"Emotional" games are killing Gaming

Putting a little girl in God of War 3 killed it, now Santa Monica is putting another little boy in Gow4. Ever since The last of Us, games are trying to hard to copy and give us emotional moments. I mean atleast Naughty Dog is good at it, everyone else are just B-Movie copy cats. Please just focus on the gameplay and screw all this unnecessary emotional BS

Without an emotional connection bto the characters, playing games would be pointless

Yeah, I mean who play's Tetris without understanding the highly cerebral plot.

@dixonganesh: Sometimes visual storytelling like in films is not character-driven. Sometimes it's more of a moodpiece or it's more of an indeterminist struggle of a man vs the environment, etc. Whatever the director has to say isn't always centered around the characters. Take Aguirre by Werner Herzog, which is as detached from characters as it can get, and yet it so poignantly succeeds.

@charizard1605:

@SolidTy:

@casharmy:

@Chutebox:

@misterpmedia:

@Cloud_imperium:

@ninjapirate2000:

@Blabadon:

@BigBoi500:

@freedomfreak:

@cainetao11:

@lamprey263:

Gaming is pointless. Games do not need to be emotionally driven. This direction in gaming is bogging down gameplay. The new God of War looks like cinematic mess akin to Uncharted 4 and Quantum Break.

speak english, salt, jesus

I completely agree. The Days gone trailer was cringe worthy schmaltz voice over. Its a zombie shooter for f*ck's sake. It looked fun in motion and that made me like it not the douche bag reminiscing.

God of More puke broke my heart. I don't think people understand. I LOVED GoW. I was looking forward to a new setting and all but the same markings? The troll said something about Valhalla which is Norse not Greek. The boy and shit was awful. The combat with Gimli from LOTR axe? WTF? It was garbage of the highest order.

It seems like ND's success is making Sony push others to try this? I don't know maybe they just want to anyway?

Yeah man they totally stopped making fun stuff like Overwatch, or violent stuff like Doom, or thinking games like the Witness, Stephen's Sausage Roll, Hearts of Iron 4, XCom 2, or gamey games like Superhot, Ratchet n Clank, Enter the Gungeon, or quality Japanese stuff like Fire Emblem or Street Fighter, or atmospheric dungeon crawler action rpgs like Dark Souls 3, or expansions to richer triple A WRPGs like Witcher 3 and Fallout 4, and of course they don't make point and click games like Kathy Rain or Shardlight, or really they just keep making games either like That Dragon, Cancer or as you said The Last of Us knock offs.

lol what gen did he start gaming in?

From back when video game storylines meant something.

http://screwattack.roosterteeth.com/episode/video-game-vault-bad-dudes

Take note ND, that there is the absolute cusp of perfection in storytelling.

I prefer when games don't play out like an interactive movie and the player transforms into a movie watcher. That is the de-evolution of story telling. Video game devs are sabotaging the medium by not designing the games to tell stories. Instead they take away control from the player to tell their overly generic story and the critics jizz in their pants from the awesomeness a movie narrative.

Dafuq?

I tend to think video games that try to go the emotional rout fall flat on their face and end up sucking hard. That said, diversity in gaming can not possibly kill it. You can find all kinds of games these days, something filling almost every niche. And if that niche isn't being filled right now, it likely will be soon. Yeah, a lot of games are trying so hard to be movies in order to be respected by "artists" and that is a shame, but there are thousands of other choices, and the number is growing.

I don't see how anyone can be disheartened by the current state of gaming.

Okay...then don't buy it. But to say that this kind of thing is ruining gaming is like hearing a Steven Seagal fan saying that the problem with movies is that too many filmmakers are trying to utilize good cinematography and insightful writing. I'd never argue against that kind of "dumb" entertainment, so why the **** would someone feel threatened that some games are actually trying to achieve an emotional connection beyond the satisfaction that one gets by killing something?

Your analogy fails.These "emotional" games are heavily cinematic games. Cinematic games reduces the elements of gaming thus having a negative effect on gaming. If gaming is being reduced to simply sitting back and watching a cutscene, then gaming is being compromised. If gaming is be reduced to simply pushing forward on the analog then gaming is being compromised. I am not going to buy the game for your information but just like you, I can voice my dislike in the same fervor as your liking the game.

@Pedro: Apparently you missed the fact that with ANY form of entertainment, there's a variety of different kinds of stuff to suit different audiences. Movies like The Human Centipede would only be "killing movies" if there was absolutely no demand for any other kind of movie. Similarly, "emotional games" aren't killing a damn thing seeing as how there's actually a very big demand for games that don't try to go for an emotionally compelling narrative.

It's getting out of control from sony.

They think it's what the people want and yet they never asked for this GOW (every fanboy pretends that it's great but they know the truth)

Its only a problem thats highly rampant in triple A productions. Which is unfortunate, from a perspective. Imagine the money, time and resources poured into "cinematic" moments are instead used on deeper gameplay mechanics, depth, levels etc etc.

Beyond that, awesome non-movie games are still made and being made. Gaming as a whole is not that affected. For me, the best stories are the player-driven ones, not the ones forced on you or where control are forcibly taken from you.

You are missing the point. Gaming is an interactive medium. When the medium becomes less interactive the final product is less of a game. Game developers are still conveying story in games by removing all interaction or by having meaningless interaction such as pushing forward. For an interactive media, developers need to design their stories for the games and not the game around the stories. This is a new area in storytelling and by simply shoehorning techniques in movies to a medium that is not passive is undermining the very reason gaming exist. Do you think movie watchers would enjoy playing a mini game in during their movies every 5-10 minutes? Then why the hell is the reverse acceptable? You don't have to agree with me on this.

I'm not a fan of the movie games. I actually think that for these movie games, they should add a auto play mode so I can ignore the 'gameplay' segments and enjoy the movie. Its what drove me nuts about TLOU. I'd start getting into the story, then it would make me set down my popcorn and play the game. And then, when I would start getting into the game, then it would break into another giant long cinematic and completely kill my mood. Make a movie, or make a game already.

@bunchanumbers: I do agree that the over use of cutscenes is a problem, I don't mind a cutscenes with story progression every 40-60 mins because it gives you a break from game play for a bit anyway. But games that push it every 10-20 mins kinda piss me off.

I love these movie games. Those so opposed to them can't even define the metric to quantify the degree of interactivity that delineates a game from those "movie games" they so continually love to deride. For how many buttons pressed per minute suffices to qualify as a game? Then I can just as well label that game not one because another game exceeds it.

Interactivity is a poor metric to define gaming, as it's entirely relativistic. If you're going to say TLoU or David Cage's games are not games because agency is not as great as in Mario Galaxy, then I can say Galaxy is not a game when compared to DCS simulations, which have hundreds of inputs and require constant attention.

When someone can come to me and quantify a standard of player agency to define what a game is, I'm all ears.

@Salt_The_Fries

Random tag?

Grizzly Man was pretty good though. Love me some Herzog.

@dixonganesh: wut? I'm not sure you thought that one through.

Ima sit back and watch it burn to be honest. I've been saying all this for a couple years now.

With the exception of Nintendo, gaming has evolved and matured. I'd feel cheated if there wasn't an engaging story to follow along the gameplay in most gaming genres.

@Cloud_imperium: this is what I was thinking

Yes a fraction of games being released that contain emotional storylines are totally killing gaming.

OP should have clarified a bit better. Emotional games aren't killing gaming... Just Playstations games. Everyone else is fine.

Get hyped for God of War- Babysitter Edition.

Also get hyped for The Last Guardian- Babysitter Edition.

I have no problem with games like The Last of Us, while I didn't think it was the greatest game ever, like some try and sell it. It was a very good game and its tone, was a big reason for why. But Sony is trying to inject that into all of their games and that's too much. I first noticed it in Uncharted 4 where the spectacle the series is known for took a back seat to it. Now GoW is definitely a place where it has no business being, let Kratos be Kratos, not Joel with face tattoo's.

LOL great point!

I don't get the hate, you don't like games with emotional aspects then don't play them. But they are by no means ruining gaming. Hyperbole indeed.

Firstly my complaint about this has been with ALL games that make my controller practically useless. You can look at it as me picking on Sony because thats what you want to see. Its funny you say you want games with more emotional sense but the same games;when they allow you to play, are still "typical heartless bro-story with bloody bodies falling left and right". The ironic part is that these story elements that negatively affect pacing and the gameplay does not change the same thing you say you don't like and it typically contradicts the gameplay.

As your second paragraph. All of the stuff with Kratos being a father and what not is nice. But its all at the expense of gameplay. The pacing of the game is being halted by the push forward gameplay. What was shown is not a cutscene but a section in which you simply push forward until you are prompted to press a button to perform a specified action. That is WORSE than a cutscene. It is a poor movie experience and a poor gaming experience. NO ONE wins in that scenario.

The Witcher 3 gameplay was unrewarding and the story became so overbearing. I want to play a game not be moving from cutscene to cutscene while my controller is begging to be used. And this is not an opinion this is how the game plays if you follow the story. High levels of passiveness. Sit back and watch. They spent more time on the story and cutscenes than on the actual gameplay because the gameplay itself was mediocre.

I played both games. Thats why I can comment about their gameplay. These games demonstrate game developers ability to make cinematic experiences at the cost of gameplay. The influences of these games are making gaming more and more passive. The player spends more time watching than playing. That is diluting the gaming experience. The funny thing about all of this is that Quantum Break does the same shit and it gets flak for doing the same shit. Both Uncharted 4 and Quantum Break has the same "game" design in that the story takes away from the player more than it allows the player to actually play. That is why both of these games and any games like them are mediocre games because the gaming element is most diluted.

The point I am getting to with regards to all of this is that game developers are telling stories in a traditional way. That traditional method of telling stories is design for a passive medium. Gaming is not passive. Its storytelling should not be passive. Only a few developers attempt to tell stories interactively and most of them fail but they are at least trying. If gaming wants to push storytelling to the next level it should do that by designing and creating stories specifically for the medium and not switch to another medium;movies, to convey their stories. High budget gaming studios have the funds to do it but they will wait for some small budget struggling studio to create the formula first before they even try. However, when gaming starts carving out this new way of storytelling it would offer a level of immersion that CANNOT be experienced in any other medium.

Nah, Youtube VR fodder is what's going to kill gaming.

Killed the hypocrite fanboy with this post.

mmhmm video game stories are shit as far as I'm concerned, gaming's greatest achievement in that department is like a 6 out of 10 in a medium with actual standards if we are being nice. But we get a wide range of games. Do I enjoy how ubiquitous modern gaming can get or how much money is spent on some really uninspired looking games? No, but "ruining gaming", i mean come on you're just not putting in the effort to find shit you actually want to play. Probably for dumb reasons like "No, that's indie, that's icky'.

I can't stand it. The Death Stranded preview was one of the most cringe-worthy things I've ever seen come out of e3. I had an Xbox last generation and now have a PS4 so I've been looking forward to a new God of War since I've missed out for so long. Finally, it's coming! Then I see it and damnit, it's a cutscene/scripted laden affair with "dem feelings" written all over it.

That said, I disagree with the idea these emotional feelz scripted games are ruining gaming. There is still a metric ton of awesome games out there and being made, and those games are exactly what I will be spending my time on.

wtf am I reading?

Good thing that you are not a game maker. I like having diversity and what I get to play.

I want feel emotions when i play games

I rather play these so call movie games with good story than another mindless tunnel vision FPS!

Ugh...it's possible to have an engaging story/narrative without it having to be an over emotional cringefest. (which mainstream media seems to love for some reason)

Movies have the same problem though. I just avoid all that shit.

That's bullshit. Gaming has never been more diverse. If you're not aware of that, you need to open your mind and play some indie games.

There are plenty types of all games, stop bitching.

what a load of crap. go play a mindless shooter then

Videogame storytelling? Eww, gross.