Something that we as gamers need to understand

[Erttheking]

There's been a lot of controversy over how women are portrayed in games as of late (COME BACK! This isn't a gender discussion I swear!) Mainly a lot of people saying that they don't like how woman are being shown in video games with claims of sexism running rampant. But like I said, this isn't a gender discussion. It hit me today that it's part of a bigger problem when it comes to gaming. I'm pretty sure I'm going to take flak for this no matter how I word this so I'm just going to go out and say it.

Nine times out of ten, writing in video games suck.

Now before you go flying off the hook, I'm not saying that ALL games have lousy writing or can never have good writing. I think we all have at least one or two games that we hold near and dear to us because of how the writing touched our hearts. Heck, it's hard to get me to shut up about Metro Last Light and Dark Souls and how much I love them. That's not the point I'm trying to make. The point that I'm trying to make is that for every game with a spellbinding and captivating story, there are ten games with crappy stories.

The reason for this, I think, is rather simple. Games are very young. Movies have a century of experience to look back on for learning experiences and inspiration. Plays, music and books have even more than that. Games? We only have the last few decades to look back on, and a lot of time games in the early games of gaming didn't even try to tell a story. They just made a scenario that they could place their game in and left it at that. Stories were more often than not excuse plots. "Beat this guy up because he's a jerk" or something to that degree. It doesn't help that in addition to being a fairly new medium, I think video games may very well be the most complex. In addition to the story, there's visuals, music, lighting, level design, and of course game play, which adds a whole new dimension to work with. It certainly makes sense that with this much to work with, early games would be lacking in some departments.

An overall problem that games seem to have is that they're more concerned about making the gameplay part and then phoning it in when it comes to the story. Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with enjoying a game that has fun gameplay and a really lackluster story, there are plenty of games that I love that phone it in when it comes to story, but sometimes you can?t help but feel like there was a potential for a really good story within the context of a game that went to waste. For example, Amnesia the Dark Descent. I?ve heard from plenty of people that it?s one of the best horror games in recent years (Haven?t played it myself, horror games aren?t my things) but I?ve looked up the plot online and...well, without giving away any spoilers the plot seems pretty batshit insane. I know people loved that game but let me direct a question to the people who did like it. Wouldn?t it have been wonderful if the plot had been masterfully written instead of what you got?

And that?s the thing that really does bug me, so many games don?t really care about putting effort into their story, but throw one in anyways. And there?s an unbalanced ratio between games like the Last of Us with characters that feel like real people that pull on your heart strings as opposed to games like Call of Duty who seem to think the best way to pull on heart strings is say ?This is a character. This character is dead. You feel sad now.? It makes me wish that games made by people who really don?t want to tell story would just go down the path of games like Civilization or Team Fortress 2 and just not have a story at all. I?d rather have a good game with no story at all than one with a painfully forced one.

Basically what I?m trying to get at here is that games have a lot to learn when it comes to telling stories. Some developers are ahead of the curve and have managed to deliver what we consider to be master pieces, but many games completely forsake story for the sake of gameplay. Now there are places for games where we don?t have a strong narrative and just have fun blowing stuff up, but I think if Jim?s video on over saturated gaming can be with guns is anything to go by

<youtube=4e7AZj7s2c4>

I think we could all stand to have more games that have more of a focus on narratives and strong characters. I think we could stand to even out the ratio between games that make characters that you really care about, and making about making it fun to blow things up. We?ve got more than enough of the second, we really need more of the first. The good news is that I think we're starting to slowly but steadily head in that direction. We're not there yet, but we're getting there.

I'm not saying that games are inferior to other mediums I'm just saying that they've still got a lot to learn. It's not like we can't love them. It's like telling a friend that they eat too much. We need to help them get over the problem, not shun them.

What do you think? (Please, this is about the quality of writing in games, it isn?t a gender argument. Please stay on topic.)

 

[jehk]

I'd say video games are more complicated than any other media by a few orders of magnitude.

 

[Silly Hats]

I just think that people should just value other opinions. It's easy to side with the majority.

The combination of Technology and the variety to choose from is astonishing and I can see it get better.

 

[Erttheking]

I'd say video games are more complicated than any other media by a few orders of magnitude.

I agree with you. I flat out said that in my OP. I said the intereactive element added a whole new dimension.

 

[jehk]

I'd say video games are more complicated than any other media by a few orders of magnitude.

I agree with you. I flat out said that in my OP. I said the intereactive element added a whole new dimension.

I think its more than just that. Video games require a pretty unique blend of creativity.

 

[Erttheking]

I'd say video games are more complicated than any other media by a few orders of magnitude.

I agree with you. I flat out said that in my OP. I said the intereactive element added a whole new dimension.

I think its more than just that. Video games require a pretty unique blend of creativity.

Dude, you're preaching to the choir here. I agree with you on this 110% That's exactly what I think on the matter.

 

[jehk]

I'd say video games are more complicated than any other media by a few orders of magnitude.

I agree with you. I flat out said that in my OP. I said the intereactive element added a whole new dimension.

I think its more than just that. Video games require a pretty unique blend of creativity.

Dude, you're preaching to the choir here. I agree with you on this 110% That's exactly what I think on the matter.

Yeah. Not trying to disagree. Just adding 2 cents.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

My first questions before diving into this are these.

What do you consider "good" writing? And does whether something is "good" writing or not depend on if it's "mature" or not?

 

[Erttheking]

My first questions before diving into this are these.

What do you consider "good" writing? And does whether something is "good" writing or not depend on if it's "mature" or not?

I'd have to say good writing constitutes writing that gets me emotionally involved in the story. Writing that makes me really care about the characters. As for the second question, I'm not quite sure what you mean by mature writing. If you mean Game Of Thrones in dealing with dark themes such as death, poverty and an unfair world, I'd have to say no. Pixar manages to have stories for kids that are well written, I've also heard that Psychonaughts and Driver San Fransisco are well written games with light themes. I never subscribed to the "True Art is Angsty" concept.

 

[The Madman]

You're not wrong, but just keep in mind there's a pretty big difference between being complex and being good. A good story doesn't need to be complex, nor does a story being complex mean it's good. All too many people, developers included, make this mistake (I'm looking at you Final Fantasy).

A 'good' story insofar as these things can even be classified is one that draws the audience in, usually through endearing characterization or an elaborate and interesting world although there are also those that use elements of intrigue or mystery, perhaps outright humour, to draw someone in. A good story is one that has well written and believable dialogue when applicable, and which makes the audience feel sympathetic towards something, anything really, in order to make them want to continue down the story. An 'excellent' story meanwhile is one that teaches us, makes us think and learn without even realizing it but those are fairly far and few between even in older medium like books and movies.

To that end I'd argue despite being batshit insane, something like Amnesia is a good story. It drew the player in, it intrigued them with mystery, created a setting the player cared about and could immerse themselves in, and evoked empathy through journal entries and the like. It's not masterful, but it's effective nonetheless.

I like to point at Prince of Persia: Sands of Time as an effective example of a simple story done well in gaming. Likable characters, intriguing setting, well written dialogue, intriguing plot, and a clever use of adding gameplay elements to enhance the games story. It's no Shakespear, but it's a well done story done well and in a way that is unique to gaming.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

My first questions before diving into this are these.

What do you consider "good" writing? And does whether something is "good" writing or not depend on if it's "mature" or not?

I'd have to say good writing constitutes writing that gets me emotionally involved in the story. Writing that makes me really care about the characters. As for the second question, I'm not quite sure what you mean by mature writing. If you mean Game Of Thrones in dealing with dark themes such as death, poverty and an unfair world, I'd have to say no. Pixar manages to have stories for kids that are well written, I've also heard that Psychonaughts and Driver San Fransisco are well written games with light themes. I never subscribed to the "True Art is Angsty" concept.

Glad to hear the latter.

As to the former though, the problem with that is that's a very subjective criteria. What one person finds emotionally involving might not be so for another person.

But following your criteria, I think we do in fact have good writing in games, they just tend to not occur much in the most popular games which are focused more on multiplayer than any real story. Even the Mario series, in spite of how simple the platformer games tend to be, has emotional moments from certain games in the series like Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, Super Paper Mario, and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. I think that there's actually a lot more games with good writing (When said games actually have a plot) than there are ones with bad writing, people just focus too much on the well known few that don't because the bad makes more news than the good.

 

[LaoJim]

Nine times out of ten, writing in video games suck.

Yep. While there are not many well rounded female characters in games, there are also not too many really well written men. (Which is not to say that there shouldn't be an effort to have more female characters well written or not in games)


There's an old quote about opera, which I can't find the exact wording of on google at the moment, which roughly says "There are hundreds of great operas with terrible librettos, but there are no great operas with terrible scores".

The same is true for video games, just replace the music with gameplay. It was only thirty years ago that "Sorry the princess is in another castle" was the whole extent of the story telling process in a game.

I'm one of those people for whom the story is one of the least important thing, what's important for me is the setting or ambiance of the game. Whether it's the old West in Red Dead Redemption or modern Hong Kong in Sleeping Dogs, the actual details of who this cowboy is or what they are doing isn't *that* important to me (Though obviously it still needs to be there., t

I was thinking about this as I am currently replaying Call of Duty 2 and I realised that I much prefer the older ones which don't have any real through-going story. You are an ordinary soldier, you are given a mission to clear a town or destroy a flak gun, something that it completely reasonable given the World War 2 setting and then immersed in the front line combat. I even like the letter you get on the loading screens that give you little details of what the soldiers are thinking about their current situation. Compare this to the first Black Ops campaign, which I absolutely hated, which tried to tell a complex story of one character with plot twists and brainwashing and dramatic Shatneresque overacting ("Tell...me...what...do..the...numbers...mean").

It's hard to tell a story in games. If it's a shooter then there has to be a reason for you to shoot ten thousand alien zombie Nazi robots, and once your character is a mass murder (and also died a thousand times themselves) it's hard to make the death of other really dramatic. It's even harder to write a story for a racing game. "I'm the nasty leader of this underground racing scene. I don't like you. Lets have a race", "Hi I'm the sexy love interest, want to impress me? How about a race" Which is why everyone was so surprised about Driver: SF, which had one of the best told stories of recent games.

 

[Savagezion]

My first questions before diving into this are these.

What do you consider "good" writing? And does whether something is "good" writing or not depend on if it's "mature" or not?

I'll answer this with an example or two. Good writing explains shit, it takes events and makes them lead into one another naturally. For instance:

Spoiler: SPOILER: Scene from the beloved Dark Knight Rises

Bruce makes it out of the cave Bane put him in, crawls out of this hole on the other side of the globe. He is now free from that prison. However, he has lost all his money and possessions and only has the rags on his back. How did he get back to Gotham when even the military couldn't get in?

Verdict: Bad writing

Spoiler: SPOILER: Scene from the hated Green Lantern

The villain is portrayed all through the movie as socially inept, has a huge lust for power, is has a large ego concerning his intelligence and prone to acting rashly. All become increasingly more true as the movie goes on. Hal offers him the ring (unlimited power) as a trade that is actually a trick. "Why didn't he use telepathy?" is the common argument against this. Since when was the bad guy strategic? He has been rash through the whole movie. Power hungry. Plus, he is socially inept and is being offered unlimited power due to his "master plan" basically. He rashly jumps at the ultimate power being offered to him out of what he mistakes as fear instead of trickery due to being socially inept and proud of the fact he is "winning" by outsmarting them

Verdict: Good writing

As you can see one of those is a huge plot hole, the other is simply a "I would of done X if I was him." However, I would rate Green Lantern at a 7/10 and Dark Knight Rises as a 3/10 based on writing. I recently watched the entire season of Orange is the New Black on Netflix. I didn't really like any of the characters. However, that doesn't mean they weren't good characters. I just didn't like them personally. However, in a show that I liked none of the characters, I was drawn in and watched the entire season. Why? Because when Piper got the crazy fanatical christian meth head out of the psych ward, you knew what that meant and you wanted to see it. When the young latin chick tried to kill the baby in her womb, you thought you knew what that meant but they flipped that shit on you and then you knew what that meant. Even when they throw you a curve ball, it stays well within the realm of logical conclusion. It is a show based entirely on motives, deception, and of course boundaries. (Prison) It doesn't just do weird shit like this:

Spoiler: SPOILER: Dark Knight Rises Scene

Paraphrasing:

Gordon Levitt: I could tell you were Batman since I was a kid because of "the look in your eye" when you visited my orphanage. I am an orphan and you are an orphan, so I know.

Bruce: Darn, I can't refute that logic. It's ironclad. Don't tell no one okay?

That movie is seething with writing like that. However, that is the jist of it for me without going on a DKR tirade. As I mentioned with Orange is the New Black I don't even have to give a damn about the characters and so long as the story is cohesive, it can draw me in. That's what made Last of Us so good.

Spoiler: SPOILER: Last of Us Finale

Joel went on a rampage to get Ellie back. I was like "Uh, Joel... I dunno if this is the best idea... eh, fuck it - I can understand why you would." Then the more and more I fought to save her thinking of my actions, the more and more it seemed logical. By the time she woke up drugged in the car, I was like "Yep, good job Joel, we did it." Then we get that awesome scene at the end.

 

[E-Penguin]

I feel like some of the most enjoyable gaming stories tend to be created by the open and semi-random nature of certain games, like with Dwarf Fortress's Boatmurdered or any of the manifold tales of incest and kinslaying from Crusader Kings 2.

 

[Hero of Lime]

That's probably why I prefer games to focus more on gameplay and giving me a good time, rather than a robust story. The writing may not be the best, but as long as the game is fun and interesting to play, I believe it still succeeds in what it sought to do in the first place.

That doesn't mean I don't want writers to try their best to write great stories for games, but I feel like the game itself usually suffers if the main priority is to provide the best written experience. There are plenty of exceptions to this rule of course.

 

[Erttheking]

I feel like some of the most enjoyable gaming stories tend to be created by the open and semi-random nature of certain games, like with Dwarf Fortress's Boatmurdered or any of the manifold tales of incest and kinslaying from Crusader Kings 2.

I can respect that. I have fond memories of when my empire was invaded in Civilization V while my army was practically non-existant and I beat them back by the skin of my teeth. I'm just saying that there's room for that and developer crafted plots in gaming.

 

[E-Penguin]

I feel like some of the most enjoyable gaming stories tend to be created by the open and semi-random nature of certain games, like with Dwarf Fortress's Boatmurdered or any of the manifold tales of incest and kinslaying from Crusader Kings 2.

I can respect that. I have fond memories of when my empire was invaded in Civilization V while my army was practically non-existant and I beat them back by the skin of my teeth. I'm just saying that there's room for that and developer crafted plots in gaming.

I'm not disagreeing, I just wanted to highlight an alternative approach to storytelling in gaming which hadn't been mentioned yet.

And I have to be honest, there weren't really much else I could add to the discussion, my viewpoints regarding writing in videogames have been mentioned already.

By the way, I'd highly recommend you read Boatmurdered; it's a great read, as long as you're not in a situation where giggling is frowned upon.

Link: http://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-Boatmurdered/

 

[white_wolf]

I was thinking that maybe one more reason why games with women don't sell is because the game makers can't just make her generic. Every female protagonist would have to be original if you turnout women lead games with 50 chells in it then no one's going to like it no matter which gender and you can't just place in 50 rough and tumble grand theft auto girls and expect it to sell either long term. Because these leads aren't just competing for the more memorable character they're also competing for viewship.

Each female character or at least a majority made would have to be made original given personas that make them non cookie cutter for female players to want to play as and for males to be intrigued enough to want to fallow about. With male audiences you can get away with the silent or stick up his rear lead as men aren't to picky so long as theres sexy ladies, explosions, and cool one liners female players however while they will go with those male leads for a while do want individuality when it comes to their leads.

But reading what I have of your post OP I agree the gaming industry needs to get off the quantity and start making the quality games less dung more diamonds. That means the gaming industry as a whole for writers, level designers, and character writers would all have to try way more and if you have to try you can't just shove things out for a quick buck.

 

[Racecarlock]

Look, I like a good story as much as anyone does.

But, the main attraction of games is GAMEPLAY. I can't fucking stand games that totally destroyed their own gameplay simply to tell a story. Every day the same dream sucks. Doesn't matter how much fucking symbolism it has, it sucks.

I play games for GAMEPLAY. Would I like them to have a good story? That's a stupid question. Of course I would. But I don't want the gameplay watered down and hampered and torn to shit just because it wouldn't be as dramatic if the player had more freedom.

Edit: I just read more of the topic and if you'll now excuse me I need to go find the handle I just flew off of.

 

[gavinmcinns]

You're not wrong, but just keep in mind there's a pretty big difference between being complex and being good. A good story doesn't need to be complex, nor does a story being complex mean it's good. All too many people, developers included, make this mistake (I'm looking at you Final Fantasy).

A 'good' story insofar as these things can even be classified is one that draws the audience in, usually through endearing characterization or an elaborate and interesting world although there are also those that use elements of intrigue or mystery, perhaps outright humour, to draw someone in. A good story is one that has well written and believable dialogue when applicable, and which makes the audience feel sympathetic towards something, anything really, in order to make them want to continue down the story. An 'excellent' story meanwhile is one that teaches us, makes us think and learn without even realizing it but those are fairly far and few between even in older medium like books and movies.

To that end I'd argue despite being batshit insane, something like Amnesia is a good story. It drew the player in, it intrigued them with mystery, created a setting the player cared about and could immerse themselves in, and evoked empathy through journal entries and the like. It's not masterful, but it's effective nonetheless.

I like to point at Prince of Persia: Sands of Time as an effective example of a simple story done well in gaming. Likable characters, intriguing setting, well written dialogue, intriguing plot, and a clever use of adding gameplay elements to enhance the games story. It's no Shakespear, but it's a well done story done well and in a way that is unique to gaming.

I also enjoyed that sands of time immensely as a kid. Like you said, it's not shakespeare, but it does an excellent job of letting the player absorb the story through the world. A game that accomplishes this even more effectively is Demon's souls and it's successor Dark Souls.

The part where you mention "[excellent stories in older mediums like books and movies]" was written very well and I find myself curious over what you would consider a few examples of each? To me this describes Hugo's Les Mis and David Ayer's "Harsh Times", respectively