Are games better at telling stories?

Are games better at telling stories than other types of media like novels and movies? With games maturing, they are being taken more serious as form of conveying a story to the player. Interested in this subject, I decided to research this question, so I am curious in how others experience this. Do you think games are more suitable to tell stories than for example movies? If you want to help me find out, please participate in my research project. At the end of the user study, you can optionally leave your email address if you want to get notified about the results of this research. I am looking forward to hearing your experiences and opinions on this subject.

No.

no

Games are a terrible platform for forcing a story down someone's throat...

Games have narrative potential but it shouldn't be wasted on trying to tell stories.

It works with some games, I cant get enough of anything Telltale games make. The way the story is presented in their games cannot be rivaled in any other media for me.

Yes games are better at telling a story then movies and books.

Where movies and books is a passive experience, games is interactive and allows for you as a player to influence the story if the writer/developer wants to have that.

@thehig1

Thats because those aren't games..... And even if it were the gameplay, or rather the lack of it, proves that it doesn't work.... Its like finally finding a cure for paralysed legs but the trade off is your fingers get paralysed.

@Jacanuk

Bu then thats not story "telling" anymore. And since its different, I can't be compared anymore.

Why aren't they games, you interact with the walking dead game and you can get game over if you screw up.

I'd add Mass Effect is a good example of a story portrayed well in a game, that would be as good in any other medium.

It totally depends on how the developers handle the game. No medium is better than the other. For example, The Last of Us. If TLOU was a novel or a movie, then we wouldn't have enjoyed it the same way as we did with it being a game. We felt the desperation, the sadness, the drive to survive etc everything in perhaps real time and this was solely because how the devs handled the story and the gameplay to complement each other.

@thehig1

Gameplay and Interaction are not the samething. I can interact with a Piec of Bread... That doesn't make it game.

And Mass Effect had Stat Checks... Those are poison to a to a story.

No they aren't better at telling stories nor are they worse then other mediums at telling stories they are simply just another way of story telling.

No, being interactive story has as many weakness as it does have strength.

Even though you have be more active involvement in the story, I find myself less immerse in the story because of what the story need to do to allow that interaction.

Look at Bioware, most of their stories are so interactive that that their overall stories are hurt because of it.

I do love it when branching dialog tress have some branches react to stats and those branches can affect upcoming quests. If you do not have it then way bother with the branching dialog tress but for some boring, worthless information dumping.

Its only available to play via game devices, like a console or a PC, there is some sort of gameplay ie looking around for items, quick time events in combat, hell there's even some shooting sections.

Its a game, and tells a better story than the TV show Walking dead does

@thehig1

So games are defined by what devices they're on ? Is monopoly not a game because its not on a gaming system ?

QTE's are not gameplay... They are QTE's, random button presses that hold the conclusion of an even hostage until the correct input is entered. And lastly, I'm not denying The Walking Dead tells a good story.... I just want to know why that excuses the the rest of the "game"

@wiouds

Whoa hangon !.... You like Dialogue Stat Checks ?

Why ? They're so horrible.

Yeah they're more immerse than movies and more descriptive than books (a picture is worth 1000 words....).

Book and video games are about equal in my mind. movies are usually meh.

Of course its still telling a story. How could it be anything else.

@Jacanuk

Its choosing which story you want to be told....

Games often excel at environmental and subtle storytelling. Breaking the gameplay pace for story is almost universally bad, with a few notable exceptions

Not really.

Just because you have the option to actively do something doesn't mean the story isn't being told. Its like with the books where you are also given a option "turn to page 34 if you want to do this or turn to page 59 if you do this" its no different.

You mean episodic content? That's fairly common on television. It's also done better on television as Telltale is fairly incompetent at creating integral working features, like a save system.

QTE isn't game play, please tell Squaresoft that for the next Tomb Raider game

The walking dead lets you move a character around, pick up and use objects, interact with characters and shoot zombies at certain times.

That sounds like a game to me

I agree. They also fail at expository, philosophical, abstract conceptual scenes that books can excel at. Games have a hard time dealing with more "quiet" scenes and often use such scenes as a transition point from one action scene to the next, instead of making a game of just "quiet" scenes.

There are certain stories that should be told in certain mediums which is why I don't think video games are universally the best story telling media. I think many stories just simply wouldn't be able to work in video game format which instantly negates the idea that video games are better at telling stories than any other medium.

Games have the potential to be better at telling stories, but very few games actually have fantastic stories that people truly remember and consider great. But the fact that gameplay interaction is naturally good at allowing stories to form based around input-based action, regardless of the method (which some people can't seem to grasp) it's arguably the most unique way of producing a narrative. Are we at an academic level yet? No. But give it time.

Stories in video games don't allow for imagination they may be good but it's limited just like movies.

Novels are and will always be the best form of media for telling stories. It's been like that since we had a language to speak and write.

i think so yes, you can not tell a story like Mass Effect on tv or in a movie

Maybe. I think games overall do not tell as good stories as the best stories in novels/movies, but I do think there's an immersion you get out of it. It's a different experience in a lot of ways, even if there's use of things like cutscenes (which are 100% okay for a game to use). I think the potential for choice to influence a story also has potential, although as it's been implemented so far I don't think it's been much of an asset.

@Jacanuk

Yeah... Thats what I said... You are choosing which story you want to be told.

@thehig1

Yeah so ?

Does the fact that you're making a character move around and pick up objects make it a game ? What if you're not playing with a character ?

A series of Disconnected Interactions that don't come together to form a dynamic is not a game....

@Minishdriveby: only example we have from tell tale is the walking dead is done better than. the tv show.

well see how game of thrones turns out

Yeah exactly. And it's getting better all the time...

@Lulu_Lulu: if there's no dynamic, then it's a bad game. All good games have a dynamic with all their parts. Gameplay isn't the sole reason we play video games. It's more the way in which the gameplay allows you to create your own path through either an obstacle course or a story, and that nobody has the exact same experience regardless of how the game progresses. It's no longer just about a challenge, but an experience. And even so, the fun games that are pure obstacle courses are still gonna get better because of people constantly making gameplay mean more and play better through the increased methods of interaction.

@mastermetal777

Then call it something else.

I'm not against these things... I'm just against calling them games....

@Lulu_Lulu: not gonna happen any time soon, since the definition of a video game is constantly changing lately. Sure they're not what we grew up with, but when does anything stay the same?

I find that Mass Effect and story like them are mot that good.

so what makes "The Walking Dead Game" less of a game than Call of Duty then ?

@mastermetal777

Video Games aren't changing... What was a game 10 years ago is still a game today.... Just because your sick of it doesn't mean anything you replace gameplay with is well.... Gameplay... Ironically.

@thehig1

Gameplay... Duh !

This.

I also think many games can tell stories in a way a book or a movie wouldn't be possible to do, it's just a matter of how creative the developers are. How they choose to put their story into context of what your doing in the game. Many Indie games works in this way. Braid for example could be (from the looks of it) "just another shallow puzzle platformer". But in reality the reason for everything you do, all the mechanics has a much deeper meaning.

@Lulu_Lulu: I'm not sick of it. I'm just embracing the change while at the same time anticipating the next pure gameplay experience. I appreciate and enjoy many types of games not matter what the level of interaction. If you'd look at my favorites list you'd see that.

Just... :S

At the same times being able to tell story that book and movie can not bring in new weakness that does not make it better. I say Mass Effect is a poor st because of it being too much interaction.

Game play can never tell a story or even create much context for a story.

Actually it can. As I said, Braid is a good example. The 'gameplay-mechanic' of rewinding time is a metaphor of the things we did wrong in life and wished to be able to undo. It's equally as much of a story as a blockbuster movie that puts obivious shit straight into your face.

But yes, Bioware did **** up Mass Effect in the end. But that failure does not speak for the creativity of other talented developers.

depends on the story and the type of game being made.

for something like lord of the rings, say, not so good. the song of fire and ice series is also probably not a prime candidate. i mean you can throw a game together that tells those stories....but its probably not going to do the story justice and it will probably be a crap game to boot.

but the stories in, say, metroid prime, HL2 or bioshock wouldnt work as well really on the big screen or in a book.

generally stories that were written for a book or a movie are not suitable for games. they are passive and linear so the creators are concerned about the pacing of the story, the quality of the writing above all else and so on.

in a game these are not of such a high concern. the story has to be flexible. a good story in a game will help compel you to go forward but it should never force it.

one area thats really interesting, and that can only be done in games, is emergent story telling. events that arent specifically scripted, they just happen of the course of the game. mount and blade (probably unintentionally) has both no story, an a massive sweeping tale of political intrigue that involves huge battles and much backstabbing. the game just has stuff happen over time. after every battle it also shows you the casualties and such like. these are prople you recruit so, in its own way, its also showing the hardship people go through in war.

one memory that always sticks out for me in skyrim is an epic battle with a dragon where one of the blacksmiths in the game was killed before i could take it out. i had bought and sold many items from him over a long period of time. i cant remember the ending to skyrim but i remember that fight.

Story was ruined by the game being a technical mess.

@mastermetal777

Then Change the Name.... Whats so difficult about that ? If the proect in question ceases to be game then call it what it actually is.

Audio Books are not a genre of music, they are a seperate category all together, the walking dead is no different.

Exactly but also the other way around. I'm sick and tired of all the "fan-service" that we get these days.

@HXCE

Just... :p