Do games, NEED story?

[Erttheking]

Now before all of you comment about the similar thread on the front page, I'm not talking about the same thing as him. I'm not talking about stories being criticized for having shitty stories, I'm just wondering out loud if games need stories in the first place. I mean think about it, Pong isn't the story about two waring nations constantly bouncing an orb of ultimate power back and forth until one of them is destroyed, it's two straight tetris blocks bouncing a block back and forth for points. So let me ask you a question, do games NEED stories? Don't get me wrong, I love a good story in a game, frankly games that make me care about their characters I usually place head and shoulders above the games that I have with good gameplay but a mediocre story. But does every game need to have a cast of characters with their own personalities? One common complaint that is commonly heard whenever a developer says something about a game before it is released is that they don't like that particular section of the game, because the money going into it could have gone to something else. So is it possible for a game to completely forgo story in order to simply make the gameplay as pure and as fun as possible? What if a developer comes up with a great idea for a game's mechanics but can't think of a story to go with it.

I'm not trying to say that story in a game doesn't matter or that we shouldn't complain when a game has a shitty story, I'm just theorizing about a possible concept. So let me give you a couple of questions, would you be ok with a devloper saying "I'm going to make a game with no story because I want to focus on the gameplay?" Would you play said game? What would you look for in said game?

Just food for thought really.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Some games need stories. Psychonauts, for example, would suck if it was just Raz running through a series of levels, without any of the characters, context, or dialogue.

Other games are burdened by stories. Mario would suck if between every level you had to watch a cutscene with Mario lusting for Princess Peach an thinking about how much he hates Bowser. Hell, the little story that these games sometimes have is usually too much, and just serves to slow the games down.

Edit: Actually answering the question now. I would totally support a developer that tried to forgo story in favor of gameplay. That said, the gameplay needs to be that much better because of it, because the game is then unable fall back on having an engaging plot to motivate players to play it.

 

[Paulo Belato]

It depends on the focus of the game, so I would have to say no. Games can have different kinds of stories, some depend on it to move the player forward, while others have optional stories that the player may skip completely. There are even games with 0 story, except the one you create.

There are games like Fate of the World, where the only story is the one you make. You are the leader of an organization that makes decisions about environmental and social policies around the world and you must achieve an objective within a given time.

There are games like Dota, that have a background story (each character has a story telling how they entered the conflict between the two sides, usually explaining a bit about the conflict itself) which is completely optional. You can just start the game, enter a match, choose a hero and kill enemies left and right.

There are games like Breath of Death, where the only reason you actually move forward is to understand what is happening, the story is the moving factor and the gameplay is just filler.

The beauty of games is that they can tell stories either through classic ways (as if they were movies or books) or through interactivity. There was a great piece about this where the author said that, in good games, the story is what is happening, is what the player is doing.

 

[Aerosteam]

Tetris is the best game ever. Tetris has no story.

As for your questions, Hell yeah I'd be okay with it, kudos to the developer for being brave saying that! And for the other, it really depends on what genre it is if I'll want to play it or not. If it's an FPS I want it to be anything other than a modern military one.

 

[Twilight_guy]

As soon as you learn how to have a TV program without images and sounds or a book without words, we can discuss a game without a story.

People fail to realize that the story of a game is bigger then they think. It's the actions the player takes, the setting and its background, the mechanics and what the player can do, its embedded in the very rules and mechanics of the game. The story isn't necessary always super great, but you can't have a game without a story. It'd be like trying to design a game without any idea o what you want to make and randomly adding things as you go. There is some sort of narrative in the game and in the design and that is the story.

 

[Scrustle]

As a medium, no. They don't need stories. But stories are nice. Gameplay is the most important thing about the medium, and the thing that is unique to it. Story is not.

But that doesn't mean games shouldn't be trying to have stories. It's a respectable endeavour. If you think you can tell a good story through the medium of a video game then go right ahead. No-one should try to stop you.

But when we think about the progression of games I think there's some misconceptions. I get this feeling that there's this idea that games need to have stories if we want games to be "taken seriously", if we want them to be something higher and more artistic than they are now. I think that's fallacious. People often point to games like Mass Effect or Heavy Rain as "artisitc" and deserving of high status because they attempt very in-depth and dramatic stories with strong character development. People think that the future of games as an art form means creating stories like that.

But I think that's kind of closed minded. Perhaps this is another symptom of this idea that games should be like movies. Heavy Rain certainly seems to be trying to create that. But artistic =/= telling a good story. We don't say sculptures aren't art because they don't tell a narrative. Music usually doesn't tell a narrative either, but everyone knows that's art. So why should games? The definition of what art is is very hard to discern, but whatever it is it isn't telling a story. Some people say it's merely something that's supposed to illicit and emotion, or even simply some kind of response. I'm not sure I agree with that, but art comes in many different forms. The purpose of art and its method of achieving it is different for every different medium. What's unique to the medium of games is gameplay. Or more specifically, gameplay mechanics. I think, as Extra Credits calls it, "mechanics as metaphor" is the real way to elevate the medium to something more.

You can definitely create something worthwhile with stories in games, and I have nothing against them. I like a good story in a game. But games don't need stories, and stories are not the key to making the medium anything more than it is. Other mediums are better suited to it. Let them focus on that, and allow games to focus in their own, inherently unique qualities.

 

[Ranylyn]

All games "NEED" a "story." But what can easily vary is the form of narrative.

I just posted about Demon's Souls in another thread, so it will be my example.

The writing in Demon's Souls, quite simply, sucks. But I'll still argue it's a good story. Why? The atmosphere. The bloodstains, the corpses, those all do a lot more to convey what's going on than a few lines of speech. You know a small handful about how this place used to be a paradise on earth, and then you see what it is now. It makes the severity hit home.

On the flip side, well... I haven't played a Final Fantasy with a story I could really get into since the SNES era, and even then, it was only because my standards were low as a child. "Cool! It's like a book! A book I can PLAY!" (I loved reading.) The issue here is communication. I have a terrible rep as an FFVII hater on some forums just since I argue that the conveyance is terrible. I don't care how long it took Square to write it. The issue is that Square ommitted crucial information from the game and only released it in books later. This is bad game design. You don't do that.

A good story with good depth and good characters (Like Tales of the Abyss) is admittedly hard to come by, but games like Demon's Souls, Bioshock, etc, are blessedly becoming more common, and I'll take what I can get.


But here's the real question. WHY does a game need a story? The answer is simple: motivation. Would you slog through 10000 repetitive actions for no reason? A story is a motivator. You keep playing to see what happens next.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

No.

However, by far the most meaningful games to me have been those that have a weighty story element, as they combine my passion for games with my more general passion for theatre and fiction.

 

[DoPo]

Tetris is the best game ever. Tetris has no story.

What, did you get some sort of bootlegged version with all the cutscenes removed?

OT: No, games don't need a story. I don't know how much more to elaborate this. I skimmed through the thread and people have written more than a sentence about it, I don't think I can do that.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Some games work better with a minimal story, like the Half-Life and Souls series. But others have come up with stories more meaningful than some books and films, with ingenious deconstructions of the gameplay mechanics in the story (e.g. Bioshock).

 

[hazabaza1]

Yeah, it's all very contextual as to whether or not a story should be exist.

 

[Applejack]

I like Castlevania, Metroid, Monster Hunter, and Mario. Those games all have paper thin story but are not held back by that.

 

[Bad Jim]

But here's the real question. WHY does a game need a story? The answer is simple: motivation. Would you slog through 10000 repetitive actions for no reason? A story is a motivator. You keep playing to see what happens next.

If the enjoyment of the gameplay itself isn't sufficient incentive to play then the gameplay should be revised. And why does a perfectly entertaining story told in cut-scenes have to be padded with unexciting gameplay? Why not just make a movie of it?

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

I'd say any big game needs a story. It doesn't have to be a moving epic. But just something, mount and blade doesn't have a narrative, but it still has a story told through the world various snippets here and there.

No story at all works for a game like pong or tetris, something you spend at most an hour on. But I don't think I could work myself through 15 hours of gameplay without any reason behind it all.

 

[Ranylyn]

But here's the real question. WHY does a game need a story? The answer is simple: motivation. Would you slog through 10000 repetitive actions for no reason? A story is a motivator. You keep playing to see what happens next.

If the enjoyment of the gameplay itself isn't sufficient incentive to play then the gameplay should be revised. And why does a perfectly entertaining story told in cut-scenes have to be padded with unexciting gameplay? Why not just make a movie of it?

I'd argue that offensive over-use of CG cutscenes (To the point where clearing the main story is more cutscene than story, like in FFX) just gets boring, but at the same time, it's true that a lot of game devs don't seem to want to make games, but movies, and screw those devs.

There's a lot of good ways to tell a story without padding it down with abhorrent amounts of needless gameplay/story seperating (In a hilarious example, one RPG in particular has 3 major characters die from gunshot wounds, yet in actual battle, your team's literal child can tank 10+ shots without dying.) The fault lies entirely with the devs who try to string movie scenes together with gameplay.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I don't believe games NEED a story, however, if you aren't going to put the time into making a good story, don't bother putting one in at all.

I think games like CoD would be VASTLY improved if they just cut out the SP part of the game because they obviously spent little to no time on making it even half-assed.

Game companies need to stop spending time on something they have no intention on making even remotely good and should put their resources into making the focus of the game, in CoD's case the multiplayer, better.

 

[OpticalJunction]

RPGs work better with a story because it provides context for your character's choices. It's less important in games without much player choice, like need for speed or tetris. In all games, gameplay is the most important aspect.

 

[Racecarlock]

All games have a story, the real question is how much.

I mean, let's take your example of pong. Two guys were bored one day and decided to play a game of table tennis. That's the story for that.

How about stories for vertical scrolling shoot em ups? The world has been invaded by evil things and you can save it by blowing every evil thing they've got to kingdom come.

Mario, italian plumber from new york saves princess by stomping turtles.

I think stories are fine as long as they don't get so needlessly complicated that tons of plot holes insue. For example, in heavy rain the killer's goal was to find a father strong enough to do anything to save his son, but in the end he tries to shoot the father anyways, no more detail than that. There's also at least 3 other stories in there to make it all mysterious.

Then there's the MGS4 story which yahtzee described in his review of it. Just watch the review.

My point is that all games have story, the difference being whether or not the story interrupts the gameplay too much. I mean, look at strikers 1945. Perfect blend of story and gameplay. Blow shit up to save world from nazis. That's what's missing today. A lot of games just string a bunch of random combat sections together with the story taking place entirely in long cutscenes, which makes the combat/gameplay pointless and the thing would have been better of as a movie. That's really all there is to it.

 

[Tumedus]

Absolutely not.

Poker, Solitaire, Tetris, Pong, most sports related games, etc. don't have any story at all. Also early games like Joust, Pitfall, Mario Bros., Asteroids, etc. all had a theme but nothing that could really be called a story.

A game needs compelling gameplay. Often a story can enhance that by giving the player motivation, but it isn't needed and, when done poorly, can actually be a detriment.