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Twisted Metal Designer Rails Against Storytelling Games
eldavojohn writes "Twisted Metal designer David Jaffe gave a DICE Summit presentation in which he argued against 'games that have been intentionally made from the ground up with the intent and purpose of telling a story or expressing a philosophy or giving a designer's narrative.' He went on to say essentially that it's a waste of time and resources when the focus should be on gameplay, not story. While some parts of his presentation are warmly welcomed by the gaming community (like his instructions for game execs to get a BS filter), this particular point has some unsurprising opponents. His argument against a 'cinematic narrative' was probably strongest with his comparison to the movie Saving Private Ryan, where Spielberg made the Normandy Beach invasion scene as close to a documentary as possible. The audience could sit back and appreciate that. But if you made a game where the player is in that position of the soldier then that historically accurate imagery and top shelf voice acting doesn't really matter, the only thing the player should be thinking is 'How the **** do I get to that rock? How do I get to the exit?' Is Jaffe right? Have game makers been 'seduced by the power and language of film' at the expense of gameplay?"
He's railing aginst what, in the industry, is called a "track ride". The player does A, then B, then C, with obstacles along the way. At one time, that was due to technical limitations; building a big free-play world was out of reach. That hasn't been the case for a long time now. Good large-scale free-play worlds like the GTA series have been very successful even as single user games. MMORPG games are big open worlds by necessity.
To some extent track rides are coming back, because of the tiny screens on mobile. Angry Birds is a track ride.
Big, open worlds are expensive to build, because a big, interesting world has to be built and populated. Track rides can be cheaper, because there's no need to build the parts of the world that aren't on the track. This may be more about economics than story.
I don't understand the fundamental problem with "games that have been intentionally made from the ground up with the intent and purpose of telling a story or expressing a philosophy or giving a designer's narrative." Likewise, I don't have a problem with games that are 100% about gameplay and don't bother with any sort of meaningful narrative or story.
While I love Skyrim, I also love heavily story-driven games with lots of cutscenes as well (like Uncharted). To me, they're a nice reward and a way to help break up the gameplay a bit. Moreover, it's a fun way of merging my love of videogames with my love of interesting narrative, storytelling, and lore. Also, there are times it's fun to see personalities OTHER than the one you impose on characters in games. In other words, not every game is a Western-style role-playing game where the main protaganist is suppose to be a blank slate. It's entertaining to me when you care about the characters in your story and look forward to seeing the plot develop. Why do people try to shoehorn everything into one box? I think the world of "videogames" is big enough to fit both philosophies quite nicely.
Frankly, it just sounds like he's a big fan of more free-form worlds in gaming, and is just annoyed that there aren't more Skyrim-like games out there. I agree it's a shame, but if there's a demand for these games, then companies will fulfill that market space, especially as the gaming market continues to expand.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
To jaffe's comment on the beach war thing... The player wondering how to get to the next rock. For me, the more important question is why do I want to get to the next rock? What are the character drivers? What is the character trying to achieve?who am I, anyway? Personally, I see vid games as a new frontier in storytelling. Whether you're Ezio, batman, or whoever, it's ALL about story. Otherwise gameplay becomes button mashing.
Most of what he's railing against seems to be the heavily cutscene-driven stories in games... I personally sympathize with him on that.
I can understand that you might not like that type of gameplay, but there are people out there want different things out of the games they play
Ultimately, playing a video game is about satisfying some emotional desire. Games like WoW satisfy my desire to manage statistics and give me satisfaction through acquiring items and improving my character. Games like Quake or Unreal are satisfy my competitive desire to beat other players. In the same vein, games like Final Fantasy with long epic cutscenes and deep, involved storylines satisfy an emotional desire to connect with a group of characters, identify with their plight, and see them through to success. Really, the first two items in the list I can do by reading a book or watching a movie. Adding an interactive element makes it seem like I'm the one enabling their success, even though I'm really just along for the ride.
I mean, let's distill the gameplay of Final Fantasy for a second. You have a group of characters, you find weapons and abilities, and engage in battle repeatedly until a final ultimate battle. How fun would a game be that is purely that? It might actually be reasonably fun... Infinity Blade comes to mind as an example of such a game. But it wouldn't be nearly as good without the deep involved story in there. To this day I remember how I felt watching Aeris die, and that was 15 years ago. I never felt anything close to that beating the 500th level in Infinity Blade. To reiterate my point, I doubt I would have felt the same about way if Final Fantasy 7 was just a movie.
Consuming content isn't playing a game. And many games are exactly about that --- show stuff, don't frustrate the player with any actual challenge, make sure the game can be completed easily if you only really want to. Who cares about the properties of games, like the ability to win or loose them... because hey, you hired 2000 artists, might as well show off their work, right?
I mean sure, if that's what people want, and other people are actually up for giving that to them, I don't care. It's like bad cinema, exactly like that. Formulaic, shallow, mediocre, and mentally as cheap as they are expensive in terms of money. Bad cinema is firmly established, too, and it doesn't take away from good movies... but that doesn't it's not bad cinema. The only thing people get to vote with their wallets on in this case, is how many idiots there are out there, to paraphrase Immortal Technique haha... but them buying turds doesn't knight those turds.
I agree. If I wanted a game that goes out of it's way to remove all attempts at having a story, I'd buy something like Twisted Metal (Turismo-Kart with Juggalos?). I *like* to walk the line between "movie" and "game" by taking control of a character and pitting myself against the game's characters, and then being rewarded for my prowess by uncovering the next part of the story (via cut-scene, an unexpected character development, or a new level to explore). I know that I'm not the only one.
Frankly, I find games that have ZERO story to be trite and stupid - even if the gameplay totally rocks, it's very difficult for me to get absorbed into the game such that I even finish it, let alone play it twice. Notable exceptions are games that are meant to be only multi-player, such as a racing game or a WW2 fps, but for games like, say, resident evil, or the zelda franchise - why would anyone play a game like that without knowing at least a little of the world they're heading into? That seems a silly thing to expect. On top of that, many multiplayer games also have single player story-driven campaigns: Warhammer 40k, Starcraft to name just two franchises. I'd truly hate to see those go, and if they do, it just might be what turns me away from gaming.