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Truths about video game stories

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Re: Truths about video game stories

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this comment, I searched for sources on this topic after reading it and was very surprised to see corroboration. Here’s a quote and few links for those interested: In the US in 2019, a high % of adults reported reading a book recently https://www.markinblog.com/book-sales-statistics/ …who is reading in the US? In October of 2019, over 80% of adults, age 18 to 29, have read at least one book in the…

Books sales are sales of anything with an ISBN. This includes adult colouring books, which I’ve heard is responsible for possibly all the sales increases in the past few years.

Come on...

Re: Truths about video game stories

#162
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks to me like the author was making a joke.

Agreed. I read it like the classic "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

Same. Text can sometimes be hard. That text is fairly lucid. The tone and humor stand out fairly well. Like the author said: competent.

...which means a percentage of us will take it differently than intended.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#163
post #160

That's why I mostly play point&click adventure/rpg games and text adventures, because that genre can't really survive without a good story. I'm rarely disappointed and the games cost a fraction of what you would pay for a AAA title. Not that I don't like AAA, but every time I watch a gameplay video I get bored fairly quickly because I don't feel drawn to the game, it seems "same old, same old". Perhaps it's just me.…

You might be in the minority, but not alone. I had same experience with Witcher 3 and AAAs in general. I find that games with good procedural gameplay and an inherently emerging story are the best fit for me. E.g. Kenshi, Dwarf Fortress come to mind. Kingdom Come is a counter-example, where it's fairly mainstream, but I found writing great and the world procedural (alive) enough for me to thoroughly immerse in. Can't wait for the sequel. I like a lot of multiplayer games too: sourcing randomness and intelligence from actual people works well.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#164
post #117
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you run into the marines you aren't told they're bad, they just start trying to kill you and you figure out that you're not getting a rescue. That is not exactly subtle nor needs much figuring. Them trying to kill you is game telling you they are bad in very straightforward way.

That’s the game showing you they’re bad with gameplay instead of telling you with a cutscene or text.

That sounds like it’s still a cut-scene, just one done in-engine. Does the player have any control over the encounter, like shooting the marine or the scientist, before the scene begins?

Re: Truths about video game stories

#165
post #5

I remember all the press praising the original Half Life for its story. I was really surprised - it was the same story as all first person shooters going back to Doom: Bad guys spawn across an inter-dimensional portal and start wreaking havoc. Protagonist has to kill them all, crossing the portal in the process to go destroy the alien leader. There were some cool extra details - the G Man, the marines entering as a t…

> This author has it spot on: our standards for story telling in video games are really low. Are they? I would say that they are, but not for video games, but for all things in general. Sturgeon's law [0] states that "ninety percent of everything is crap." And it was supposedly originally about sci-fi novels! “Fifty Shades of Grey” was completely criticized on all fronts by reviewers, but still became one of the top…

> “Fifty Shades of Grey” was completely criticized on all fronts by reviewers, but still became one of the top bestsellers. > [...] > Most of the stories created today are low-quality ones. And that was always so. Only when we look at the past creations, we can only experience those that were good enough to be preserved.

I'm pretty sure that Fifty Shades of Grey wasn't successful for its story, but for discussing sex and specifically BDSM in a more open way than what was previously seen in "mainstream" movies.

Overall, a lot of works that, on the surface, aren't very impressive by current standards, but still managed to stand out in a novel way. Fifty shades and Half Life are two examples, but you could say exactly the same thing about Minecraft, DOOM, most of the classical movies, most of the old "legendary" cars and a lot more. Things don't become classics by standing the test of time - if you discount nostalgia, a lot of "classical" stuff is crap by todays standard -, but by founding the genre they're later beaten in.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#166
> When people say a video game has a good story, they mean that it has a story.

The standard is so low is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of the games are bad, but people will try random things to improve storytelling, and we'll see games with great stories like Planescape: Torment or Disco Elysium in the future, or even better.

Movies, on the other hand, where there are so many established patterns - people tend to abuse them because 1) they don't want to take the risk to make something subpar 2) it's easier. They were so many terrible movies in the last centuries, but there are so many great movies as well. The golden era of movies has passed, but for games, it's yet to come.

There are in fact patterns that could be found in great games, but not as widespread as Hollywood cliches, for example:

1. Planescape: Torment, Witcher 1/2: Amnesia. It allows no assumption of prior knowledge of the protagonist, making the player discover the world, the past, and even the protagonist himself/herself incrementally with himself/herself. Witcher 3 on the contrary, makes me feel less connected because the protagonist knows many characters that I don't know like Dijkstra even though I played through the first two games.

2. Baldur's Gate 2, Pillar of Eternity: Meet the villain in EVERY chapter, and make it feel like watching Steve Jobs at Apple launch events. This gives the player a clear goal, and a villain that can keep all the game plots together instead of being too random and sloppy.

3. Original Sin 2, Baldur's Gate 3: Lock the protagonist with a magical shackle, put a parasite in the protagonist's head, this also gives the player a clear goal, but without spoiling who the villain is (DoS2 is THAT surprising, I bet it might be the same in BG3).

Actually, good games can be established on these patterns, until everyone started to abuse them.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#167
post #160

That's why I mostly play point&click adventure/rpg games and text adventures, because that genre can't really survive without a good story. I'm rarely disappointed and the games cost a fraction of what you would pay for a AAA title. Not that I don't like AAA, but every time I watch a gameplay video I get bored fairly quickly because I don't feel drawn to the game, it seems "same old, same old". Perhaps it's just me.…

> The only AAA game that I bought was "The Witcher 3" precisely for the back story, but after 5-10h of playing it just felt so repetitive that I gave up on it.

I went through the same thing with Witcher 3, but I tried again and once I got past the initial Baron storyline the game really hit its stride. That game has so many mini-stories that you can play for 100 hours and still have some interesting stories to engage with. I don't think I've played any game before or since with that many storylines.

Re: Truths about video game stories

#168

I think the author is right that games generally have poor, or poorly executed stories, and even great stories need to be squeezed into the game play box (e.g. his "ends with bang"-trope.) But I also feel like the author misunderstands how the medium can elevate a story: "Old mans Journey" was critized for having too simple puzzles, but it is not a puzzle game. It's a story, where a few simple puzzles gives you time…

> how the medium can elevate a story

I agree that it can, but many (especially AAA) video games try to imitate film, rather than using the strengths of the medium.

This is why I hate cutscenes. I'm sitting here with a controller in my hands, ready to do something fun, and you're going to make me sit and watch some expository dialog instead? Where the voice acting, animation and writing are all below movie standards?

Re: Truths about video game stories

#169

If I was, I'd be writing books nobody buys because nobody buys books anymore Sales of printed books have been increasing every year since 2012. Last year alone saw a jump of over eight percent.

Thanks for posting this comment, I searched for sources on this topic after reading it and was very surprised to see corroboration. Here’s a quote and few links for those interested: In the US in 2019, a high % of adults reported reading a book recently https://www.markinblog.com/book-sales-statistics/ …who is reading in the US? In October of 2019, over 80% of adults, age 18 to 29, have read at least one book in the…

[deleted]

Re: Truths about video game stories

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this comment, I searched for sources on this topic after reading it and was very surprised to see corroboration. Here’s a quote and few links for those interested: In the US in 2019, a high % of adults reported reading a book recently https://www.markinblog.com/book-sales-statistics/ …who is reading in the US? In October of 2019, over 80% of adults, age 18 to 29, have read at least one book in the…

Books sales are sales of anything with an ISBN. This includes adult colouring books, which I’ve heard is responsible for possibly all the sales increases in the past few years.

After a flurry of activity in the last decade, I haven't heard anyone mention adult coloring books even once in the past two or three years. As long as we're all baselessly speculating, I will baselessly speculate that they were just an ordinary fad. My own anecdote is that disillusionment with internet content and electronic consumption in general has caused me to buy and read more books recently than at any point in my life.
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