CrazyArcadia
Member
Make no mistake, there are some great deep stories and narratives in games... But usually IMO in genres that are not popular or within the usual blockbuster realm.
I'd say, the biggest problem for games which makes it super difficult to write an actually captivating story is that the most visible games are usually actionish games which receive stories that would make an ok-to-good 2hr summer cinema action blockbuster.. And then they have to stretch it up to between 10-30 hours or more. This leads to tedious dialogue, over-exposure of simple story beats and games just feeling, for a lack of other words, shallow. Of course there are a couple of exceptional games where the writing team instead tries to go for tv series style writing with arcs in mind and the like. Still, player interaction can not be 100% guided like a carefully crafted movie or book, so you can hide meaning in interactive sequences but they can be easy to miss if the player is too preoccupied with other details or doesn't pan the camera in the right direction or, well, simply ignores things. While you can rewind a video or reread a page, replaying will take far too much time usually, especially when there is not much in return (storywise. I love replaying games for more rewarding gameplay).
Meanwhile, the strength of the medium lies in experience, set pieces, feeling a singular character grow or themes being explored via gameplay mechanics. I think trying to marry games with movies isn't really the best idea. I mean, I get it, cutscenes once were impressive and a great way to show off the industry getting better at animation and framing action scenes. But for it to stand on its own as a medium, that is counterproductive at best.
I'd say, the biggest problem for games which makes it super difficult to write an actually captivating story is that the most visible games are usually actionish games which receive stories that would make an ok-to-good 2hr summer cinema action blockbuster.. And then they have to stretch it up to between 10-30 hours or more. This leads to tedious dialogue, over-exposure of simple story beats and games just feeling, for a lack of other words, shallow. Of course there are a couple of exceptional games where the writing team instead tries to go for tv series style writing with arcs in mind and the like. Still, player interaction can not be 100% guided like a carefully crafted movie or book, so you can hide meaning in interactive sequences but they can be easy to miss if the player is too preoccupied with other details or doesn't pan the camera in the right direction or, well, simply ignores things. While you can rewind a video or reread a page, replaying will take far too much time usually, especially when there is not much in return (storywise. I love replaying games for more rewarding gameplay).
Meanwhile, the strength of the medium lies in experience, set pieces, feeling a singular character grow or themes being explored via gameplay mechanics. I think trying to marry games with movies isn't really the best idea. I mean, I get it, cutscenes once were impressive and a great way to show off the industry getting better at animation and framing action scenes. But for it to stand on its own as a medium, that is counterproductive at best.