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[Abhor]

There are so many critically successfull story-driven games out there it makes this idea seem woefully out of touch.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Only because most of the writing is bad and/or some developers focus more on cinematic storytelling than world building and interaction.

 

[Kart94]

since everyone else focused on the rest of your post, I'm going to focus on this.

Short Answer: Because the effect is lost.

Long Answer: Video Games have become my favorite medium for telling a story by a large margin. This is not only because of games ability to tell unique stories that are only possible due to the interactive nature (non linear storytelling, mechanical storytelling etc), but because of the interactive nature itself. By being an active participant in the story, I can actually be drawn in and truly care about the events in a way that just doesn't happen when I read a book or watch a movie. Sure I could watch a youtube lets play of the game and know the story, but the enjoyment of it would be greatly diminished. The effect is lost.

Struggling to crawl through the microwave corridor in MGS4 just isnt the same if you arent holding the controller.

You forgot the context. I said that if your game is bad, then why should i trudge through the bad game just for the story? I said this many times. But you can have the best story in the world, but if the gameplay is bad and lacking, then why play it? Again a good story is nice, but for me to get through it, the game needs to be up to snuff.

 

[Tosyn_88]

It's funny how this topic keeps happening over and over.

As Neil Druckmann said there's no way to define what can and cannot be a videogame. It smirks of arrogant rhetoric that's looking down on others because they aren't pure enough. It's understandable though, in all forms of art, be it painting, music or ought, there's always these kind of people who think there's only one way rather than many ways to express an art form.

Here's the thing though, if you love mechanical games only, they EXIS!!! Go and enjoy them, don't come out and parrot your agenda that everyone should make their games like that, it makes you sound ignorant, arrogant and foolish

 

[UnemployedVillain]

The lack of a strong story in Breath of the Wild made it far less motivating for me to explore around the world, so my anecdote is that this is wrong.

Did you need NPCs telling you to go places to justify going to them? I think if anything, the problem was that the discoveries you found in places were mostly shrines. If they mixed those up and they were shrines, mazes, unique overworld bosses that would help, but I don't think story would necessarily aid that

But that's a completely different topic

 

[Lynchian]

He is on point.

Honestly, this is true.

I am getting tired of these pretentious articles written by pseudo-intellectuals moaning about how they think video games should be.

 

[Vital Tundra]

Variety is the spice of life. Some games wouldn't be as great without a story.

Imagine if Final Fantasy Tactics didn't have a story and was just straight srpg with yougojng battle to battle. Ugh.

 

[Chainsawkitten]

You forgot the context. I said that if your game is bad, then why should i trudge through the bad game just for the story?

Why should I trudge through a bad game just for the gameplay?

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

You forgot the context. I said that if your game is bad, then why should i trudge through the bad game just for the story? I said this many times. But you can have the best story in the world, but if the gameplay is bad and lacking, then why play it? Again a good story is nice, but for me to get through it, the game needs to be up to snuff.

I didnt forget the context at all. I can still play a bad game if the story is good just because the sheer fact of it being interactive adds enough value to the story.

Drakengard 3 was a fucking excellent experience.

 

[140.85]

Nah. Hasn't been my experience.

 

[More_Badass]

You forgot the context. I said that if your game is bad, then why should i trudge through the bad game just for the story? I said this many times. But you can have the best story in the world, but if the gameplay is bad and lacking, then why play it?

Games are like a table. Diminish one leg and the structure may still stand albeit lopsided. Gameplay isn't everything; the overall experience can still be enjoyable if some aspects are lacking

 

[shira]

https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ian-bogost/

Ian Bogost the king of clickbait titles

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Why should I trudge through a bad game just for the gameplay?

I think his point is that you wouldn't do that in the first place. Which is why gameplay ultimately comes out as more important than story in video games.

Games are like a table. Diminish one leg and the structure may still stand albeit lopsided. Gameplay isn't everything; the overall experience can still be enjoyable if some aspects are lacking

This analogy only really works if all aspects of something are equal in the first place. Which isn't really the case for video games.

 

[XandBosch]

The thing is what you're are saying is strictly personal, unless you think that your idea of a good game is all that should matter to the world.

Well....yeah.

 

[Kart94]

Games are like a table. Diminish one leg and the structure may still stand albeit lopsided. Gameplay isn't everything; the overall experience can still be enjoyable if some aspects are lacking

Maybe, it is the large support. It is the most important aspect. the game is the table, the gameplay consists of 3/4 legs. Without them, the table collapses and not even the strongest leg can do anything about it.

 

[Raptor]

Why should I trudge through a bad game just for the gameplay?

This makes no sense to me.

gameplay makes it a game I mean.

 

[B.O.O.M]

He is on point.

The beard speaks the truth

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

Games are like a table. Diminish one leg and the structure may still stand albeit lopsided. Gameplay isn't everything; the overall experience can still be enjoyable if some aspects are lacking

You can even have two legs completely blotched and still have a great experience/game.

Skyrim was an extremely enjoyable game despite the story being hot garbage and the combat being pretty terrible. However the exploration, world building, and sense of discovery are so good that it doesnt matter.

Games just are never a sum of their parts. The thing is, if they rely on very few parts then it just becomes extra necessary to excel in them. Games like Devil May Cry only have gameplay and characters going for them, it just so happens that they knock those out of the park.

 

[correojon]

I disagree with the premise of the article. For me gameplay is king and story is something secondary, usually when I play a game with a great story I do so once and I´m over with it. These games usually tend to have a lot of stuff that´s there to artificially force you to play through them again (mainly collectibles, secrets and such) because the gameplay loop just isn´t compelling enough as to make you want to replay them again. And that´s OK, I have never replayed The Walking Dead but it still was one of my favorite games when it came out. What I mean is there´s place for everything. I loathe games that pay so much attention to story (or graphics or any other aspect) that they forget gameplay and I criticize them because that´s not the type of game I preffer...but a lot of other people like that so I have to understand everyone has the right to get the type of game they want. The author should look to himself and understand this instead of saying everyone should make the games the way he likes them.

 

[Jeronimo Jones]

I'm convinced the main reason the author didn't title the article "Some Video Games Are Better Without Stories" is because it's pretty obvious that that's the case.

These kinds of broad-brush, prescriptive articles attempting to "fix" creative media that consensus does not even agree are broken, annoy me in their exaggeration.

It is true that not every game needs to mimic film but there is enough room for different styles of storytelling in all media, especially in an medium as interactive and incredibly flexible as video games.

 

[More_Badass]

I think his point is that you wouldn't do that in the first place. Which is why gameplay ultimately comes out as more important than story in video games.

Gameplay is merely the means of interaction. It's as important as the game needs it to be. Clicking on the screen to progress an adventure game is as valid as gameplay as shooting enemies in an FPS

Simple/easy/basic/etc gameplay doesn't equal bad gameplay

 

[Kevtones]

Puyo Pop is better with lore

 

[Zocano]

Video games make more sense when they don't have stories.

🤔

 

[Weltall Zero]

You know what videogames are better without? Generalizations.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Gameplay is merely the means of interaction. It's as important as the game needs it to be. Clicking on the screen to progress an adventure game is as valid as gameplay as shooting enemies in an FPS

Simple/easy/basic/etc gameplay doesn't equal bad gameplay

I didn't say it did. But even simple game play has to be enganging and responsive.

If you play an adventure game that has very small item click boxes, to the point where you have to click multiple times just to examine an item you need to progress, you're probably going to quit playing the game no matter how good the story is. Because the game play isn't responsive enough to make you want to progress without getting frustrated that the game is not responding to what you're attempting to make the game do.

Good game play is always going to be more important than good stories in video games because game play is the bulk of what you're doing when youre engaging with the game, and game play is what leads you from point A to point Z of the story.

 

[Kart94]

I didn't say it did. But even simple game play has to be enganging and responsive.

If you play an adventure game that has very small item click boxes, to the point where you have to click multiple times just to examine an item you need to progress, you're probably going to quit playing the game no matter how good the story is. Because the game play isn't responsive enough to make you want to progress without getting frustrated that the game is not responding to what you're attempting to make the game do.

this

 

[kAmui-]

You know what videogames are better without? Generalizations.

Everything is better without generalizations. Wait... 🤔

 

[HStallion]

I didn't say it did. But even simple game play has to be enganging and responsive.

If you play an adventure game that has very small item click boxes, to the point where you have to click multiple times just to examine an item you need to progress, you're probably going to quit playing the game no matter how good the story is. Because the game play isn't responsive enough to make you want to progress without getting frustrated that the game is not responding to what you're attempting to make the game do.

I think it says a lot about a game that can push players to enjoy it for the story even if the gameplay is lack luster. I don't see it this way myself but many feel The Last Guardian has poor gameplay elements but many still consider it one of the best games they ever played. I guess it depends on what you're looking for and what you consider "bad" gameplay. Planescape Torment is another game where people quite literally try to avoid the battle system as much as possible but many still consider it one of the best of all time.

 

[TemplaerDude]

I'll never understand these people who try to tell me that things should "ALWAYS be this".

Like, come on. There's plenty of room in this industry for all kinds of games, there are plenty of different tastes to accommodate.

This article is completely out of touch and vaguely condescending in it's attitude. There are million better ways to have this discussion, this isn't worth the time.

 

[More_Badass]

I didn't say it did. But even simple game play has to be enganging and responsive.

If you play an adventure game that has very small item click boxes, to the point where you have to click multiple times just to examine an item you need to progress, you're probably going to quit playing the game no matter how good the story is. Because the game play isn't responsive enough to make you want to progress without getting frustrated that the game is not responding to what you're attempting to make the game do.

You're shifting it to technical stuff. Then yeah, it doesn't matter if it's the boom mic and wires appearing in a movie scene or a rampant editing errors in a book. That is objectively bad across all mediums

But in this particular discussion of good and bad gameplay, I don't think most people were talking on a technical level, like unresponsive controls, but on a "Gone Home isn't really a game"-esque level, about the design philosophy and importance of gameplay, and what makes gameplay good and bad in the context of a game

 

[Gbraga]

I'll raise my dumb hot take against his: Video games are better being as varied as they are, being able to provide both the "stories suck" and "I only care about story" crowds with countless hours of enjoyment.

I don't have enough time to play the games that interest me with this much variety, imagine if every game was specifically tailored to my tastes.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I think it says a lot about a game that can push players to enjoy it for the story even if the gameplay is lack luster. I don't see it this way myself but many feel The Last Guardian has poor gameplay elements but many still consider it one of the best games they ever played. I guess it depends on what you're looking for and what you consider "bad" gameplay.

By bad, I literally mean unresponsive. Generally it was a hypothetical of extremes to highlight why aspect (Gameplay) is ultimately more important than the other.

TLG has some jank for sure, and I can see how that could turn some people off, but except for one section I don't remember feeling that the game wasn't doing what I was trying to make it do within the context of its own rules.

 

[badcrumble]

Obviously games with emergent narratives are fantastic.

But I'd argue that interactive but highly directed narrative has the tools to better manipulate the audience into certain emotions (especially attachment and guilt) than film can, even if it's much less capable of evoking the ones that are film's greatest strengths.

 

[dead souls]

100% correct article. Game stories are almost universally garbage and the few that are slightly better can't even remotely be compared to the best of film/television/literature. Enjoying or praising them is pretty much a marker of complete lack of taste to me. They're something I put up with because I enjoy the game part of video games.

 

[protomouse]

The issue I take with the way the industry has headed over the past 20 years, is that a sizeable part of it (e.g. AAA and many of its followers) seems sort of ashamed to acknowledge that video games can be pure, unadulterated, fun with no significant meaning. As if it somehow takes away from the definition of legitimacy.

Like, there's room for all kinds of content, but it definitely feels like there's a disproportionate amount of AAA room available to the Druckmanns, Cages, and Kojimas right now, and it bums me out.

 

[Messofanego]

Whilst I definitely agree with Druckmann, putting video games into these tiny "one-size-fits-all" boxes is always terrible, it's funny to me that the image underneath comes from Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.

That game, to me, felt like the embodiment of a game that did not care for me as a player and valued itself and its rather mediocre story above all else. Something like Deadly Premonition has crap gameplay, sure, but unlike Rapture its gameplay is serviceable enough that it facilitates the player's continuation of the great story. In Rapture the snails-pace you move at (even with the most liberal example of a "run" button ever put in a game) and the terrible player guidance the game gives you made finishing less something I wanted to do and more something I felt I should do. Despite not having played the former, Gone Home and Firewatch are much better examples of so-called "walking simulators" than Dear Esther or Rapture.

That game's the worst well-known example I can think off, but there are other examples. I felt that the pacing in Uncharted 4 due its higher frequency of lengthy climbing sections made the game worse in some respects to its predecessors. The lengthy walk-and-talk sections of Metal Gear Rising are blemishes on an otherwise amazing game.

Though, we can go for days as to what constitutes "bad gameplay", but I find that, personally, when the developer's desire to tell a set story overrides respect for the player's agency to such an extent where playing your game feels like a score, it's bad storytelling and should simply be a cutscene instead.

The image is from Edith Finch. Although the sun-bleached aesthetic might have fooled ya

Which I found way more interactive and immersive than Dear Esther or Everybody's Gone To The Rapture.

 

[Vegetable Lasagna]

I guess it depends on the genre. Story can be important for a few genres, but for the most part I could really care less about it. Gameplay is king. I can live without a good, or any story at all, if the gameplay is there. Can't say the same the other way around. Just make the game play well, please.

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

Maybe he means "games that ride on incoherent plots, constant interruptions to cutscenes, and cliche C-tier scripts, are better without stories." Which happens to be 90% of story driven games, unfortunately. The other 10% have a place, sure. I still don't get why gamers are so easy on shitty stories though (more importantly when the story is the main draw and gameplay is secondary), most of them are really bad. Almost as if people who program and design video games wrote them...

 

[eyeball_kid]

What really sets games apart are their ability to create unique stories for everyone who plays them. Emergent gameplay, as a term, is kind of beaten to death, but it's probably the easiest one to use to identify what makes games special.

I think the true potential of storytelling in the medium of games is in its ability to have the player personally take on a different role, life, and experience than their own. In films, books, and plays we always watch a story unfold from the third perspective, but in games we can inhabit those characters and see through their eyes directly.

Games hold a powerful potential for expanding our empathy with and understanding of others. The tragedy is that so many games, especially the AAA ones the vast majority of people play, create characters that their target audiences will already empathize and identify with. Even on the indie circuit we don't see that much diversity of perspective. I want to play as a Syrian refugee, a delivery driver in India, a black student in Ferguson, a Palestinian activist, etc. For the most part games with those kinds of perspectives just aren't being made.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

You're shifting it to technical stuff. Then yeah, it doesn't matter if it's the boom mic and wires appearing in a movie scene or a rampant editing errors in a book. That is objectively bad across all mediums

But in this particular discussion of good and bad gameplay, I don't think most people were talking on a technical level, like unresponsive controls, but on a "Gone Home isn't really a game"-esque level, about the design philosophy and importance of gameplay, and what makes gameplay good and bad in the context of a game

Well I agree that the bolded is a pretty silly opinion to have. But at the same time, at least to me, most "Walking simulators" kind of fail on both sides.

The writing usually isn't good, and the game play is typically so barebones that it's hard to call it engaging. I'd say the biggest problem with those types of games is that it puts most of its focus on the story, treats game play as nothing more than something that moves between story points, and then provides you with a story that isn't even as good as your average movie/tv show/book.

I wouldn't call the game play in any of these games "Bad" because they set out to do what they're meant to do. But at the same time you can clearly see that the game play aspects of these things are put on the backburner in favor of story. Which would be fine if the story is interesting enough to make you forget that the only reason you have the controller in your hand is to get from A to B. But usually that's not the case.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ian-bogost/

Ian Bogost the king of clickbait titles

Obama Was Too Good at Social Media

🤔

 

[HStallion]

100% correct article. Game stories are almost universally garbage and the few that are slightly better can't even remotely be compared to the best of film/television/literature. Enjoying or praising them is pretty much a marker of complete lack of taste to me. They're something I put up with because I enjoy the game part of video games.

I love posts like this as they act like movies, books, tv or any entertainment medium arent full of tripe more often than not. For every show like The Wire we get a dozen like The Big Bang Theory.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Ian Bogost is correct.

 

[PantsuJo]

Well, I like games with stories... But I also like mindless arcade games with no story (or, at max, a basic one).

But maybe this is matter of another thread.

 

[oneils]

I feel like people put words in his mouth. He hasn't said that games with stories are bad, just that they are better without them. There is a difference.

Also, the market seems to agree with him. If you look purely at play time of all
the most played games come with little to no story. Are the most played games the best games? I tend to think so, but maybe that is debatable.

 

[Melchiah]

He is on point.

Yep. Some gamers' tendency to try to twist the world to their liking is both amusing and annoying in its puerility.

Most of the games in my all-time top 10 are story-driven experiences, so the article seems ludicrous to me. I wouldn't be playing games without stories.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

Ian Bogost is correct.

Did you actually read the article? He makes a lot of irroneous claims that he doesn't back up, and doesn't even discuss 2D games at all when making his point, which hinges a lot on the supposed 'emptiness' of 3D environments

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I love posts like this as they act like movies, books,tv or any entertainment medium arent full of tripe more often than not. For every show like The Wire we get a dozen like The Big Bang Theory.

The problem is that video games don't have their equivalent to The Wire.

Every medium has its lows. But the highs in video games are still significantly lower than the highs in other mediums.

 

[Chainsawkitten]

I feel like people put words in his mouth. He hasn't said that games with stories are bad, just that they are better without them. There is a difference.

So... how exactly would removing all story elements make Dear Esther better?

 

[Granjinha]

Whilst I definitely agree with Druckmann, putting video games into these tiny "one-size-fits-all" boxes is always terrible, it's funny to me that the image underneath comes from Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.

That's actually from What Remains of Edith Finch.