"Plot is Highly overrated" according to developers

The story alone didn't remotely carry me through that game. The generic third person gunplay bored me to death. OP left out the part where the guy stated that developers should place more emphasis on characters and building relationships with those characters in games. Honestly, I think he has a point. I didn't like the Mass Effect series because of its generic-as-**** save the universe from the big bad boogy men plot; I enjoyed it because of the characters and how I affected them.

well, when they start making games with stories that last between 90 to 120 minutes then I'm sure we'll start to see parity

So I can list of what happens in an episode of friends or a 2 hour movie pritty precise but when I'm asked to explain the plot of a 15-20hr game and am not as precise or all knowing, it's because I don't care about plots. Not because I have a hard time remember 20hr of content..... Sometimes I hate this industry.

Plots in general are secondary to characters. Without sympathetic, relatable people driving a narrative, the plot is almost guaranteed to be forgettable.

When gaming actually sticks to telling it's "story" through the game it yields more interesting results, and that's the ultimate balancing act game developers have never had a handle on. It's why accomplished authors or film writers struggle when writing gaming stories as well. It's not as organic as any other medium where you are literally telling the story. In a game you have to be mindful of the game, and the game has to be part of your plot.

Are there exceptional works in gaming? Not really when you do hold them to the bar of something legit exceptional in film or literature. Are there exceptions to the rule that videogame stories mostly suck? sure. Planescape, Silent Hill 2, Mother 3 are big ones, even recent stuff like Last of Us(albeit incredibly generic plot line) and Portal fit the bill as well.
But the other issue is that to tell some of these stories, devs compromise the game to adapt to the plot or straight up drop gameplay down to basics, and then you get an interactive experience that is lifeless, shallow, boring, repetitive. Which means you accomplished something in this medium while backstabbing the most important part of the medium: the interactivity.

At this point I'm more interested in games that tell their stories through the player or the game. Actual player driven stuff like State of Decay or Xcom, not facades like 999(which fair enough has a good plot, however not as play driven as it's fanbase wants to pretend it is) or a Mass Effect. Of course the only issue with that part is, XCom's plot is basically aliens took over this shit, and general McDuckyswag(yes I spend a lot of time nicknaming my squad) has to kick them off his planet.

Yeah well in Tell-Tales case they have always been poor in the adventure gameplay department even back when they were doing sam and max. They make dumb pixel hunts, and straight offensive adventure game logic puzzles. Daedelic does way better stuff on a gameplay level in that genre than Telltale ever does. So it was kind of in their best interest to cut it down to it's bare minimum in The Walking Dead to make it work.

Yeah Stanley Parable I feel like is more for people who love talking/experiencing game on a different level. More students of the medium type shit. People who are really into the nuance of making a game, and how a game is made, and how a game executes what it's going for. I think the real issue for that type of stuff isn't that it gets made, is that the way gaming media puts it on this weirdo pedestal sometimes that irks people the wrong way. Part of that pedestal I understand; I am personally also tired of the same ol same ol games wise. I want to try fresher more daring stuff in the medium(hence why a lot of my gaming has come to indie games), but at the same time I also do I like a game with more depth to it than walk here, let someone talk.

Gone Home is an idea that I think could be neat. The idea of you are in this environment and piecing a story together. Essentially turning your brain into the game mechanic. Cool idea, Gone home just executes it shitty, because the story you are piecing together is fairly straight forward, and mostly stupid. Plus a lot of stuff in that game just breaks your suspension of disbelief. At the least it still wouldn't offend me as much as Brothers.

Nothing grinds my gears more to see gamers say, "Stories don't belong in games at all; if you want a story then read a book." Are you so simple-minded that you don't see the industry is large enough for games with and without stories?

If it is a matter of the current state of video game narratives, namely their quality and complexity, you have to understand that the video game medium is incredibly young and quickly changing due to technology. Look at how stories were presented in 2001, and then compare that to last year. There was growth and game narratives will continue to get better as developers understand their importance and how to best make it work.

Some games work well with having their stories told entirely in-game, like Half-Life or Super Metroid. Others succeed with having a mix of gameplay and cutscenes, a la The Last of Us and many other games. This industry is big enough for both ways to tell a story in a video game and as time goes on developers will get better at both. Would you have imagined being able to control your character through some of the set-pieces that Uncharted presented players, even with minimal control, back during the Playstation and N64 days? That was ten years difference, what will come for storytelling ten years from now?

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There are quite a few stories I could label off the top of my head from video games, though I've played quite a few. I wonder what the people questioned have played; if they were sports gamers or primarily multiplayer focused gamers, or even gamers who played Skyrim or other games with a lot of supplemental quests and collectables, I don't blame them for not being able to recall the stories they've gone through.

Yet Titanfall is still a good game, even though it has shitty characters and plot. You proved him right.

Portal, meh. I'll bring some other examples from the same developer. TF2, L4D, CS, Dota all great games. Nonexistent plot but great games nonetheless.

i got to agree.

Pretty sure Nintendo could have told developers that long ago.

What this dork said.

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that game plots suck, as does the overall writing for games, period? There are exceptions. I can tell you what TLoU is about easily. Ask me about Metal Gear? I can't, because it's written by the mind of an 8 year old.

Every title listed has plot. And I was proven right (again) (which is amazing).

Some of my most favorite games of all time are story driven games. In my opinion, those are the type of games that will be remembered years from now, not some mindless multiplayer games.

@MirkoS77: Mass Effect? Dragon Age? GTA V? Red Dead Redemption? Walking Dead? etc

i remember most of the game plots that i play unless it was an fps.

on a side note, i had no idea who some of the characters and plot points are for killzone shadowfall....

Then the film industry must be still in its infancy considering that it is thousands of years younger than the written medium. Right? And that's why i disagree with this wildly used statement that the youth of this industry is the problem. The evolution of narrative within video games, the film medium and written medium cannot be compared based on their age because it makes no sense, both film and games are entangled together with the written medium, film is completely different in its storytelling compared to video games.

Video games are interaction, while film is solely designed to be watched. The fact that a lot of developers borrow from the film medium to create a hybrid (thus you've got cutscenes, scripted scenes and 'cinematic' gameplay, that is insultingly limited for the sake of spectacle) doesn't detract from my point. I'm sorry if i couldn't explain it better, english is not my 1st language.

My argument is that borrowing is not evolution, and controling your character through some of the set-pieces in Uncharted is nothing more than borrowing from the film medium.

Besides, if this were a valid claim then past games focused on the narrative department should not be superior to present games focused on the same thing. Yet, Planescape: Torment and Grim Fandango exist, light years more evolved in complexity and quality than pretty much anything out there, in my humble opinion anyway.

Why is that? Because the quality and complexity of a video game narrative is tied with the competence of the writer and development team that does or does not design the game around the script. Ludonarrative Dissonance is the result wen the dev. team does not design the game around the story.

Lol MS and their research, would love to be those guys, getting paid for the huge amount of BS they spew out.

1. I agree.

2. The story (how its designed, how its written, how its told) in Planescape is exceptional though.

The scene with Morte at the Pillar of Skulls, the confrontation between Ravel Puzzlewell and the Nameless One, the unravel of the answer(s) to that question.. . Damn. Yep, i'm going to say it, that shit can rival the good stuff from literature and film. Here's one of my favorite quotes:

"Vhailor: When the injustice is great enough, justice will lend me the strength needed to correct it. None may stand against it. It will shatter every barrier, sunder any shield, tear through any enchantment, and lend its servant the power to pass sentence. Know this: There is nothing on all the Planes that can stay the hand of justice when it is brought against them. It may unmake armies. It may sunder the thrones of gods. Know that for all who betray justice, I am their fate. And fate carries an executioner's axe.

Nameless One: I see.

Vhailor: No, you do not see. Pray you never will."

3. That's true, especially these days.

4. Best fucking nickname ever.

What? Round starts, kill terrorists is a plot? Round starts, run around and get to the chopper is a plot? I guess it is but is crappy, minimal and might as well not exist. It would change nothing because on those games plot is not the point.

im sorry but the standards of story telling in movies now trumps the past for the most part. if you look at the past, the movie industry was bogged down with cliche's in writing and story telling elements.

if infancy of the medium was not accounted for, why are stories like goodfellas, fight club, memento done in the 30's and 40's? im not talking about production values and how it was shot, i'm talking about just story and dialogue. when i listen to dialogues, all i hear are one liner cliches and unrealistic dialogues. every story was straight forward...and i can even say bland for the most part.

and as a disclaimer im saying that there are still bad movies today and not every movie improved upon the past....but for the most part, the standards have been higher through time.

So you disagree that the way a game tells its story has seen growth over time and with the evolution of technology?

When I say that the video game industry is still young I mean that I believe it truly is and that is without comparing it to other mediums. You were the one in your opening paragraph to make the comparison, not I. If I were to make any comparison of video gaming to another medium it would be the American musical. I fully agree that storytelling in all of these mediums is different; again, I did not make the comparison.

Take off my label of the industry as "young" and my point remains that in order to tell a story to the fullest, in order to do anything anywhere, there must be an understanding of the tools and rules, knowing when to use what tool and what rules to follow or break. Video games are evolving at a rapid rate because the technology is, thus the toolbox grows. Meanwhile, we have ideas of what the rules are to telling a story within a video game. Because there are so many types of games we see different approaches due to the circumstances.

Video games are interaction, while film is solely designed to be watched. The fact that a lot of developers borrow from the film medium to create a hybrid (thus you've got cutscenes, scripted scenes and 'cinematic' gameplay, that is insultingly limited for the sake of spectacle) doesn't detract from my point. I'm sorry if i couldn't explain it better, english is not my 1st language.

My argument is that borrowing is not evolution, and controling your character through some of the set-pieces in Uncharted is nothing more than borrowing from the film medium.

Video games are about interaction, of course I don't disagree with you, but whose to say to what level of interaction? Some are meant to be fully played through, everything is seen for yourself as you are the character and there is no break from beginning to end because that's what happens in the story. Yet another type of interaction the developers may offer is one that offers an exciting bit of tense interaction, followed by a momentary break; and some developers choose to fill this break with a cutscene.

I know all too well cutscenes are a touchy subject, "you've got movie in my video game!" The fact of the matter is is that some of the stories developers wanted to tell may not fully work around the gameplay which goes back to the idea of having knowledge of the toolbox. Since devs could not figure out how to make the hero leap from a crumbling tower to a helicopter they relied on cutscenes.

As time went on more developers used cutscenes but we also started to see the two blend together either through in-game cutscenes or quick-time events. In fact, developers like Naughty Dog or Crystal Dynamics have gone out of their way to make what in the past would have been cutscenes or a QTE a fully player-driven moment. Is control sometimes limited in those events? Sure, but maybe it is just another stepping stone to having better control in the future?

You may want to elaborate more on your Uncharted argument that I highlighted as I didn't quite understand what you were going for. Is it that games shouldn't have set pieces at all because films do it? If that's the case I highly disagree and sort of feel like my reasoning is obvious there.

Besides, if this were a valid claim then past games focused on the narrative department should not be superior to present games focused on the same thing. Yet, Planescape: Torment and Grim Fandango exist, light years more evolved in complexity and quality than pretty much anything out there, in my humble opinion anyway.

Why is that? Because the quality and complexity of a video game narrative is tied with the competence of the writer and development team that does or does not design the game around the script. Ludonarrative Dissonance is the result wen the dev. team does not design the game around the story.

Those games have surely laid the groundwork. I don't disagree with your last paragraph at all, in fact I agree with you. What I would say on this end is that developers are still trying to figure out those pesky tools and rules, how to effectively utilize them to the best of their abilities. To figure out these tricks takes time and mistakes, again going back to my belief of the industry and its practices being young.

Because the industry is so varied with infinite possibilities there are a lot of ways to do something. Developers have discovered many ways and I don't think they've discovered the best solution; even when/if they do it won't be the only solution. Those solutions will be realized down the line as the toolbox increases with technology and as developers place more emphasis on blending gameplay and narrative within the medium.

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A long, drawn out post that I hope addresses your points. Thanks for responding though! I love this topic and would love for narratives to have more focus. Again, I absolutely hate the mantra some have, "Stories don't belong in games at all; if you want a story then read a book." I play games because I love playing them, and having motivation behind actions or a strong story in there as well has, in my experience, made games memorable.

Comments like this are not good for gaming industry as a whole if that's how a lot us feel, therefor reflecting the way the industry reacts.

I believe when done right, A Video game is a more effective way to tell a story than a Movie or a book. My example is the Mass Effect Series or Older Final Fantasy games or Chrono Trigger.

The stories behind those game would not be done any justice in movie form.

Let's kill off MP before we kill off stories.

If I wanted to interact with other people, I'd go outside and meet some who are'nt trash, or just bicker on forums.

It's not quite fair I think. Games have a LOT of side content (for better or for worse - usually to artificially increase play time for those picky consumers). So it's probably just not easy to remember the plot lines because of a lot of side content. Not to mention some people probably don't play games from start to finish in 1 or 2 sittings. So it's not really a surprise if people can't remember plots to games. Especially if they're convoluted (like FF7 when it came out. Confused the shit out of me with the whole Zack/Cloud shit)

Hence, exceptions.

There are plenty of visual novel games with exceptionally well-written narratives that could hold their own against great works of any other medium. Two that immediately come to mind are Clannad and Steins Gate, among the handful of visual novel games I've played. However, this comes at the cost of gameplay, since the only real interaction you have is making narrative choices and little else. But the fact that you can make meaningful choices which have a big impact on how the story unfolds, that would be a form of gameplay in itself, and something that set them apart from linear narrative media.

wahhhh wahhhhh wahhhhh infamous scored badly and titanfall beat it in scores.

oh and portal 2 was shit, it was just valve trying to make money off the successful first one its what valve does they don't have to create unqiue content they just let others released map packs then hire them on to create games around those mappacks but its something pirat....I meant hermits eat up hidden DRM and mappack based stuff.

To be fair, and you all know it, most video game stories suck ass. It's that simple and probably also why most don't remember what happened in them. I'd much rather see developers focus on good characters than huge epic stories. With great characters, the stories will often tell themselves.

portal 2 was awesome. and he never said anything about infamous. durrr

I can't speak to how those games handle those choices, but here are my questions

1: Does all that choice work overrule the fact that the rest of your interactions are worthless? because then it just enters choose your own adventure book territory. You know what I mean? if the answer to making a game tell a good story is make it less interactive it speaks to how poor of a story telling medium gaming is.
2: Are those choices legitimately different, or are they glorified facade? Because you can make "choices" in The Walking Dead, but the end result is mostly going down the same path. 999 does a lot of this, but offsets it by giving you extra shitty endings to pimp it's choice system. Essentially giving off this illusion of player driven narrative, but really it's still Telltale's narrative and whatever zero escape guys name is(too lazy to google right now)

Again I have not played the game, and have no real desire to descredit or anything, more willing to hear your response to my question, and how that aspect of the game holds up, and why it works as an effective counter to its lack of "gameplay' or whatever.

There are more than enough games that have complex stories and plots. Generalizing doesn't help anyone tbh

Agreed, it's all about the aesthetic.

No, it's seen plenty of growth. I'm saying that the current way of storytelling in a lot of these big budget games, implemented via 'cinematic gameplay', scripted scenes and cutscenes is not a good way to tell a story, neither is it healthy for the medium because these are methods which take control away from the player, the antithesis of video games.

That's what i was talking about wen i said that Uncharted borrowed from the film medium. These games borrow methods from the film medium which is a medium completely opposite of video games. Video games are about choice, interaction, etc. Film is one path set in stone that is meant to be watched. The antithesis of video games.

I'd also like to say that i'm well aware that developers can do whatever they want, it's their idea, their project. But, my perspective on this is that the correct way to implement storytelling is through what games do best - interaction.

Not trying to be arrogant, i'm just thinking logical here; Because video games are interactive experiences, shouldn't the best solution be to implement a story that is interactive, a plot that does not rely on taking control away from you, but be in your control from start to finish? That is the next step that has ben halted to a stop long ago due to developers thinking that implementing methods from film is good storytelling.

Sorry about my presumption, i automatically thought that you were comparing them, that's what most people have done wen talking about this subject.

Your post was long, but well worth reading. I like good posts like that from respectable people like yourself. Makes drinking coffee and smoking a cig. relaxing at home after a hard day at work hella interesting!

I suppose a simple way of putting it would be that it works best when you play the story rather then have it told to you.

Like HL2 did it, or Dark Souls. Hell, even Deus Ex: HR mostly lets you participate in the proceedings rather than serve you with cutscenes.

Movies actually tend to suffer from a similar issue with over exposition.

Plot for me is massive, gameplay is great but it's the story and plot which keep me playing through, I treat gaming as I do films and i love films, it's my passion and i believe one day games will be up there as a medium like films are, the only reason most can't tell you the plot in length is because of how big a game is and how much story there is in it, :S i don't get this study, I mean a fim which is an hour and a half long to 3 hours to a game which is 6hours plus i mean come on no wonder they can't tell you at great lengths. idiots

well plot can't save bad game play but good game play can easily save a bad plot so I agree. The best games have good game play and good plot though.

I tend to play games for the gameplay. There's not many series where I'd say I enjoy the story or really even care.

The problem is not that he said this, is that its true.

Skyrim is loved, seriously very minute plot. GTA games have mediocre plots. Every huge game that is selling millions tend to have little to no plot, minus some of the best games of last gen

1. The only real interaction in most visual novels are choosing what to say, what to do, or where to go. What makes them interactive is the ability to explore the impact your decisions have on the plot and characters, something you wouldn't be able to do with a book, movie, or TV show. Quite a few visual novels (like Clannad, Fate/Stay Night, Steins Gate, etc.) have been adapted into highly acclaimed anime films/shows, yet most fans agree the interactive storytelling of the original games is superior to the linear storytelling of the anime adaptations. This wouldn't be the case if gaming was a poor storytelling medium.

2. The Walking Dead and 999 are like hybrids between adventure games and visual novels. The choices are limited compared to proper visual novels, while the gameplay is limited compared to proper adventure games. In a proper visual novel, the storyline usually branches out a lot more, into various different paths/routes, each one having a well-written meaningful storyline in its own right (i.e. not facades). On the other hand, proper adventure games usually have linear plots to focus more on gameplay (puzzles, inventory, exploration, etc.).

Maybe because majority of the video game stories suck.

1. I would argue that if anything it shows that you need to simplify a game to the most basic of interactions to make it tell a story that can stack up with another medium. Essentially a game with none of the nuance of depth of some of the most complex and satisfying videogames on the market, for the sake of being able to tell a story. If anything it does highlight gaming's weakness as a story telling medium, because it isn't organic. It lives and dies on this novelty of player investment because of their own interactions in the game.

Again I say this without having played it, but the fact that one style of genre:adventure games/visual novels is the only route this medium really succeeds with a consistent plot, and that one style of game is fundamentally shallower than what you can get in the other genres sort of speaks to the idea of trying to tell traditional 3 act plot in the form of a game. Because to pull it off, the game part has to take a backseat. Which again is essentially robbing the medium of it's big trump card.

2: And I would argue in both cases they would be bad arguments(The Walking Dead being a horrible argument) for gaming as a story telling medium. 999 I'm more iffy on with that type of discussion. The game's issue isn't so much that it's interactivity doesn't compliment it's plot(well I mean it kind of doesn't), my real issue with that game is that I hate every segment of that game that requires me to play it. Those puzzles are lame compared to actual puzzle games. Technically Walking Dead fits the same complaint, but Walking Dead also comes with the caveat that it's admiration is based entirely on some smoke and mirror work.

I don't think video games suffer from any weaknesses that make them bad for story-telling.

It's just that devs are terrible at coming up with better ideas to tell stories in games, and gamers are far too accepting of bad story-telling to begin with, so where's the incentive?

Gamers think that 'kill a bunch of bad guys > trigger cut scene > kill some more bad guys' is good story-telling. Just look at any topic about "Games with the best story-telling" and that's what everyone posts is games riddled with cut scenes, and set pieces.

I'm sure someday a dev will find a way to tell a good story in games without sacrificing gameplay. The best I've seen is in Valve games, but even then there are still lots of sections where you essentially do nothing to progress the story in between story segments.

I just hope that when that day comes gamers will be there to play it, and accept it.

1. Well, my point is that the whole 'choices & consequences' decision-making process is a form of gameplay in itself. Yes, it's a shallow form of gameplay, but I'd argue that 'choices & consequences' is in itself a big 'trump card' that an interactive medium (i.e. gaming) has over non-interactive media (i.e. books, movies, TV, comics, animation) when it comes to storytelling. That's why whenever a visual novel game is adapted into a linear medium (i.e. books, movies, TV, comics, animation), the original game is usually considered superior, because of the choices & consequences that linear media lack.

One reason why most games (other than visual novel & adventure games) struggle at storytelling is because of how difficult and convoluted the development process becomes as you increase the gameplay content, e.g. gameplay mechanics, world design, level designs, cutscene direction, art design, graphics, audio, bugs, beta testing, etc. Another issue is that most forms of gameplay are usually action-oriented, so most video game narratives (again, other than visual novel & adventure games) end up limiting their stories to 'action movie' territory.

2. Have you tried the sequel Virtue's Last Reward? I have't played much of it myself, but I've heard the choices & consequences are a big improvement over 999. While 999 had 6 endings, VLR has 35 endings, for example. It also has a flowchart mechanic where you jump between plot-lines (a bit like the visual novel YU-NO, or the role-playing game Radiant Historia).

I don't think this comment applies to RPGs. Because most of them are centered around story.

most bought RPG in the last god knows how many years? Diablo.

Most popular form of RPG - MMORPG.

I dunno... I dont think its as one sided as you think.