Poll: No One I Know Likes Good Games

[Kasper Gundersen]

"Yea video games aren't supposed to have stories, it's stupid."

Good video games need good stories. A video game without a story is just you pressing buttons to make your screen flash.

Truer words have never been spoken friend! Yet there ARE good games without story, but to say that games, that's trying to tell a story, is stupid (after mentioning that he likes AC, mind you) really needs to get his ass in gear and play some games!

 

[Thaius]

...I question which games you've played. You've really never played a game with a halfway decent narrative? No credit is going to any of the Final Fantasy games, or Mass Effect, Beyond Good and Evil, L.A. Noire, Red Dead Redemption, Chrono Trigger, Shadow of the Colossus (which doesn't have much of a story, but it presents itself in an amazing way only a video game could), Bioshock, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time... how can you actually say that no game has reached a competent level of storytelling?

Firstly, please tell me you AREN'T trying to defend recent FF games' narrative. Please, please, PLEASE.

ME1 (from what I remember): Defeat evil robots with

ME2 (The one I played): Gather a bunch of character's, fight evil aliens. Gather more characters. Defeat evil aliens. Very predictable storyline all through it.

Bioshock: Save a bunch of MacGuffin's from evil robots, have very shallow good/bad endings depending on whether you lustfully ate MacGuffin's souls.

Red Dead Redemption: Hunt down and capture a series of criminals, after being shot because John's not too bright.

Beyond Good & Evil: Just checked its plot. Very shallow.

I think I see the problem here. I never said the narrative was "incompetently told". I was saying that the narrative was SHALLOW.

Star Wars: Save people from the power of bad magic.

Inception: Manipulate some guy by breaking into his mind.

The Dark Knight: Stop some crazy person from killing people.

The Lord of the Rings: Throw a piece of jewelry into a volcano.

Macbeth: Guy gets powerhungry and dies.

The Godfather: Do crimes and stuff.

See, I can reduce brilliant stories to nothing with the power of simplicity too! I even gave one like your verdict on Beyond Good and Evil, since I haven't seen The Godfather yet but can obviously judge it! I'm so smart!

All you did was take great stories and take out everything that made them stories; you can do that with absolutely anything and it will sound shallow and stupid. Anyone who's taken more than a millisecond to understand storytelling is aware that, at the simplest level, there are only like 10 different stories; the thing that makes them original, compelling, and otherwise good is the details added to them and their presentation. You took out everything that makes these stories more than one of the few basic archetypes and claimed the stories were shallow by extension, and that logic does not even begin to follow.

 

[DrFecka]

Snip

Peers: 90% of them are gamers. 8% Don't get it. 1% is my girlfriend, who understands and supports my gaming, who plays games a little but, but who's less involved with gaming than the 90% of my peers who are gamers.

Snip

Hate to be that guy, but that's only 99% lol.

OP: most of my friends are gamers, but think that stories should be downplayed in favor of gameplay, we argue about that a lot, but it's all friendly. Your friends just seem to kind of suck.

 

[TheAceTheOne]

Snip

Peers: 90% of them are gamers. 8% Don't get it. 1% is my girlfriend, who understands and supports my gaming, who plays games a little but, but who's less involved with gaming than the 90% of my peers who are gamers.

Snip

Hate to be that guy, but that's only 99% lol.

OP: most of my friends are gamers, but think that stories should be downplayed in favor of gameplay, we argue about that a lot, but it's all friendly. Your friends just seem to kind of suck.

I fill the remaining 1%. Just cause. (Actually, I didn't do the math. Let's say the 1% is my mom, lol)

I almost said your friends were losers too, OP.

 

[Chibz]

You took out everything that makes these stories more than one of the few basic archetypes and claimed the stories were shallow by extension, and that logic does not even begin to follow.

Except that's all the stories really have. ME2 was the most dry, filler loaded thing I've ever played, for example. And that's the problem. Video games, at this point, can only hope to mimic the deeper narrative in film & literature. Until we can admit this fundamental problem as a community, we won't be able to overtake it. Like I said, almost every video game "story" compared to a well written movie or book is like. "comparing The Evil Dead to a Francis Ford Coppola film."

Although lord of the rings... is actually pretty bad. I can't defend it.

 

[ChocoFace]

It's sometimes funny to see my dad come in the room, say "playing these kiddy games again, huh", after which he stays to watch for a minute or two.

He thinks games are a waste of time, but seems to be interested in them enough to warrant his attention a bit.

Having gaming as a hobby is generally frowned upon where i live, but luckily noone seems to be rude about it like your douchebag friends.

 

[Jubbert]

FUCK THOSE FRIENDS.

 

[HydraMoon]

They are all 19, really. As far as the story goes, it happened exactly like that. This is quite normal for me, the people in my life just don't think of video games as anything other than toys.

19 can be a rough age. I remember struggling to leave behind my teenage ways and adopt what I thought of as an Adult Life. I mainly got it wrong. In time they will probably learn to bend a bit.

As far as how my gaming is viewed- it's something that's supported except for when I'm on a gaming site. I play all kinds of games, FPS (when I can use an adapted controller) and 200 hour RPGs all the way to hidden object games and games on my Kindle. I'll game anywhere and any time.

In 'gamer' circles my love for variety gets me labelled as a casual player because I dare to talk about good games that aren't made for headshots. The only place I encounter grief is in gamer circles- no one in real life has ever said I'm wasting my time, playing 'stupid games' or that my hobby is for children only. The only people who've ever said my games are crap, not worth the time it took to code them, were fellow gamers.

For me, being a gamer means I have love for the medium- not just specific titles/genres. For some reason in gaming circles there is a divide there between what games are 'good' and worthy of being talked about vs Games That Shan't Be Mentioned As It Does Not Make Us Look Badass. It's snobby and childish; I wish we could grow up already and just enjoy what we enjoy.

tl:dr- non gamers don't care what games I play, gamers act more like children and judge everyone elses games.

 

[Sancrkf]

My parents don't really care much about gaming, I don't even know what they think about it, but sometimes they play too, specially motocross games lol...

But about people like your friends and those who say japanese/cartoony games must suck, all I have to say is: The idiots are taking over, that's all. Just leave them to their own ignorance and enjoy fantastic games that they'll never play.

 

[Thaius]

You took out everything that makes these stories more than one of the few basic archetypes and claimed the stories were shallow by extension, and that logic does not even begin to follow.

Except that's all the stories really have. ME2 was the most dry, filler loaded thing I've ever played, for example. And that's the problem. Video games, at this point, can only hope to mimic the deeper narrative in film & literature. Until we can admit this fundamental problem as a community, we won't be able to overtake it. Like I said, almost every video game "story" compared to a well written movie or book is like. "comparing The Evil Dead to a Francis Ford Coppola film."

Although lord of the rings... is actually pretty bad. I can't defend it.

Actually, they have much more than that; the problem is that you're taking out the main things that make every story more than just its basic archetype; characters and setting. None of your summaries had anything about them, but the characters, their motivations, weaknesses, and struggles, are what makes a story more than its basic summary. Red Dead Redemption isn't about some guy trying to "Hunt down and capture a series of criminals," it's about a man trying to save his family and redeem his past. Bioshock isn't about saving people from anything, it's about surviving in a mysterious place with a complicated and philosophically rich history, and discovering the meaning of free will. Beyond Good and Evil isn't about saving the world from a robot invasion, it's about a girl fighting both inward and outward expressions of the evil inside her, and is incredibly symbolically deep. You are judging these narratives by taking out everything that makes them a narrative, and thus invalidating your own critique entirely.

EDIT: Also, your opinion on Lord of the Rings is making me question your tastes anyway. :/

 

[Alphakirby]

While Naruto 2 probably does suck all those others are great games and your friends are idiots. and why are they saying story sucks when playing ASSASSIN'S CREED 2...it's like some strange ass bizzaro world where douche bag gramers are in larger numbers than real gamers are.

 

[Mistermixmaster]

My friends play the same games as me more or less (Mass Effect, Starcraft 2, Bulletstorm, y'know, the works the average gamer on this site would most likely enjoy), so yes they're accepting of it.

There is some stuff though I haven't dared to tell them about though in fear of how they would react... Katawa Shoujo being one of them for example. I played through Act 1 more times than what is healthy for me I bet, and I still enjoy it. I wouldn't dare tell my friends about it though...

 

[Chibz]

EDIT: Also, your opinion on Lord of the Rings is making me question your tastes anyway. :/

LOTR is just an old man's tirade on the "evil's of technology" and about the purity of the "hillbilly" lifestyle. Even though he never had anything good to say about them, either. It's just a book that reeks of its author being an old, angry British man being just that.

The films are actually more of a romance of ideas between two people. The end result is almost guaranteed to be beautiful. Even if you don't much care for one of them. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jrr_tolkien]

Most games are only deep if you try to assign more depth to them than was actually intended.

 

[cameron196789]

Get new friends, the ones you have now are idiots.

 

[Thaius]

EDIT: Also, your opinion on Lord of the Rings is making me question your tastes anyway. :/

LOTR is just an old man's tirade on the "evil's of technology" and about the purity of the "hillbilly" lifestyle. Even though he never had anything good to say about them, either. It's just a book that reeks of its author being an old, angry British man being just that.

The films are actually more of a romance of ideas between two people. The end result is almost guaranteed to be beautiful. Even if you don't much care for one of them. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jrr_tolkien]

Most games are only deep if you try to assign more depth to them than was actually intended.

For one, I've never heard that interpretation of Lord of the Rings in my life. And I fail to see how it could possibly fit in with Tolkien's expressed intentions for the story. But secondly, that was a very minor side note; that last paragraph is so short and generally phrased I'll have to assume you had nothing more to say about the actual topic we were discussing.

EDIT: But now that I think about it, you're brought the importance of authorial intent into the picture, in which case I'd have to refer you to many things said by the creators of some of these games. Some of the comments regarding Aerith from Final Fantasy VII. The intended meaning of Beyond Good and Evil out of the mouth of Michel Ancel himself. The Extra Credits episode that points out the cultural and biblical allusions all over Mass Effect 2. In which case I think this is likely a case of you seeing less than was intended rather than me seeing more.

 

[Matthew Valkanov]

Don't really have that problem. Have friends who like games, have friends who don't. Doesn't bother me. What does bother me amongst my game-playing friends is that some of them are a tad snobbish when it come to graphics. There's this one guy who just won't shut up about them. And this fascination stops him from playing tons of great games, just because you don't need a pc on steroids to play it.

 

[Hobonicus]

If you can't understand that different people have different hobbies and tastes, then I'm afraid it's you who's ignorant.
There's nothing magical about video games that make them the universally accepted best thing ever.

While I highly doubt that your friends are people who have more than a casual interest in the fine arts, perspective is key here.
To someone who's very invested in classic literature, the attempts at having a complex story in video games seem awfully hammy and possibly downright childish.
To someone who's an expert in, say, landscape painting, the artificial environments as well as the atmosphere in video games will be more than just repelling.
Compared to the hundreds, if not thousands of years other mediums had to evolve, yes, video games are indeed immature.

On another note, do you like going to the opera?
Now, I think operas and some musicals are the shit, yet most people consider them boring and snobbish, even calling them retarded and gay seems to be popular.
Do I think they're all uncultured buffoons? Well, holders of the latter "opinions" yes, but otherwise no, they just have a different taste.

Or, to summarize:
Grow a pair of balls and accept that people will more often than not have a different opinion than you.
That opinion will not always be well-founded, not always be reasonable, not always be logical, not always be tolerant, but it's just that: an opinion.

Your little soapbox shpeel suggested that you think ignorance is justified by perspective, which would completely defeat the point of the word ignorance. His friends weren't simply expressing different opinions, they were placing artificial restrictions on the medium while following the mainstream. From his story you're supposed to extrapolate from their behavior and judge their personality, not launch into a rant where you attempt to objectively analyze the concept of subjectivity.

You're insulting to the OP for confusing opinion with fact because he's insulting his friends for confusing opinion with fact. In other words, you're doing the same thing but dressing it up with arrogance. You're one of those people who resolutely don't seem to get that society lives and breathes opinionated conflict. You want so badly to stay grounded in your logic that you're blind to common sense and end up missing the point.