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[Outrunner]

Also notice how the people reacting to this are people responsible for "cinematic experiences" and not for videogames.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

I can't agree with TLoU. It squandered its nature as a video game to tell an engrossing story with the limitations and benefits that this medium contains. Look at NieR or Automata. Both use the fact that they are games to help elevate and push the story far beyond what could be done otherwise. Literally everything in TLoU could have been done on a TV show, film, or book and nothing would have been lost.

I disagree, simply because TLOU is more polished, fun and actually treat it's characters a people, you mentioned GOW4 in your previous post which is also inspired by TLOU's simple story but complex characters as Corey Barlog have stated in an interview.
Nier/Automata works against it self by wanting to tell a grim story, trying to appeal to anime fans with the character designs and oniichan/imouto dynamic, and having absoultly no idea how to make a fun game.
IMO Nier/Automata only achievment that deserves to be praised is it's Ost which elevates the experience and makes it bearable.

 

[joe_zazen]

the only thing 99% videogame wrtiers do is make up reasons for the player to murder a bunch of people/monster/etc. that is why videogame writing, in comparison to other forms, is a joke.

 

[Danjin44]

I can't agree with TLoU. It squandered its nature as a video game to tell an engrossing story with the limitations and benefits that this medium contains. Look at NieR or Automata. Both use the fact that they are games to help elevate and push the story far beyond what could be done otherwise. Literally everything in TLoU could have been done on a TV show, film, or book and nothing would have been lost.

I agree with you about NieR Automata. I like games when they use their medium to tell their stories and this also true with games like team ICO games.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

I agree with you about NieR Automata. I like games when they use their medium to tell their stories and this also true with games like team ICO games.

Nier and Ico/Shadow/LastGuardian are prime examples of storytelling exclusively in videogames.

 

[Vitacat]

Good videogame storytelling doesn't necessarily need what is perceived as writing.

 

[ROMhack]

Good videogame storytelling doesn't necessarily need what is perceived as writing.

Indeed. Environmental storytelling works well.

 

[joe_zazen]

Indeed. Environmental storytelling works well.

or, as with sports, the stories emerge from the interplay between players and rules. You don't need arcs, climaxes, acts, etc to have some really great, memorable ’stories’. in fact, i’d argue the inclusion of heavy story elements reduces the game part and makes it ‘interactive entertainment’, which is more disposable and less compelling.

This is probably why the most popular and profitable games in the world (minecraft, fornite, etc) are not 15 hour cinematic type games: infinite stories.

 

[Katsura]

If Druckmann and all those other blue checkmarks are angry about it then i'm automatically going to side with the WGA. Tetris has the best story possible in a video game anyway

 

[RiccochetJ]

Is that a joke?

Re-read what I wrote and put a /s at the bottom.

 

[Dr. Claus]

I disagree, simply because TLOU is more polished, fun and actually treat it's characters a people, you mentioned GOW4 in your previous post which is also inspired by TLOU's simple story but complex characters as Corey Barlog have stated in an interview.
Nier/Automata works against it self by wanting to tell a grim story, trying to appeal to anime fans with the character designs and oniichan/imouto dynamic, and having absoultly no idea how to make a fun game.
IMO Nier/Automata only achievment that deserves to be praised is it's Ost which elevates the experience and makes it bearable.

You stated, "truth is games like TLOU, UC etc do thier job very well and use thier medium well" which is not true. TLOU did nothing that couldn't be replicated just as well, if not better in other mediums. God of War did take advantage of its video game nature, from its single take view point, its use of having both Kratos and Boy work off each other and refuse to work together at certain points to better fit the story, and the entire scene when you obtain a specific weapon - all of which fit perfectly for the strong story and a great blend with its medium.

NieR Automata is not just a grim story, especially given its continued push towards hope against impossible odds, fighting against nature itself, and forging your own path. 2B, 9S, A2, Pascal, White, and the rest of the cast have nothing to do with this inane "imouto/oniichan" dynamic like you claim. The game is plenty fun with excellent boss designs, great customization and unique methods of limiting player growth. Did you even *beat* the game (as in obtain ending D and E)? It really seems like you haven't considering the sheer ignorance you have shown in this post of yours.

 

[Dr. Claus]

the only thing 99% videogame wrtiers do is make up reasons for the player to murder a bunch of people/monster/etc. that is why videogame writing, in comparison to other forms, is a joke.

I mean... how is that any different than action films like Rambo or horror films like Friday the 13th? Books like IT or Hunger Games?

 

[Hudo]

Ironically enough, the most interesting gaming stories come from players of games that allow for emergent stories to unfold. Like that dude who played a Civ II match for like 20 years and wrote about it. Detailing basically the rise of three great nations in a nuclear hellhole of a planet with melted polar caps. Or how about those stories from Eve Online players. I remember reading about some dude robbing the biggest player-driven bank by using intrigue and selling that shit on ebay. Or even funny stories of stuff that happened to players in the very first The Sims.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

You stated, "truth is games like TLOU, UC etc do thier job very well and use thier medium well" which is not true. TLOU did nothing that couldn't be replicated just as well, if not better in other mediums. God of War did take advantage of its video game nature, from its single take view point, its use of having both Kratos and Boy work off each other and refuse to work together at certain points to better fit the story, and the entire scene when you obtain a specific weapon - all of which fit perfectly for the strong story and a great blend with its medium.

NieR Automata is not just a grim story. 2B, 9S, A2, Pascal, White, and the rest of the cast have nothing to do with this inane "imouto/oniichan" dynamic like you claim. The game is plenty fun with excellent boss designs, great customization and unique methods of limiting player growth. Did you even *beat* the game (as in obtain ending D and E)? It really seems like you haven't considering the sheer ignorance you have shown in this post of yours.

I did beat Automata and the original Nier, and i even chosen to delete my save like what happened in the original, the brother/sister dynamic was in the JP version Replicant, and was change to fit the western "sensibilities" to a father/daughter relationship, removed the sexual undertones and made the whole time skip growth and Kaine romance awkward, and the brother/sister dynamic was absoultly repeated between 9S and 2B along with the sexual tension that was present on Replicant, and that was my problem 0OG Nier was a decent game with a great story/OST and decent combat with horrid everything else.
Automata was a mediocre Platinum action title with combat as deep as a puddle and i unironically like the OG combat with it's magic arms more then the one made by the supposed best action developer.
We'll agree to disagree on UC and TLOU.

 

[joe_zazen]

I mean... how is that any different than action films like Rambo or horror films like Friday the 13th? Books like IT or Hunger Games?

it isnt. It is why many action genre films and horror books are forgettable. But you cannot say that 99% of all movie/book/tv writing is just set up for giant punch up at the end. Not everything is MCU. But for videogsmes? Yeah, vaaaaaaast majority of writing is nothing more than ‘give player reason(s) to kill spree’. Even the Witcher3 is this.

if i was writer guild judge, the idea of slogging through hundreds of hours of videogame writing....I’d quit or boot videogames out of the awards, lol.

 

[Virex]

Maybe if video game writing wasn't shit in general I would care. Except in the case of Nier Gestalt. That was so good writing

And Nier Gestalt deserves a few music awards. It's the greatest OST ever written

 

[iconmaster]

Ironically enough, the most interesting gaming stories come from players of games that allow for emergent stories to unfold. Like that dude who played a Civ II match for like 20 years and wrote about it. Detailing basically the rise of three great nations in a nuclear hellhole of a planet with melted polar caps. Or how about those stories from Eve Online players. I remember reading about some dude robbing the biggest player-driven bank by using intrigue and selling that shit on ebay. Or even funny stories of stuff that happened to players in the very first The Sims.

Yes. The stories you make are the true stories in games. The player is an agent in their telling, and that‘s incompatible with linear narrative.* We seem to be a long way from the industry getting this.

*Its not incompatible with writing. But it needs a kind of writing that accounts for and reacts to the player’s actions. I.e., not what we think of as games writing today.

 

[brap]

Most movies do too.

The last academy award for best picture went to some generic cliche "they don't like each other at first but then they do" story with the groundbreaking message of "racism is bad" and where every other scene felt like the writers were watching Brooklyn 99 and went "hey, those captain Holt scenes are pretty funny, let's do that".

The year before that it was the chick that fucked a fish

Writers with actual talent write books. Even Hollywood has mostly bad to mediocre writers...

And yet most video games still have worse writing than Hollywood movies. Imagine that. I wasn't trying to say Hollywood has good writing or anything.

...What? So Clannad, Witcher 2 and 3, To The Moon, Red Dead Redemption 2, Steins;Gate, Final Fantasy IX, God of War 4, Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward and Shadowbringers - just to name a few - are all considered shit writing?

No, there are amazing writers and brilliant stories in gaming, but the issue is that they are spread across the world. So of course an American-based Union award ceremony won't have even a third of all those fantastic games.

I love how since the beginning of gaming you listed about 10 games with writing that you say is good. 2 of them are visual novels and most of them are japanese. If you think RDR 2 has good writing go watch an actual good western movie. None of these games even compete with the writing in actual good movies or books. All these games are like the fucking special Olympics compared to books or movies. VN's are basically just books so they better have decent writing.

 

[Scotty W]

Pretty much confirms - for me - that writing in videogames is much ado about nothing.

Not to be petty, but your Shakespeare quotation here works both with and against what you intended to say. Nothing in Shakespeare is a very pregnant word. From Richard II:

Spoiler: Shakespeare on nothing

QUEEN

Spoiler: Shakespeare on nothing

It may be so; but yet my inward soul
Persuades me it is otherwise: howe'er it be,
I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad
As, though on thinking on no thought I think,
Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.

BUSHY

'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.

QUEEN

'Tis nothing less: conceit is still derived
From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
For nothing had begot my something grief;
Or something hath the nothing that I grieve:
'Tis in reversion that I do possess;
But what it is, that is not yet known; what
I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.

I bring all this up to disagree with you. Though I am mostly of the Miyamoto school which thinks that the less story in a game, the better; some games have been very compelling partly due to excellent writing. GTA 5 and Portal 2 come to mind, in particular.

 

[YukiOnna]

I don't really like the notion that games have "shit writing" because by that logic all forms of media have shit writing.

That said, while I don't understand the huge fuss since you should write what you want to write as it will usually lead to something enjoyable and fun. Which thankfully most games still are.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Games have canned plots and comes with it shit writing. And that even excludes the voice acting which is usually even worse.

It doesn't help writers that the main plot in just about every adventure and action game is:

- You're a starting weak loser
- There's an evil boss trying to take over
- Go through 10 acts of kicking ass, slinging stupid dialogue in cut scenes, and why the evil villain is wrong
- Player wins the game. The world is saved. The end

 

[ZehDon]

 

[Helios]

And than Half Life happened.

 

[Dr. Claus]

And yet most video games still have worse writing than Hollywood movies. Imagine that. I wasn't trying to say Hollywood has good writing or anything.


I love how since the beginning of gaming you listed about 10 games with writing that you say is good. 2 of them are visual novels and most of them are japanese. If you think RDR 2 has good writing go watch an actual good western movie. None of these games even compete with the writing in actual good movies or books. All these games are like the fucking special Olympics compared to books or movies. VN's are basically just books so they better have decent writing.

VN's are still video games. Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Shikkoku no Sharnoth - all of which have extensive gameplay sections. I simply listed my two personal favorite ones that were translated to English. I am a massive fan of western media and I felt that RDR2 was very well written. Not up there with the kings of the genre, but definitely a solid 8/10 writing.

And no shit most of what I listed were Japanese. They have some of the best writing in gaming (given they focused on narrative long before the west and continue to do), hence why I said what I said at the very end of that post.

I did beat Automata and the original Nier, and i even chosen to delete my save like what happened in the original, the brother/sister dynamic was in the JP version Replicant, and was change to fit the western "sensibilities" to a father/daughter relationship, removed the sexual undertones and made the whole time skip growth and Kaine romance awkward, and the brother/sister dynamic was absoultly repeated between 9S and 2B along with the sexual tension that was present on Replicant, and that was my problem 0OG Nier was a decent game with a great story/OST and decent combat with horrid everything else.
Automata was a mediocre Platinum action title with combat as deep as a puddle and i unironically like the OG combat with it's magic arms more then the one made by the supposed best action developer.
We'll agree to disagree on UC and TLOU.

There were never any sexual undertones between Yonah and brother Nier. The only way you could have gotten this would be through a terrible fan translation or for horribly misreading the JPN text. Agree with the Gestalt changes, however this was not brought up or mentioned in the original post.

You stated that NieR Automata had a "brother/sister" relationship between 9S and 2B, which is why I questioned if you even played the game as they have no such relationship. In none of the extended media, interviews, or in the game itself (JPN or ENG) is this seen. As for the combat "as deep as a puddle", you must have played on easy mode. Playing on the hard or very hard modes would show how ignorant that statement of yours is.

 

[Dr. Claus]

What is Carmack doing these days? Oh yea, he isn't making games.

 

[brap]

VN's are still video games. Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Shikkoku no Sharnoth - all of which have extensive gameplay sections.

I know but you play them for the story. If they didn't have a good story they'd be worthless. It's different in western games especially where it's all 'duhhhhhh retard american save da worl. da end'. You don't play a VN for the gameplay. I mean I love the stuff in AA but you get my point.

And no shit most of what I listed were Japanese. They have some of the best writing in gaming (given they focused on narrative long before the west and continue to do), hence why I said what I said at the very end of that post.

I guess. Japanese games have some cringey dialogue but at least they have some interesting stuff going on.

 

[TUROK]

So The Last of Us has shitty writing now. Lol, okay then.

Take The Last of Us as an example. Cliche, trope-ridden, predictable, derivative..............

Those are all basically the same thing lmao

 

[Woo-Fu]

What is Carmack doing these days? Oh yea, he isn't making games.

He never made games, he made engines/tools.

 

[The_Mike]

Hideo Kojima must be pissed

 

[Yoboman]

Video games have shit writing. All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places. I mean look at TLOU. It was so highly praised and why? It's just some generic cliche hollywood bullshit.

I mean TLOU still shits on Hollywood zombie/end of world contemporaries

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

VN's are still video games. Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Shikkoku no Sharnoth - all of which have extensive gameplay sections. I simply listed my two personal favorite ones that were translated to English. I am a massive fan of
There were never any sexual undertones between Yonah and brother Nier. The only way you could have gotten this would be through a terrible fan translation or for horribly misreading the JPN text. Agree with the Gestalt changes, however this was not brought up or mentioned in the original post.

You stated that NieR Automata had a "brother/sister" relationship between 9S and 2B, which is why I questioned if you even played the game as they have no such relationship. In none of the extended media, interviews, or in the game itself (JPN or ENG) is this seen. As for the combat "as deep as a puddle", you must have played on easy mode. Playing on the hard or very hard modes would show how ignorant that statement of yours is.

9S a young Boy who looks up to 2B the older girl, it's start as a younger brother/older sister regular anime trope, and i did play the game on hard Bayonetta/DMC this is not, the weapons aren't weighty and don't feel as impactful, there are only a handful of combos and the use of the weapons is as basic as you can get, in short it's budget Bayonetta just like all of Platinum's licensed games.

 

[Danjin44]

9S a young Boy who looks up to 2B the older girl, it's start as a younger brother/older sister regular anime trope.

That not true at all, maybe that how you personally saw it. 9S’s operator 210 was the one exploring family side of human relationship and trying to be mother to 9S. You see that in 210’s quest about why humans living together in apartments and why 210 starts talking very child like to 9S in Route C.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

That not true at all, maybe that how you personally saw it. 9S’s operator 210 was the one exploring family side of human relationship and trying to be mother to 9S. You see that in 210’s quest about why humans living together in apartments and why 210 starts talking very child like to 9S in Route C.

Thier relationship is complicated and can be seen as many things, some take Adam's "You want to **** 2B" as 9S lusting after her, some say **** is "kill", a lot of it is left to the players to deduce by themselves, i didn't see as romantic seeing as they both lack the function to make it possible.

 

[Danjin44]

Thier relationship is complicated and can be seen as many things, some take Adam's "You want to **** 2B" as 9S lusting after her, some say **** is "kill", a lot of it is left to the players to deduce by themselves, i didn't see as romantic seeing as they both lack the function to make it possible.

That’s exactly what like Automata and most Yoko Taro’s games story telling. Yoko Taro doesn’t write his story like his writing for Hollywood movie, his writing for a video game and uses gameplay as a tool to tell his stories.

Same thing why I love the story in games like 999 and team ICO games. I actually liked Last of Us’s story and I’m looking forward to Part 2 but the way they go about telling their story is very similar to Hollywood tell their stories.

 

[TUROK]

Doom 3 was very story heavy.

 

[The Scrivener]

Good videogame storytelling doesn't necessarily need what is perceived as writing.

The Witness.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ah!

 

[brian0057]

Me, watching people having slap fights over the medium with the worst writing in entertainment.

 

[ROMhack]

Hang on, Automata's plot is about humanism and it's a pretty hopeful message in the end - sure people die but that's reality, it's the things people learn along the way (ugh). It mixes politics and personal responsibility (autonomy) pretty well, leading the story by using the player's activeness rather than relying exclusively on passive cut-scenes.

I will agree that it's got a lot of anime-influence going on. The characters do largely feel like children to me, which is to say that they're similar in spirit to some shounen anime I've seen. I accept people ( Rean no Kiseki ) might find it jarring if they don't like that style (or Japanese media in general). Character designs are obviously the most visually telling aspect.

Anyway, it's pretty kitschy to me. It has the feel of a good sci-fi book because it's quite a simple and sometimes batshit crazy story but a complex one laden with metaphors.

The writing works because of the medium. It's experimental and interesting rather than being perfect.

The Witness.

Are you arguing this has good storytelling? I haven't played it.

 

[The Scrivener]

Are you arguing this has good storytelling? I haven't played it.

Yes, and you should.

 

[Sander Cohen]

the only thing 99% videogame wrtiers do is make up reasons for the player to murder a bunch of people/monster/etc. that is why videogame writing, in comparison to other forms, is a joke.

Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes!

 

[Ogbert]

Good.

This appears to be annoying the right people.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Me, watching people having slap fights over the medium with the worst writing in entertainment.

But we aren't talking about Netflix original shows

 

[Azurro]

or, as with sports, the stories emerge from the interplay between players and rules. You don't need arcs, climaxes, acts, etc to have some really great, memorable ’stories’. in fact, i’d argue the inclusion of heavy story elements reduces the game part and makes it ‘interactive entertainment’, which is more disposable and less compelling.

This is probably why the most popular and profitable games in the world (minecraft, fornite, etc) are not 15 hour cinematic type games: infinite stories.

That's not storytelling, as there is no story and no characters. If your entire plot is "random player shoots someone else in the face" then that is not a plot. Just say you don't like stories in games and leave cinematic games alone.

 

[Rean no Kiseki]

I will agree that it's got a lot of anime-influence going on. The characters do largely feel like children to me, which is to say that they're similar in spirit to some shounen anime I've seen. I accept people ( Rean no Kiseki ) might find it jarring if they don't like that style (or Japanese media in general). Character designs are obviously the most visually telling aspect.

Dude JRPG is my favorite genre, i just don't like when a story/setting wants to be taken seriously and filled to the brim with nihilism and then the devs are like "hey we got sell this somehow so make that hermaphrodite wear a Victoria's secret lingerie and make that robot wear a lolita maid outfit with her ass showing".
And truth be told it was a large part of Automata's success because it create a contorversy and got people talking about this weird anime game.
Regardless i still enjoy story telling in games and even if i didn't like Automata as much as OG Nier.
One final note for those who deny the importance of stories in games, think of Deus Ex, FF7, MGS, MGS2 none of these games would have been as infulational as they are without thier stories or good writing.

 

[Clear]

That's not storytelling, as there is no story and no characters. If your entire plot is "random player shoots someone else in the face" then that is not a plot. Just say you don't like stories in games and leave cinematic games alone.

Writing, storytelling, what have you, is an art. Most people are fucking terrible at it, which is why skill in this area has been prized by societies around the globe since the start of human history.

But now thanks to the magic of "emergent gameplay" everyone can create amazing stories, full of wit, drama, and meaning...

Yeah, riiiiight!

 

[zenspider]

OP nailed it for me here: WGA, simply by the way it's organized, does not celebrate what is truly analogous to great writing in the context gaming.

The fact is, the job, as Druckmann and his ilk see it, is a screenwriter's job grafted onto a software project, so I understand his frustration - he's doing the same thing they are.

However, if you can't reorganized the concept of video game writing to compare and compete with narrative structures as varied as Bloodborne, Shadow Of The Colossus, Journey, or even abstract but wholly consistent structures like, say, Pac-Man, I don't think it's worth taking video game "writing" seriously, no matter how good the effort is.

 

[Komatsu]

Disappointing to see that the discourse here is that “games have shit writing”. Curiously enough, the exact same arguments were employed against film when the medium was still in its infancy.

A lot of commercial fiction (movies, novels) is bad and formulaic. 90% of the output is, well, trash.

That said, though I don’t really hold a candle for some of the most pretentious “wanna-be-a-filmmaker” hacks in gaming, it is undeniable that there’s plenty of amazing writing in the media.

From Delita’s bitter plea “Ramza, what did you get?” in FFT to that incredible moment in The Secret of Monkey Island when you realize how to beat the Swordmaster, there’s plenty of emotion to be found narratively in games.

Everything in gaming is writing. Design documents can be hundreds of page long and even the ludological (gameplay) aspects of a title need to be elaborated in prose before they come to fruition.

 

[brian0057]

But we aren't talking about Netflix original shows

Of course not.
Video game writing is much worse than that.

 

[Bakkus]

All the writers that actually have talent write for hollywood or other places

This might be the worst opinion ever made on this forum.