that stories in games died after Planescape:Torment and System Shock 2 both flopped commercially, despite being two of the most critically acclaimed games ever. Now publishers are just too damned risk averse to try and do a great game by a great writer.

Maybe it could happen in Japan, but the rest of the world would just get a bad translation :( I shudder to think about the game we could get if Mistwalker studios teamed up with Gaiman for a big multi-national uber-RPG, but that probably won't happen...

Gameplay first. Story second

[digitrev]

Like what mash said, you need good gameplay. Without it, you have nothing. I would much rather play a 2 hour game with great gameplay and no story, than a 5 hour game with piss-poor gameplay and an amazing story. Half the time I end up skipping the story anyways. I want to play, not watch a damn movie or read a book.

Re:Gameplay first. Story second

[trdrstv]

Sometimes the story is engrossing, but in general I play a game to play a game. Infact Multiplayer options play heavily into my purchase decisions, as they get more use. One I finish a game where the story is the driving force it sits on the shelf, and only the ones with REALLY tight gameplay get pulled back out.

Re:Gameplay first. Story second

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

which is why we need games that are multiplayer AND have a story. I mean, just a year or so ago there was this survival horror game (I can't believe I forgot the name) that took place in a school and you could play co-op with another person. To be honest the game didn't play very well (I'm not a Survival Horror static camera kind of gamer) but following the story together kept us playing.

Go to the Forge

[Valdrax]

The Forge is a website dedicated to trying to create indy, table-top RPG games. It was created by the author of the indy RPG Sorceror who wrote an essay that defined three broad different player agendas for playing a game: Simulationism, Narrativsim, and Gamism.

Roughly defined:
Simulationism is about experiencing or exploring a setting, situation, character, etc.
Narrativism is about story.
Gamism is about defeating challenges.

Most good games contain elements of all three, but the best focus on one or two areas to deeply satisfy a kind of gamer.

All this guy is doing is what many game snobs have done time and time again before -- stating that one of these three play style is The One True Style and demanding that everyone else create games that satisfy his gaming goals. I personally enjoy the very kinds of games that he is bashing the most and find the open-ended exploration RPG to be boring and pointless. That doesn't mean that I think they shouldn't be made, though -- unlike him.

In other words, let's just leave this guy to his own elitist irrelevance, move on, and create games that satisfy different players.

When's the last time

[Astarica]

You heard anybody recognized in a game for writing the story? Sure, the designers get recognized, but even if they wrote the story, they do more than just that.

Games have the disadvantage in that a poorly designed system constantly undoes any sense of immersion. If I wrote: "The heroes fought against the supreme evil, and it was a hard battle but they won", you can at least believe that this thing I wrote about is supposed to be hard. If you act it out in a movie, even with pretty bad acting it's not hard to make a reasonable pass that this is supposed to be a hard battle. But how can you possibly take something seriously if you demolish the supreme evil in 3 hits? It's a lost art to balance game remotely as difficult as what your story claims to be. In theory, the final battle in any game is supposed to be the climatic one, and the most difficult one which is why victory has meaning. But there are plenty of games where the last battle isn't remotely the hardest one, not even counting super extra hard gimmick bosses.

Stories matter in Games...

[Overzeetop]

...like articles matter in porno mags.

Re:Stories matter in Games...

[ichigo 2.0]

"Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important." - John Carmack, iD Software

And we all know how fun his games are...

Not always...

[kabocox]

I hated the story in FFX, but it was an excellent game besides the story or the characters of Wakka, Yuna, or Tidus. I found FFX fun inspite of the story not because of it. I'd almost say the same thing about KH2. I love playing KH2 and the actual game playing excellent, but the story isn't something that I really cared about.

I'd like to see Square make a game that wasn't a super environmentalist the world will end because the life blood of the planet is running out because of our single evil corporation/empire. I've been kinda of sick of that plot thread for awhile. I'd actually like to see the reverse that the evil Mana/heart of the world is flourishing creating monsters and its your group's task to stop/kill off the evil heart of the world so that humans can continue to live peacefully in a hightech civilization.

Stories matter to me.

[EnsilZah]

There are two kinds of games i like to play, Story based and Skill based.
Story based ones are like a good book or a movie, games like Fallout, Homeworld, The Dig, Half Life 2 to a lesser extent.
I don't really mind that the gameplay is pretty linear.
Skill based ones are games like HL2DM or Warcraft 3 on battlenet.
The fun i get out of those is that i learn how to beat other people.

Now if you look at a game like Oblivion, which i think was rather boring, you have a huge world with lots of side quests, lots of eyecandy, but when you get down to every element it's rather simple and uninspired.

I think that game makers shouldn't try too hard to make games seem nonlinear because they eventually will be anyway, only crappier.

Stories DO Matter

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

Think about it... how many games do you know of that have been made in the past few years that don't have a story? There's a handful of puzzlers, true, but the number of those pale in comparison to the myriad FPS's, RPGs, strategy games, etc. being released every year.

And what do they all have in commin? They have a story.

Everything these days - down to the deep-engrossing plot of Farenheit/Indigo Prophecy to the spiritual journey of Prey - has a story. Sports games have a story; see the "career mode" that most have. Open-ended games like GTA3 and Oblivion have a story, though it's skippable. Heck, even the "gameplay-based" games released for major consoles these days have one; they may be forgettable - who really remembers the premise for Katamari Damacy? - but they're at least there to give the character, and by extension the player, some motivation. They keep us playing, to an extent, because we have a reason for playing beyond beating our high score or getting the next uber weapon.

And while some may consider them an artificial or contrived way of doing so, they aren't any more than the plot to your favorite concept album is a contrived way of keeping you listening. Sure, "Operation: Mindcrime" is good music, but would people love it as much if the music wasn't framed around a story of the dangers of fanatical devotion to an ideology? Just so, would Half-Life, Warcraft 3, or Diablo II be the same if you removed the story behind them? Sure, they'd still be fun, but there would just be something missing.

So, yes, stories are important in modern games. (Note that I added the qualifier "modern" to pre-empt the usual reply of, "but games from 1982 didn't need stories!" Yeah, and they also didn't need more than four bits per scanline.)

it's about the character

[crazycarl812]

More important than the overall story is the main character. When you play a game you take control of the character and if that character has no purpose, no meaning and no motivation, what do you have? Do you have a plane that simply shoots down other fighters with mega weapons or are you a rogue fighter on a philosophical task (with mega weapons)? Are you driven to play because you want to see what this character can do, or what the plane can do?

If you're going to develop a character you're already on your way to a story and I just can't say that I don't want to know what my character is thinking. I want to be able to agree or disagree. I want to be able to take risks that I may or may not think my character is capable of doing, not just what I think I can do by controlling the character.

For me, yes. See "Marathon" vs. "Doom" and Bungie

[interactive_civilian]

Back in the early/mid-90s, when FPS were just starting to grow, everyone was all about Doom and Doom II. You know: Run around. find red key. find door. push button. next level. All while shooting anything that moved.

Then a small company called Bungie Software(now Bungie Studios, owned by Microsoft) came out with Marathon. It didn't look all that different (at a glance) to Doom (well, IMHO it looked better, and you actually had to aim your weapons with no reticle). You could still shoot anything that moved, even civilians with no consequences (it wasn't until Marathon 2 that the NPCs started shooting back if you killed too many of them). However, suddenly you were immersed in this incredibly awesome, intricate story. IMnsHO, it had one of the best balances of gameplay and story and actually made the game really worth playing and replaying(the Doom games were great for stress relief, but not much more).

I wasn't much of a gamer then, and still am not one (being a Mac user has its drawbacks), but that set the standard for gaming for me. Give me a good story AND good gameplay and I will buy your game. I have and still do follow Bungie, even after Microsoft bought them, becuase they have always focused on excellent gameplay combined with an interesting story, and usually excellent replayability. The Marathon series had both, the Myth series had both, Oni (though it was finished by...RockStar?) had it, Halo had it, Halo 2 had it (though not quite the replayability of Halo).

Anyway, like I said I am not much of a gamer, but, with the exception of the Dead or Alive series, story does matter (DoA is strictly for stress relief). And Bungie has done admirably in these respects.

Battletech/Mechwarrior

[BlueStrat]

There's a game series in which the story came first, with an entire universe created in board games and a sci-fi novel series. The story and timeline in the Mechwarrior games are a vital part of the game IMO.

In the Mechwarrior4: Mercenaries game, the player actually interacts with the story, in that choosing different mercenary "contracts" affects future contract/mission availability, as well as factional relationships with "employers".

Overall, I suppose the importance of the story in a game depends on the game, and what a particular player wants from a game. Someone that wants 20 minutes of FPS or arcade-type non-stop action isn't too worried about a backstory. Others that want a more involved experience will place more importance on the backstory.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:For me, yes. See "Marathon" vs. "Doom" and Bung

[Vireo]

Amen to that.

Marathon set the standard for me, too, and that is one of the reasons for which I'm not playing much, these days. Yes, I played a few interesing story-driven games after that, Half-Life probably being the best. But none would have me struggling in order to reach a terminal an actually read the rest of the story, which was in my opinion of SF litterature-grade.

(OK I was a teenager when I was playing Marathon, maybe I just didn't know much about SF litterature at that age; but then again, the Marathon and Halo stories are heavily influenced by SF bestsellers from Iain M. Banks, William Gibson, etc. The Marathon ship itself is very close to a Culture ship, while the struggle between the Leela and Durandal AI are not that far from the one between Wintermute and Necromancer.)

At the same time, the game introduced the grenade jump ("Frog Blast the Vent Core!"), two-triggered weapons, vertical aiming and much more, so it wasn't only story-driven: the action was incredible too.

So... why similar games aren't on the shelf these days? They're not economically feasible anymore? I can enjoy deathmatches alright, it's an entirely different game type, but I'm really longing for a compelling story.

Re:What about FFVIII

[payndz]

I've never played FFVIII, but I thought FFVII was an involving story spoiled by endless random monster attacks and boss battles...

I never actually finished it, because I got stuck on one particular boss battle, and just couldn't face drudging back from the save point and sitting through the same dialogue over and over again only to be killed because I hadn't built up the character's spells or stats or whatever the 'right' way.

If a game's selling itself on its story, why can't it have a 'just pretend I won this tedious battle, give me the minimum XP, and let me find out what happens next' option? I don't have to beat a challenge to watch the next chapter on a DVD!

Wtf is gameplay anyways?

[Cornflake917]

"Good gameplay can save a game with a terrible story. But a good story can't save a game with terrible gameplay."

What the hell is gameplay, anyways? Everytime there is a slashdot article about what makes a good game or bad. Everyone immediately starts spouting out the obligatory "gameplay is more important than graphics" or "games these days don't have good gameplay like they used too." What does that mean!?!? I'm not disagreeing that gameplay is important, but I'm just stepping back and thinking for a second. To me it could be any aspect of the game, including the plot/story/enviroment.

A good story can make a game memorable.

[j741]

There are many games which don't need a story. Tetris, Checkers, and so on. But there are many games for which a story helps make it memorable.

Anyone remember "The 7th Guest" or "The 11th Hour"? These were clue based games where each clue you found or each puzzle you solved revealed a little more of the story and helped to refresh the player's desire to continue. And for me, made them unforgettable, clasic games.

Then there was "Grim Fandango". A major departure from the rest of the gaming industry at the time, with a unique approach to an older style of gameplay. The graphics weren't that good, and the gameplay had a bit of occasional awquardness, but the story (and the humor) kept me going back for more. Another great gaming memory that would not be if not for a great story holding it all together.

And more recently, "Hitman: Blood Money". Arguably one of the best of the 'Hitman' series of games. Here's a game where the story has always been somewhat minimal, yet still very important in the developement of the main character. In this newest incarnation, the story gets molded by your style of play and is presented in very interesting newspaper articles between levels of the game. A very good use of a minimal storyline.

How about "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas". Sure this is a great game with a wide-open style of play, but would it really be the same without a story to help compell the flow of the game. I loved the way the story kept me going in this wide-open game.

Now we're not talking about pulitzer prize calibler novels here, but game stories do share a common thread with those in books and movies. The story, however it is presented, provides the character developement, mystery, twists, and even much of the environmental ambiance which feed the player's interest in the game.