God Of War Designer Shuns Games With Stories

[Steve]

I have read this now, more than once, to make sure I had a grip on what this guy is saying and I just don't get it. Don't most people actually want a storyline in their games? Is it just me, or do you guys want a story in your games?



http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/42941

[Psychotext]

Far prefer games with storylines, but I suppose that's why I generally liked adventure games and rpgs more than most other genres.

[XanTHraX]

Games must have a story even if it just carries the action. But with out a sorty the game could feel flat.Now Day of the Tentacle had a kick ass story! :)

[prtzlboy]

He was right about one thing:

He's terrible at analogies.

If he loves the storytelling as much as he says (as opposed to making it come to life in the game), why doesn't he write a book?

[DarkfallFan]

For single player games I really don't care what the storyline is. I just play for the gameplay. Take Hitman for example, with all that clone crap...ok....where's my guns :p

[Wildace]

a good example of a game that failed at story telling was Oblivion its supposed to be this huge open ended game.. but wait you cant make your own choices when it comes to the story you are forced to be good you get no choice in the matter.

[Steve]

Well, a storyline in a racing sim would be out of place BUT can still be done (NFS:MW) but yeah, there is the odd occassion where I can get by without a story (Marble Blast ;) ) but I generally prefer a story AND God of War had a great story.... must've come from everyone else on the design team ;)

[Netrat33]

Stories = better

But doesn't mean it has to true all the time. I think a careful balance is needed.

Metal gear solid 2 and 3 for example has a lot of story. But ...too much that for up to 30 minutes you can be sitting and watching.

RPGs/adventure games need a story.

FPS....well some story helps you want to move forward. A good story for more sales and lasting impression for sequals and wanting to buy more.Doom 3 had a little story but it was enough for me to say "hey, how does this all end" HL2. Great story to the point where I can't wait for more of the game. Same with FEAR. SiN has a story, but I didn't care for it so that left the action and, well, didn't care for the action either.

Arcade/Platform - Little story couldn't hurt. Rescue girlfriend? Ok! fight fight fight win :) BubbleBobble, i know I was saving someone but didn't care :D

I THINK though in the 3D realm of gaming, you need a story. The classic sprite gaming didn't need it really and was enjoyable. 3D realms, you need to really wonder why you are exploring this world that is 3D (immersion)

[M1ster_R0gers]

It is completely ludricous in some games. We are ruling out multiplayer games, simulators, etc.

Story lines are good for games that causes changes of tactics or "things" the player has to do. Half live definitely has to have a story, so does the quake franchises. Quake2 is memorable for making the player feel like he was the only person lucky enough to survive.

Homeworld had an excellent story. It also had an excellent instruction manual that gave the game world's history.

What this goes back to is the type of game attributing to what kind of storyline, if any, is needed. If I am playing a single player FPS then it is definitely an accomplisment in finding out the end of the story.

[Tetrahedron]

Will Wright is pretty much adament about the 'player' making their own story and that usually a game's story is pretty pathetic to begin with. When Will Wright introduced Spore at the 'GDC 2005' this is what he talked about. He said GTA:SA =p to its story.. he made his own and showed us it. He talked more about this is his stragedy and his idea of gaming is that the players will make their own stories and these our the ones they usually share over and over with their friends. Of course he said people will and do talk about the mission in GTA, but how times have you heard people talk about the things they did outside the missions? That is the players story.

Even Simcity and the Sims have some story elements to them, but its our own stories as the player which ultimately makes the game's story. This works the same in each game too... at least for me, one reason why i despise JRPGS, cause its just a movie and I dont ever feel like I am making my own story... just acting out scenes in a pre-defined story.

[Factorxfiles]

I like all my games to have some storyline in them. I play FPS mostly, and I far prefer games like Halo where there is a definite story and you are attempting to "finish the game" not just "kill everybody". There are exceptions (UT2003 anyone?) but for the most part, a story is a good thing. Ever heard of Radical Dreamers? Little-known rpg in the chrono series. It played like a text adventure with music and some graphics. I loved that game.

If anything, I think game developers should work on creating a GOOD story, rather than just saying screw it and focusing on gameplay. It's no wonder many people hate the storylines in games, some of them really suck.

[DarkfallFan]

This is one of the reasons I prefer mmorpg...especially ones like Darkfall where you can become anything you want.

Players make the story and you can contribute to it any way you want.

[Wingy]

I enjoy a story, but I'm still trying to piece together that analogy

[Netrat33]

This is one of the reasons I prefer mmorpg...especially ones like Darkfall where you can become anything you want.

Players make the story and you can contribute to it any way you want.

But you're not really making the story. You're just doing a quest someone else developed. If you die, how is that any different than dying from a game that isn't "choose your own destiny" gaming? Someone wrote those destinies.

2 games that come to the top of my head for good stories are HL2 and System Shock from the same genre. Why are those games so good? Because you took the role of the actor and you discovered a truly fleshed out world that someone put a lot of thought into. I'm sure many have played other forgetable FPSs.

Final Fantasy series. Same thing. It's like reading a book and you're turning (playing) the pages.

before anyone starts saying "I hate those games" just pick a game with a story you like. I'm pickign those.

[Dark Prodigy]

Jaffe is basically getting mentally tired of the challenges good stories take to develop. Creating a good story within a game is actually very hard. Timing, element, relation to gameplay, intrigue...all these things have to be present and in good form in order to make a good and immersive story that outlines a game. And it has to be done over and over and over again within the same game to be successful.

God of War is the best game EVER made and half of it is due to the story. From the onset, the story grabs you before anything else does. Besides arcade games in the purest sense, all good games tell a story... Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life, God of War, F.E.A.R., Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Onimusha series...any some others, all these games feel epic simply because story gave you a reason to play and drive to get past a certain level just to see what happens.

Storytelling is an art,.... ok, GOOD storytelling is an art, an artform that eventually takes its toll as, sadly, David Jaffe finds out. :(

[Velox]

I think a story is what can make or break a game. Why was Half-Life 2 so good? Because it had a great story? What about RPGs? What are your favorite RPGs? I bet games like FF3(6), FF7, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana come to mind. While they offered great gameplay, what really draws you to them is the great story. Playing a video game is like playing a movie, and without a story; what's the point?

I think, rather than trying to take away stories, games should try to EXPAND on them. Offer branching storylines, and alternate endings. Instead of taking the story out of the games, we should be allowing the story to flow and adapt with the game.

That's just my $0.02, but then again, I'm just the target audience now, arn't I? ;)

[Karafias]

Personally, I think most games could benefit from a better storyline, and more of it. Could you play a 40 hour game without a good storyline? Would pressing the same 3 buttons get tiring after a bit with no point?

Stories give the game a point, and make them more immersive. In case you were wondering, Bioware is my favorite company ever ;]

[Killa|3yte]

I probably would have agreed with this guy before playing MGS3:Snake Eater.

I think there are so many games with terribly poor story lines. And, I DO see what he's saying. Think UT2004, is it about the story? No. So I think there are story games and there are non story games, I'm fine with both.

But yeah, back to MGS, the game was driven by a wonderfully thought out plot. Without it, the game wouldn't have been half the game it now is (was, whatever...).

My $.02

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

I think that shunning the "story" element of video games is like taking off a leg off a chair. No developer should ever throw out the core elements of a game such as the storyline, IMO. It's a lazy and irresponsible excuse to put things off like that. Some people say "it's all about gameplay that matters" or "it's all about the story." But to me, "It's all about everything." That's what makes games so complex and immersive in comparison to any other media I've experienced.

A book is nice and descriptive, and leaves most of the imagination to the reader, but you can't immersed with music, graphical settings etc.(it's all up to your imagination) Movies, TV shows, etc. Can provide such a thing, but lacks interaction and usually depth unless its an ongoing series. If a game is done well enough, it can provide all of that, and also be fun to play. A video game done right requires the most work out of any type of entertainment media out there. Every aspect of the game requires talent and skill, and creativity to be done right, including the storyline. There's always a game out there, no matter how great it was, it was lacking in "something."

FFVI and FFVII (my fav FF games) Had immersive music, graphical scenes and awesome storylines, but lacked, IMHO, good gameplay. Hell, the Mega Man X series had everything excellent, but the storyline could have had more depth. Capcom's remake for the PSP, called Maverick Hunter X, attempted to expand the original storyline, which was excellent, IMO. StarCraft is one of my favortie games out there. Not only did Blizzard manage to make an excellent story, but you can get into (good) multiplayer action so much that you forget the story of the game existed. The graphics was lacking however, but it was somewhat of a blessing. I can write more but I hate making walls of text. :D

[NulloModo]

Some games can get by OK without a story, the original Unreal Tournament didn't have one that I can recall, but it was still a fun game, same with Q3A. Then again, some FPS games manage to integrate one very well, the story in Sin really drew me in for example.

Then you have games like Gran Turismo, Madden, or sim games, that don't really need nor warrant a story line.

Fighting games like Soul Calibur and DOA4 seem to try to integrate a story, but it is usually so minor and secondary that it might as well be forgettable.

For any other game, a story is a must, and a good story at that. I got about two or three hours into Oblivion before I was completely bored with it and I haven't touched it since. On the other hand, I picked up Dragon Quest VIII the other day, and from half an hour in I was completely hooked and haven't been able to put it down, mainly because it actually has a story, and one that draws you in at that.

Adventure games can always benefit too. Parasite Eve for example is an awesome game equally because of the creative gameplay elements (building your own weapons for example) as well as for a good story.

[Diablo2K]

I have to put my vote towards a good storyline. the story lets you know you have an objective/goal, otherwise your just running around mindlessly killing things, sorry but I dont find that much fun, I need a goal, something to shoot for. personally i cant see any single player game that is worth playing that has not had a good story to it, there are a few exceptions to this, Such as Arcade type games, like Galaga, Pinball, as well as casino games.

[GForce64]

I'd have to say that if a game isn't majorly story driven, it has majorly goal-based gameplay.

Think about the major games that aren't really story-driven: MMOs, sidescrollers, sims, and so on. You're always striving for that next level/piece-of-gear/win, so it appeals to those with a competitive streak.

[Ya Moms]

For me, a story is essential for games. It give the game purpose, a sense of direction, and hopefully, some added entertainment. If I just want to shoot it up, kill demons, etc... I will play online against real people where it is a challenge.

[hwhacker]

I agree with the consensus. While I enjoy the pick-up-and-play games (racing, UT, fighting games, etc) as well as the next guy, my favorites are games that engross me with their story; FFVII, PE's, SoM,GoW,etc...Even if the graphics play second fiddle. This is not always the case though, as both can co-exist such as GoW, MGSs, DMCs (not 2). :)

My analogy is this: Imagine watching Law & Order opposed to watching LOST. Sure, you can sit and watch any episode of Law and Order and enjoy it for what it is, but something that is story-driven makes you much more enthused about continuing watching or playing, curious and excited to find out where it will take you.

You can make a case for prefering non-linear gameplay in still story-driven tites as well (such as KOTOR or Jade Empire).

As for this quote: "...taking elements from other media and trying to squish those elements into a product that- if you do everything right- MIGHT just have one tenth the emotional impact as what you can get from more traditional media (like film, tv, or books)."

While surely some game stories may as well just be a movie or book, or in other cases could be left out altogether (fighting games), there are cases when an emotional scene can draw you in to the gameplay, through vicarious interaction, creating a feeling more intense than wanting to whip through the next chapter of a book or seeing a conclusion of a movie.

Jaffe, listen to me...When Aerith/Aeris died, (mostly) everyone cried, and it is why FFVII is an example why video games can be some of the best "experiances" you'll ever have. If you play as a character, and feel some kind of emotional connection, games can far exceed other mediums in all respects.

[Psychotext]

Jaffe, listen to me...When Aeris died, (mostly) everyone cried, and it is why FFVII is an example why video games can be some of the best "experiances" you'll ever have.

*COUGH* pussy *COUGH* :D

I kid. I recall it vaguely, but I was in college at the time so I was usually either drunk, stoned or having sex while I was playing the game. ;)

[hwhacker]

:p

It's all good, I respect those of us whom either were not/are not emo or have matured past the point of childhood and even young-adult tendancies. :D

I was a young-in at the time myself (7th or 8th grade) and while that sentence may have been overdramatic, I think it proves a fair point. Vicarious emotion through story + interaction = unparalled entertainment.

For the record, I was having sex and getting stoned too at that point, just not while playing FFVII...At least not the former...That may have been akward. If you were enjoying the former and the later simultaniously, massive power to you good sir, and mad props. :)

[NulloModo]

Also, for good measure, I don't see anything wrong with a game that plays out like a movie. You pay $20 for a new release DVD, and it lasts two hours. You pay $50 for a new release RPG, and it will last a minimum of 30 hours, sometimes easily more. I am only in like the third town in Dragon Quest VIII and I already have 7 hours logged in the game, this game could easily last 80 hours plus. Even if the game does play out like a movie or a book, you definately get your money's worth from it.

[Trimlock]

the dude has a point and then he doesn't

as far as selling a game goes, hes incorrect, a story will drive people mad to find out what happens next, not neccessarily making it a good game, but the story good, regardless of the fact of bad gameplay having a good story line and bad gameplay can make a good game

having a game concentrate entirely on no story and just the gameplay can make for a really fun and entertaining game (hi 2 u quake2), and having developers spend more time on the actual game and the mechanics of the game and not worry about having a plot that everyone can enjoy would probably help create more unique style games.

so he has a point and he doesn't

one the game would probably get beaten more as only a single player, and second the game would be more fun and probably last longer with out one, i mean how much of a story did CS have? or DoD, or COD, or BF, or GRAW have

[hwhacker]

Absolutely agreed on everything except the later being "more fun". I think they are of different mindsets of entertainment; fighting/shooting/racing and story-based games, with the occassional exception. I would call them both equally enjoyable, just for different people/times depending on what they like and how they are feeling. I enjoy both, but I know many that only enjoy one or the other. It's like action movies vs. a art house drama. Diffrent strokes.

Lasting longer is also relative. I may play an story-driven (perhaps sub-par graphics but not-necessarily mechanics) RPG once relatively quickly, and it last 80 hours, and like-wise repetitively play a competitive graphics/mechanics-driven game an equal/greater/lesser amount of time, although over the course of a longer period in smaller increments.

You're totally right though, single-player versus a game you play online or with a friend in your home. The former would benefit more from a story in the majority of the time. There certainly are some good examples of exceptions on both sides though, most notabley the more story-driven non-linear MMORPGs out there now, and that will probably be the next big thing in gaming.

The point is though, to disregard any one style; linear story, non-linear story, no story though, makes no sense. It will alienate a large group, as all have fans. It seems startling and disheartening that someone that created one the best (and successful) of the linear stories would suddenly dismiss it completely. That's like Capcom saying no-more 2D games, or Miyamoto suddenly denouncing Mario/Zelda's style of play.

[Torgo]

Let me sum up my thoughts thusly: David Jaffe is just burnt out and really doesn't know what he's talking about. Secondly, thank goodness he's not designing GoW2 or 3 and Cory Barlog is doing it instead.

So in the end, Jaffe would rather do action games. Big whoop. Not much of a story actually.

[Logan321]

I get bored rather quickly with FPS games if they don't have at least some sort of story to carry the gameplay along. And RPGs or RTS games without a story are just a waste of time and money. Sometimes I get bored with the gameplay but still want to finish the story so I go get a cheat code or something just to see the end of the game. I like having the story be that involving...

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

I get bored rather quickly with FPS games if they don't have at least some sort of story to carry the gameplay along. And RPGs or RTS games without a story are just a waste of time and money. Sometimes I get bored with the gameplay but still want to finish the story so I go get a cheat code or something just to see the end of the game. I like having the story be that involving...

Well an RTS like StarCraft does pretty well without the storyline IMO. When I'm on battle.net, I forget about all of the things that happen in their "universe" and focus more on having fun. The fact that Blizzard put a lot of effort in creating a compelling story, alongside with their excellent game, is what really impresses me to this day.

Even the simplest of games can be amusing with some sort of story behind them. It seems that people don't like stories in fighting games, but the KOF series used to be amusing (before '99).

[BombrMan]

I think it really just depends on whether you have the time, the will, and the imagination to come up with a good storyline. That seems to be the critical difference between film and gaming with respect to storytelling. A film with a bad story is generally lame. A game with a lame story can still be a good game. I hold Unreal tournament and Q3A up there as 2 of my favorite games of all time and I haven't even touched the single player in either. On the other hand Half Life 2, Quake 4, Doom3, FEAR, and Prey are some of the most involving and gripping stories I've experienced. That's where the advantage in a good single player resides. When the story is truly good it becomes more than just something you view from the outside like a book or a movie. It's something you view from the inside. Even if the story is already set and you can't change what's going to happen, you still move through it as if you were experiencing it yourself. I guess in the end it just depends where you want to put your focus. Personally I have had no problem with games that have no single player storyline, or one's that do as long as it's not crappy, and if it is crappy I just stick to multi.

-BombrMan

[Bad_Boy]

I have read this now, more than once, to make sure I had a grip on what this guy is saying and I just don't get it. Don't most people actually want a storyline in their games? Is it just me, or do you guys want a story in your games?



http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/42941
I wouldnt read to much into it, David is working on his new psp title which supposedly involves the player more emotionally attached without actually telling a full story. (if you read about his "Project HL" psp title, it sounds pretty promising, and I cant wait for it) Seems his attention is fully going towards his new mystery title so wouldnt be surprised if we hear more talk about it in the future. On another forum, regarding this specific blog update, he stated I am not losing my marbles. I am LOVING my job now more than I have in years. I am just sharing the process of change that I- as a designer- am going thru.

I 100% appreciate that not everyone will care, and that is fair and makes sense to me. But at least acknowledge that I am just posting on my blog for the fun of it (and I do enjoy it). You don't gotta read it!

Just sounds like he is going through a "phase" to me.

[SuperSparky]

Nothing ruins a game more than a crappy storyline. I'm afraid a story is what keeps me playing. Games without a good storyline are like sex without foreplay and a climax. It's what makes level after level worth drudging through. It's playing the hero. Something real life rarely gives opportunity for (and thank goodness). Otherwise, just shooting virtual guns would get old. Why solve puzzles if there isn't a means to an end or purpose in it? A story is what gives all this a veritable "backbone".

I find that a game with a great story on a "weaker" game engine is far funner to play than a visually stunning game, on a great graphics engine, with a lame or no storyline.

Personally, I was very frustrated at the poor ending of Half Life 2 and it's vague story line. It could have been so much better if they had taken a narrative approach to it to fill in the history gaps. Frankly, the first few seconds of Episode one, when Alyx finds Freeman in the rubble and says "Doctor Freeman?", would have been a much better place to end Half Life 2 and not just leave you hanging saying "What the...?"
Nevertheless, Episode One did have a proper ending and a bit better storyline, albeit still vague.

There are only a small hand full of games that could get away with no or little story. Those are strategy games, racing games and reflex challenging 2D action games like the 80's had with Pacman, Space Invaders, Galaga, Arkanoid, etc. Those are "score the most points" games. However, in virtual reality games where you are the player, a story is very necessary and the better the story is told the better the game.

The graphics in a 3D, story based, game merely enhance the storyline. They don't make the game. The heart of the game and it's pull to make you finish it is the story, not how many polygons it's pushing or nifty shader effects it has; those things just make it more immersive and exciting to play. A story is why the next level is desireable to play.

[sc3252]

without a good story line, would you have played max payne. Yeah the game was good even without it, but became one of the best games of the year because of the story. You just wanted to see payne get his revenge, and loved every bit of it. Thinking about it now makes me want to pull it out and play it again.

[sc3252]

since reading this whole thread, I thought i should also say something about oblivion.

Oblivion was a fun game, a really fun game, but the story was lacking, the feel from morrowind was gone. I loved morrowind, I loved the story, I loved how you could go freeroaming, completing odd quests. oblivion you can do the same thing, but it doesnt feel as good doing it, every time you level feels like taking a step back, every quest complete felt less then satiscatory(I dont know why this is:confused: ). After beating the game I was thinking,"Thats it". :confused:

[ThirtySixBelow]

A good story can only make a game better. I don't see the logic, especially with the poor analogy.

[slowbiz]

As far as storyline goes 9/10 games will do with a paragraph worth of story. It's all about gameplay. Or make the story just happen in the game. I hate reading when I'm playing a game. If I want to read, I'll read a book. Half-life did this well.

[Green Genes]

A story is like a rubber patch you put on a leaky tire. It stops people escaping your game when you fail to do so with the actual gameplay. If you buy shitty tires that leak all the time, you start to get the opinion that all tires need patches. And if you buy shitty patches, you probably buy tires because you see ads for them somewhere and your puny monkey brain cannot resist the urge to immitate TV. If you're too young to remember back when you could buy a decent tire, if you saw one today you'd proably laugh and say, "What a goofy, old fashioned tire! It doesn't even have a patch on it! Now take a look at this tire! It has a flimsy Japanese patch on it a mile wide, and LOVE IT!"

I agree with Jaffe. A properly done game provides itself with all the drama and story it needs. If you have to start tacking on a cheesy plot that wouldn't even cut it on some Space Channel made for TV movie, your game just isn't doing its job right. It needs a rubber patch just to keep all the air from rushing out and playing outside or doing the dishes or going to sleep.

Story telling with games is a tricky fucking business. Almost nobody in the entire industry has any idea how to even begin, and maybe one or two know how to pull off start to finish anymore. The way NOT to do it is try and take a Holywood script and stick it on a game. Even if you try and do a Choose Your Own Adventure, all you've got then is the same fly-spec of talent being spread over even MORE bad script, watering it down even further.

Why do you think sporting events are fun to watch in real life? Fun to participate in? What about a game like Street Fighter, or Risk, or Ikaruga, or Civilization? Now there's a game that is perfect. A game is a contest, a ritual tournament where decisions made are tested for their worth and judgement is delivered. Little, miniature isolations of human life. Civ starts with a single decision, where do I settle my first base? And like a logarithmic curve, like a growing organism, each moment from then on brings new decisions which compound and fold in on eachother, making a layered cake of choices so tasty and delicious. And the PERFECT thing, the master stroke about these decisions is that layered on top of a purely mathematical series of choices is a self writing story. By letting a variable represent a city, and another a soldier and another a tower, your many choices spell out the choices of an entire people, a new history that you can watch unfold. The way to do story in games is not to tell the players the story, but to let the players tell the story to themselves.

[Psychotext]

Sorry, it seems clear to me that the previous poster hasn't had any experience with the great storytelling games developed over the years. A story may be a patch in your average racing game or balls to the wall FPS but it can be an integral part of many games and often means the difference between a game worth playing and another worth ignoring.

Oh, and I don't want to tell the story myself. If I had that sort of imagination I'd be writing books / screenplays. Put it on the screen and draw me in. I'll be happy.

[Edit - Yes, I do like games that play like movies - Moving from one part of the story to the next. Half life being a good example.]

[NulloModo]

Why do you think sporting events are fun to watch in real life? Fun to participate in? What about a game like Street Fighter, or Risk, or Ikaruga, or Civilization? Now there's a game that is perfect. A game is a contest, a ritual tournament where decisions made are tested for their worth and judgement is delivered. Little, miniature isolations of human life. Civ starts with a single decision, where do I settle my first base? And like a logarithmic curve, like a growing organism, each moment from then on brings new decisions which compound and fold in on eachother, making a layered cake of choices so tasty and delicious. And the PERFECT thing, the master stroke about these decisions is that layered on top of a purely mathematical series of choices is a self writing story. By letting a variable represent a city, and another a soldier and another a tower, your many choices spell out the choices of an entire people, a new history that you can watch unfold. The way to do story in games is not to tell the players the story, but to let the players tell the story to themselves.

That philosophy works for certain types of games, and your example of Civilization is a good one. One of the beautiful things about that game is that you do have pretty much complete free will to do it how you like, and to build things in the image that suits you. Another great example (albeit it is a PC game) is a very underrated game called Superpower. In Superpower you basically pick any nation in the world and take control of all economic, military, political, etc, functions. You can play it however you like, and other countries react to you and to each other based on how you play.

However, sim type games are only one slice of the big pie. Take FPS games for example. Would you rather play a game where you just run around shooting stuff having no clue what is going on other than you shoot the people who are shooting you, having no context of what the boards are supposed to be, and why you are supposed to be doing it, or would you rather play the same game but one that gives context (a story) to it all. Personally, I'd much rather play the game where I understand _why_ my character is running around killing things and blowing shit up. Even if it is episodic like some of the Rainbow Six games, where each mission is it's own scenario, it makes it easier to get into your character if you know what the point of it all is. It only gets better if there is a (well developed) overall arc to it all, where the missions somehow tie together, where your success or failure can have repercussions later in the game.

Now, I would be the last person to say that all video game plots and storylines are good. There are some games out there that obviously have the plot tacked on very poorly as an afterthought, and it shows. DOA4 is a good example, they try to show you some sort of overall arc going on, but due to the nature of the game, and the developers not really integrating it well, the plot part falls on its face. At the same time, you have games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, God of War (from what I hear, I haven't actually played it), Parasite Eve, Homeworld, etc, etc, where the story is very well woven into the game, and it enhances the gameplay, draws you in more.

A storyline isn't a patch, it's just an element of a game. A great story can't make up for awful gameplay, but when you get down to it, gameplay is just pushing buttons, if you don't have a reason to be doing what you are doing, it gets boring. The best games are those that excel in visuals, soundtracks, storylines, and gameplay.

EDIT:

And to an earlier post - while I don't mind reading in my games, good voice acting is always a nice plus. However, unless you are going to hire voice actors who have at least half a clue, just stick with the text, please.

[vhalidictes]

I think a story is what can make or break a game. Why was Half-Life 2 so good? Because it had a great story? What about RPGs? What are your favorite RPGs? I bet games like FF3(6), FF7, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana come to mind. While they offered great gameplay, what really draws you to them is the great story. Playing a video game is like playing a movie, and without a story; what's the point?

Gameplay. PvP and/or "Kill all" requires no story, in fact, a poorly-executed story can get in the way.

While I'll submit that the Final Fantasy series was great entertianment (near-awesome, IMHO), they weren't actual GAMES. They were very cool stories, but my choices mattered for squat, even in the rare times I could make them.

Being able to pick which Character I've got in my party is really neat, because I got to see different segments of a pre-defined plot. That doesn't make FF into a game, though.

Sure, the combats take a little work to complete, but the "uncovering the plot" part isn't a game, per-se. The FF plotlines would honestly have been better as a movie or book. They are fixed enough to work in that medium.

I think, rather than trying to take away stories, games should try to EXPAND on them. Offer branching storylines, and alternate endings. Instead of taking the story out of the games, we should be allowing the story to flow and adapt with the game.

This takes an insane amount of work for (sometimes) little benefit.

Right here in this post someone was whining about how Oblivion "forced you to be good". Ignoring for the moment that the storyline required stopping the Big Bad Guy (regardless of your alignment), adding a "evil path" to that story would require an extra 4-6 months of development time... but would we want to wait that long?

Of course, not everyone might like how the new path turned out, and it's another item to de-bug...

[wonkavator]

First off, people like different things and different stories appeal to different types. For movies you have people that just love the B movie theme. Horrible story but it is just hysterical how inane it is. Then you have the other spectrum and unless there are no holes in the story whatsoever, they think it stinks. Some people could care less about a story for movies or games. As long as they are entertained and having fun they are satisfied (typical action movie).


If you take all that into account, the process of making a great game with solid story becomes that much harder. This must be so hard for developers and designers. Us gamers just seem to want more and more. Its not enough to make a great game, there has to be a great story line or every geek with a keyboard wants to rip the game apart from his website, blog or forum. Seems way more challenging then a basic movie today.



For me I have pretty much been a FPS guy, with some simulators thrown in, I have played some of the earlier, RTS & RPGs but stick to FPS. The original Quake is what got me into games. I thought that game was amazing, but not for the story, hell the only reason I bought the game was so I could play more maps online. But I played the entire game on every difficulty setting and loved it. Thought the game play was great, the story was stupid. Command & Conquer and most of the RTS games are fun, but the story means nothing. Most games we are talking about here have an end goal. So there is a reason to play and an end in site. A story line isn't always needed, and half the time games just make up some silly story just to have a premise.



Stories do not make or break a game. They either enhance a good game or try to mask a mediocre one. To me just about any FPS game that has great game play, the story takes a back seat. And honestly who really cares what the story line is during a game that has great game play. You are not running around having a blast, fighting your way through enemies, using strategy and then saying to yourself, gee I wonder if I can save the world from the evil empire. The story gets pushed to the side and only comes to light in between levels or at the end. Most people want to skip through the dam movies sequences and get back to playing.

There are a few exceptions. But those tend to be the great games, that actually have a solid and intriguing story, FEAR, HL (many more). But that’s what makes them great games. However, if the game play were not that great these games would not be on a pedestal. An amazing story with mediocre game play will most likely not be finished by most gamers, or will just be put on god mode just to finish it. A lot of people seem to think quake2 had a good story line. I have no idea if it really did or not, I could not play it; I thought the game play sucked, and un-installed it.



However, when you get a great story and great game play you get something special. It enhances the experience, it immerses you into the game, and it adds that level that makes you forget the real world for a little while.


Honestly its very subjective and a game can be very successful without a story. But I think it’s the most rate games that can become one of the greats without a good solid story. The games that have done this have introduced great new ideas in game play.

[vhalidictes]

NulloModo, you make some great points, but you are confusing "Background", and "Story (as in Plot)".

For example, DOOM 2 had no story to speak of, but you still were told what was going on and why you were fighting.

The part of the argument that you are missing is the following, over-simplified (to the extent it's no longer technically accurate) statement:

A "linear" story = a non-game form of entertainment.

It might be a GREAT "something", but if the plot-formula is "beat this mission OR beat this mission after a second try", whatever you're doing isn't gaming. It's an "interactive story" of some type.

Even Racing Sims can be games, for example, losing a race might result in my team losing money which affects which cars I can get (upgrade mechanic), or which races I can qualify for (track-access mechanic).

In any case, the concept that the player needs to affect the plot in order for there to be a "game" is not new: Captain Bluehair had a winning/losing path way back in Wing Commander (one).

While these weird Japanese-style RPGs are cool, there isn't much "game" in there. If you can't affect the outcome, you're just going through the motions, with a cutscene as your reward.

EDIT: I'll give an example of what I mean. When I played FEAR for the first time, I blew through it to see what the plot was. It was mildly fun to do so, but as I expected, the story was on the good side of mediocre.

The actual "game" that I found in FEAR was "can I finish every level at full health?". That turned out to be quite challenging (and fun).

However, the fact that I had to set my own goals is a sad commentary on the saturation of the "survive lots of incoming fire" FPS game-style. It's pretty much played out at this point...

[Green Genes]

I think people are getting confused between a game and a piece of entertainment software. The language used is making the debate difficult.

A game is not the piece of software that you get out of a box and put into your machine and then interact with. A game is a contest, a series of choices with outcomes. It is a set of rules that limit the choices a player can make to achieve a goal against another player. This is a primordial, basic rule of nature that has pretty much nothing to do with human beings. One could go so far as to say that DNA, life itself, is premised on a game of chance. The deck is shuffled and the genes get delt like a deck of cards. The results use the physical forms that spring out of the genes to try and succeed at surviving long enough to start another hand. Stories are simply the writing down of a few of the details that occur along the timeline of those games. Like in my previous post, one realises that story can not occur without there first being a game. Stories are the shadows games cast on time. This is not true but it's a good lie for now.

Now, I've certainly enjoyed hours of plot-based entertainment software in my youth. I'm not dismissing the quality of enjoyment a written narritive, rather than an emergent one, can deliver. However, when you one day leave grade nine and are capable of immersing yourself in the litterary and narritive feats of the other mediums, when your comprehension of the world around you reaches a certain point, you will notice that the examples you find in entertainment software are simply not that strong. They're forced, they're derivitive, they're not that mature. They're cargo cult.

[NulloModo]

I suppose I just have a different definition of 'game' than you do.

Take FF7 for an example. It has a very linear story, but I would still very much consider it to be a game. You have lots of choices as you go through. How do you combine your materia, which characters do you have in your party and which do you level up, do you go on the side quests or not, etc. There were even tons of games within the game, the Chocobo racing, the sub game, umm, I am sure there are others but it has been like 8 years since I have played it.

The vast majority of games have two ultimate options: you die, or you win. There are of course some like Fable or Star Ocean that provide you with multiple possible endings, but those are in a minority. There was an Xbox game my friend used to play a lot (the title escapes me) but the just of it was you were trying to escape from a haunted prison I think, and depending on the choices you made, your characters appearance changed and it led you to a possibility of several different endings.

Open endedness can be good, and isn't always at the expense of a good storyline. However, a strong linear storyline does not mean a game is not a game. Even in the most linear of RPGs you still have to use strategy to win certain battles, use your brain to figure out puzzles, figure out clues, etc.

[Green Genes]

Right, but in an RPG like Baldur's Gate or FF, would what you're doing be any fun at all without the paperback drama as a backdrop? If you've got a sweet battle system and it's fun for a couple minutes, and then gets kinda boring, you need a rubber tire patch on it to keep the player from putting down the controller. Stop the air from leaking. Show them some character interaction, a cut scene, and then more battle system. Entertainment software which comprises of a half assed game and a half assed plot can get pretty far just by switching up the two at carefully timed intervals. When you take any random person and have them play any random game, in 99% of the match ups the person will quickly get bored and decide to do something else without something else to stick them in their seat. Entertainment software has switched from nerdy, clandestine cult to mainstream, multibillion dollar industry by taking realising more people will sit down and play if they make the product LESS game like, rather than more. Water it down, make it a Papst Blue Ribbon rather than a Highland single malt.

Now, there's some people out there that want to be enterainment software designers, but think that their job is called game designer. They want to make up experiences and plots and the whole gamut because that's what they think a good piece of entertainment software is. And there's others out there, like Jaffe, who want to be honest to got game designers and design games, with no toppings.

[The_Law]

I personally love good story lines in games. Without a good story I just get bored. Even the best FPS gets boring to me if there isn't some story driving it. Everything just seems repetitious to me if there isn't some explanation as to WHY I am doing something. The desire to simply "blow stuff up" has lessened as I have gotten older, so I need a good story to make me want to blow stuff up. That being said, I understand that many people like different types of gameplay. To each his own. :)

[NulloModo]

Right, but in an RPG like Baldur's Gate or FF, would what you're doing be any fun at all without the paperback drama as a backdrop? If you've got a sweet battle system and it's fun for a couple minutes, and then gets kinda boring, you need a rubber tire patch on it to keep the player from putting down the controller. Stop the air from leaking. Show them some character interaction, a cut scene, and then more battle system. Entertainment software which comprises of a half assed game and a half assed plot can get pretty far just by switching up the two at carefully timed intervals. When you take any random person and have them play any random game, in 99% of the match ups the person will quickly get bored and decide to do something else without something else to stick them in their seat. Entertainment software has switched from nerdy, clandestine cult to mainstream, multibillion dollar industry by taking realising more people will sit down and play if they make the product LESS game like, rather than more. Water it down, make it a Papst Blue Ribbon rather than a Highland single malt.

Now, there's some people out there that want to be enterainment software designers, but think that their job is called game designer. They want to make up experiences and plots and the whole gamut because that's what they think a good piece of entertainment software is. And there's others out there, like Jaffe, who want to be honest to got game designers and design games, with no toppings.

If you took away the story from FF of course people would put the controller down and get bored, the story is why I pick the controller up in the first place. Playing a game because the story draws you in does not make it patched or half-assed, it is just genre of certain games. In fact, the reason I put got bored and put the controller down about an hour and a half into Oblivion was because there was no intriguing story, nothing to keep me wondering what happens next.

I think your definition of 'game' is a bit limited. You may consider your average FPS to be more of a 'game' because it offers up a challenge of coordination, but I personally find they mostly get very dull after a while. I don't receive any enjoyment from twitching my mouse around dodging bullets and shooting everything in sight. I have been known to play a few rounds of BF2 here and there, but what I like about that is that there is strategy involved, you can't just run around like a maniac shooting up everything and hope to get anything accomplished, it requires thought, getting the tactical positions, using the right set of gear for the right job, playing the support role when it is neccessary, etc. That is the same thing that is nice about a lot of story driven platformers/adventure games/RPGs - you have to use your brain to figure out clues and puzzles to advance the game. Yes you get a reward in the form of more story, but that makes it more fun.

In your defense I have played one game that I would classify as 'entertainment software'. It was an old SegaCD title called (I think) Dragon's Lair. Every motion your character made was pre-defined, you basically just had to hit the right button at the right time. I got bored with that one in about 10 minutes.

[Green Genes]

I personally love good story lines in games. Without a good story I just get bored. Even the best FPS gets boring to me if there isn't some story driving it. Everything just seems repetitious to me if there isn't some explanation as to WHY I am doing something. The desire to simply "blow stuff up" has lessened as I have gotten older, so I need a good story to make me want to blow stuff up. That being said, I understand that many people like different types of gameplay. To each his own. :)


You make my point for me. The current bloated industry cannot be supported only by people who cannot stomach a pure gameplay experience, in large part because the industry does not have the skills to make a pure gameplay experience that the masses can enjoy. Jaffe has told the great unwashed masses to fuck off and consume their diluted swill, while he endevours to provide the dedicated core with a tincture of intense purity.


EDIT:

And Nullo, you too. The strategy in an FPS is part of the game within the game, the metagame. Same as the tactics in an RPG or the choice of tires in a racing game. Your own counter arguments are spelling out exactly what I've been saying: When the game fails to hold your attention, the story needs to kick in.

[Trimlock]

This thread is a good example of how the game industry is changing and how fast it is moving, much like the music industry did back in the 50's and 60's. Now having so many different genre's, developers, etc. people form a mass of different opinions. Its going to be impossible to agree on one opinion on which is better and what people will get into, since a mass of people are already into them, its the age old question, which is better? Rock or Country. I'd say rock, but the person next to me would say country, of course for different reasons but it just proves its almost impossible to have everyone agree one on subject.

However, when you get a great story and great game play you get something special. It enhances the experience, it immerses you into the game, and it adds that level that makes you forget the real world for a little while.


Honestly its very subjective and a game can be very successful without a story. But I think it’s the most rate games that can become one of the greats without a good solid story. The games that have done this have introduced great new ideas in game play.

well we can go through some examples. Theres more that will negate my argument but its not to say I don't have a point.

A few games that live as legendary here are games that have very very very little gameplay, infact its only there to serve as an explanation of why the oposing team has what they have. Two games that this serves for is Unreal Tournament (which does have some background with the Unreal single player games, but still not a huge amount when compared to a RPG), and Total Annihilation.

Both games are remembered as being great games and live on through nostalgic memories, and both (one being a franchise) have little to no story telling.

So you could say a story isn't required to make a memorable game, but a story could be used as a good way to make a basic game with a good story to follow.

[Green Genes]

This is nothing like debating the merits of hip hop over punk rock. Nobody's saying that RPG's are better than FPS's or strategy games are so much more fucking awesome than puzzle games.

This is debating whether you can have a great, timelss song on its own or if it needs a music video along side in order to be a success. Where you get shitty musicians, it's easy to hide the fact with a video. People enjoy the video and assume the music is good. Same with entertainment software. People enjoy the story and asume the game is good.

[NulloModo]

And Nullo, you too. The strategy in an FPS is part of the game within the game, the metagame. Same as the tactics in an RPG or the choice of tires in a racing game. Your own counter arguments are spelling out exactly what I've been saying: When the game fails to hold your attention, the story needs to kick in.

Except that most FPS games have very little strategy. You have BF2, GRAW, Syphon Filter, Rainbow Six, Counterstrike, and those types where strategy is important (and those tend to be the ones I can stand to play once in a while), then you also have your Quakes, Dooms, F.E.A.R.s, etc, where it is all about how fast you can aim and shoot.

You are missing my point though: I don't see the story as something that kicks in to keep my interest, I like to play the game _For_ the story. The story is what draws me in in the first place.

[NulloModo]

This is debating whether you can have a great, timelss song on its own or if it needs a music video along side in order to be a success. Where you get shitty musicians, it's easy to hide the fact with a video. People enjoy the video and assume the music is good. Same with entertainment software. People enjoy the story and asume the game is good.

So how about this - if you enjoy the story, thereby enjoying the game, doesn't that make the game good, at least for that player? As long as you are having fun with the game, what's wrong with it?

EDIT:

A bit off topic, but I am not much into techno, but I watched that Fatboy Slim video with Christopher Walken flying around a hotel lobby about a million times, just because it had Christopher Walken flying around a hotel lobby. Then again, I guess it comes down to my point, if you enjoy it, what's wrong with it?

[Trimlock]

This is debating whether you can have a great, timelss song on its own or if it needs a music video along side in order to be a success. Where you get shitty musicians, it's easy to hide the fact with a video. People enjoy the video and assume the music is good. Same with entertainment software. People enjoy the story and asume the game is good.

i think its very much the same, people here are debating if the story makes the game or doesn't make them game, its all opinions on what people want to play, i'd say a majority of people are playing with out story lines or could careless about the story lines, but there is also at the same time a group of people moving up that do care about that, or would rather have that over gameplay (or both).

[Green Genes]

Nullo, you're digging yourself deeper. You're demonstrating a dangerously loose grasp on what goes on inside even Quake.

And if I must continue to stretch my first metaphor, you're not even buying a tire anymore. You're buying the patch and getting the tire as a free gift. Which makes even less fucking sense, because if you stop playing games you find story done better almost everywhere you look.

[Green Genes]

So how about this - if you enjoy the story, thereby enjoying the game, doesn't that make the game good, at least for that player? As long as you are having fun with the game, what's wrong with it?


Be vigilant in your definitions. If you are enjoying the story, and there for enjoying the entertainment software, then in your judgement the entertainment software is good. The game and the product you buy from Walmart are not the same things.

Nowhere in the definition of a game does story enter the picture. Keep in mind that games have nothing to do with stories, other than stories tend to be made up about the outcomes of games. Games contain no story, they create it externally. Software on the other hand routinely blends the two.

[NulloModo]

Nullo, you're digging yourself deeper. You're demonstrating a dangerously loose grasp on what goes on inside even Quake.

And if I must continue to stretch my first metaphor, you're not even buying a tire anymore. You're buying the patch and getting the tire as a free gift. Which makes even less fucking sense, because if you stop playing games you find stoty done better almost everywhere you look.

True, you can read a novel and get a better story than in most games, but some games do have excellent stories. Even if the story isn't as good, you are part of it, and that makes it more involving.

I would much rather play a linear RPG than watch a movie with the same plot. In the RPG you can take 80 hours doing it, taking up time for side quests, slowly seeing things come together, sure you can predict some things, but some things take you by surprise. I don't see what is wrong with playing a game to enjoy a story.

Also, Quake did not have that much strategy involved as far as I could ever tell. Granted, I haven't played Quake4 (it would make my computer run away and join the peace corp if I tried I think, I need to upgrade) but in the original quake strategy consisted of camping, in Q3A (the only other one I have played) if you could bunny hop and circle strafe you were pretty much golden.

EDIT:

What you consider 'entertainment software' I consider to be games. A good game developer has to be a master of all trades, knowing how to integrate excellent sound effects and music, game mechanics (gameplay), graphics, and story into one package.

[Torgo]

Methinks that Green Genes might be Jaffe in disguise. (Just joined on the 14th and all three of your posts in this thread? Hmmmm....)

Regardless, your thoughts on story put you in the vast minority of game developers. Patch on a leaky tire? Puleeeze. This mindset is straight from the '70s. It's all about the game mechanics. It's about the action. Plot doesn't mean anything.

Good grief. What a crock. Yes, for some games you don't need a 700 page game bible that describes the game universe in detail. For the early part of the arcade era, games were limited in regards to story because of physical limitations and also because they were designed to eat quarters. Early consoles were especially limited by the hardware. It's amazing that some designers managed to squeeze in their initials as a Easter Egg in 4K of ram.

Remove the hardware limitation and the economics of arcade machines and what were people playing? Most people in the late 70s and early 80s were playing text adventure games, RPG games and graphic adventure games. The mechanics for all text adventure games were pretty much the same. Type in stuff, a limited inventory and interact with the environment. What separated all the text adventure games? The story! It's what made great text adventure games great, and crappy ones crap.

Go on to early RPG games. They too pretty much all had the same crappy graphics, the same mechanics (characters, party, spells, combat) and pretty much the same goal: get the Foozle to defeat the Evil Fuzzle. So what separates the RPGs? The story! It's the designers like Richard Garriott with Ultima IV that threw gaming on it's ear and changed RPGs forever with it's storyline.

Go on to graphic adventure games. Sierra and Lucasarts pretty much had the same setup. Lots of pretty pictures, move a character around and interact with stuff. What makes them stand out? The story! It's the laugh-out loud moments of Space Quest and Monkey Island, the character development of King Graham and the great writing of authors like Orson Scott Card that made games really pop out at you.

Oh, I can hear you know. Times have changed man. It's different now. Is it really? The gaming industry has always gone through cycles of new technology getting in the way of story and plot development in games. Gamers are awed by the eye candy flashed before them, but always go back to the games that have rich characters, a deep story and a decent plot. It's the reason why Final Fanstasy is so big. Seriously, ask anyone why FF sells so many units? Isn't it just another RPG? No, because it has a killer story every friggin' time.

Why do people bitch so much about games like Doom 3 but rave about System Shock? They're both FPS games right? Doom 3 sucked because it was a light rehash of a bad story to begin with (and they'll admit it too) and people love System Shock because it featured one of the best stories of all time in gaming. (Seriously, go ask anyone who's played it and find someone who loathed it.) One last example is Knights of the Old Republic I and II. Really, it's the exact same game mechanics. The first had a rocking story, and the sequel blew chunks because they rushed the story during development. (Read the post-mortems on the project if you have access.)

Games with stories aren't leaky tires. If anything, it's the shell of the car resting on the chassis of the care engine. You could have a V-10 in that engine and 16 inch rims, but your ride is going to suck if you don't have a windshield to keep bugs out of your teeth, the nice leather seats to keep you comfortable and the radio blasting to help you enjoy your ride.

If you're going to take a cross-country trip, you can keep your Volkswagon Bus with the acid factory in the back. Yeah, enjoy that game. It'll get you there. For me, I'm going to ride in the John Madden bus with all character friends I've made through the years in gaming, laughing and having a good time in air-conditioned luxury.

(Oh, and read my profile before you start bitching that I don't know what I'm talking about.)

[wonkavator]

Should we be looking at this from the End users perspective or the game designers/developers perspective?

From the end user, you will never make us all happy, this is just fact. Everyone has their own interests, beliefs and what they find entertaining.

From the people making the game, trying to make games be more entertaining by creating better and more believable story lines is getting more difficult. And I doubt that trend will change. It seems the companies are already spending millions of dollars and years in development of games. The more complicated they try to make them the more money and time this consumes. And the less they want to gamble with all these variables and elements.


Is it better or worse for them to try and minimize some of these elements?


The movie industry has been turning out some serious crap these days, yet people still pay and go see them. It is on a downward trend but still making money. So seems solid stories are not always needed. TV is even worse.


If a game company can reduce their total time & money used from idea to box by reducing or eliminating story lines and still make money, many will follow this path. Just economics, they can create more games and have a faster cycle.


There is no right answer, there are too many factors that go into how successful a game will be. Bottom line for companies is money, what works best for them will dictate.

[Torgo]

Oh, for the record, I personally know most of the designers of Doom and Quake. (John Romero, Tom Hall and the great Sandy Petersen.) All of them at one time or another have personally stated that those particular games with designed with a thin, thin plot on purpose so the action would be first. Doom and Quake were purely action games from the beginning. It worked for the time.

Since then, each of these designers have expressed to me a great desire to design games with characters, story and plot development. I've seen each of them work hard to craft something they wanted to be proud of. Doom and Quake are the exception, not the rule. If plot and story are so meaningless, then why are the designers of the two greatest examples of plot-less gaming still focused on story?

[wonkavator]

Since then, each of these designers have expressed to me a great desire to design games with characters, story and plot development. I've seen each of them work hard to craft something they wanted to be proud of. Doom and Quake are the exception, not the rule. If plot and story are so meaningless, then why are the designers of the two greatest examples of plot-less gaming still focused on story?


If you take a game that has great action/gameplay and add a great story, that game becomes even better. That is the reason, you make that special game. Obviously these succesful games that did not have a story are proof that you do not need a story for the game to but fun and succesful.

[Green Genes]

All your points are well made when you replace the word game with entertainment software. Until you can grasp the distinction I'm trying to make this will be a long, loud shouting match.

Nobody's saying that the products people buy are shitty because they have stories to cover their flaws. What I'm saying is the games, the math, the economies of choice and chance within those products can't stand up on their own, and need stories to prop them up. The combo of game and story often unite to make a great piece of entertainment, lauded by critics and the people everwhere, but in its purest sense the game is still crap.

The System Shocks were not raved about only because of the way they conveyed the story. The gameplay complexity was deeper by orders of magnitude. The unity between the spectacular audio design, the voice acting, the dialogue writing, the plot, the setting, the puzzles, the tension all this created resulted in the best entertainment software title (not game, to keep that word seperate) I've ever played in my life.

Jaffe doesn't want to build Cadillacs. He wants to build a Formula 1 car. His passion is evidently the engineering of choices, rather than the asthetics of presentation.

[Torgo]

The more complicated they try to make them the more money and time this consumes. And the less they want to gamble with all these variables and elements.Ah, now you're thinking like a shareholder for Vivendi or EA. Upper management feels exactly that way. It is more of a gamble to put a story in a game. Just like movies, producers would rather just play it safe with explosions and automatic weapons rather than rely on the actors and the storyline.

Games, just like movies, really break out when they have a great story to go along with it. There's a reason that the Best Picture Oscar always goes to a movie with a great plot and acting. How many of the past winners have gotten the award for non-stop explosions and slo-motion action kung-fu? Summer Blockbusters are fun, but we quickly forget them. It's like cotton candy, you have this quick rush of flavor and then it's gone and forgotten.

Gaming is in the same position. The only problem is that the current state of the industry doesn't really allow independent and breakout games to succeed. Having a "Napolean Dynomite" in the gaming world is a sad rareity.

Bottom line for companies is money, what works best for them will dictate.That's essentially the current state of gaming at the moment. It's all about the $$$

[NulloModo]

If you take a game that has great action/gameplay and add a great story, that game becomes even better. That is the reason, you make that special game. Obviously these succesful games that did not have a story are proof that you do not need a story for the game to but fun and succesful.

I would argue they weren't successful for gameplay either. They were successful for eye-candy. Everyone has to have a reason to justify buying that $500 video card after all.

[NulloModo]

Jaffe doesn't want to build Cadillacs. He wants to build a Formula 1 car. His passion is evidently the engineering of choices, rather than the asthetics of presentation.

Personally I'd take the Cadillac, but that's just me.

[Psychotext]

Sad really, we've been losing gameplay and now storylines. What does that leave us with? Graphics, which as we've seen is pretty much becoming the focus of the next gen (other than for Nintendo). The game industry really is becoming the movie industry.

[wonkavator]

I would argue they weren't successful for gameplay either. They were successful for eye-candy. Everyone has to have a reason to justify buying that $500 video card after all.


Its all subjective, some people find eye candy to be great gameplay. I don't, most games I continue to play I lower the settings for a smoother and better experience.

But that doesn't matter, if you think a game is bad and millions think its great the game is great.

[Green Genes]

Oh, for the record, I personally know most of the designers of Doom and Quake. (John Romero, Tom Hall and the great Sandy Petersen.) All of them at one time or another have personally stated that those particular games with designed with a thin, thin plot on purpose so the action would be first. Doom and Quake were purely action games from the beginning. It worked for the time.

Since then, each of these designers have expressed to me a great desire to design games with characters, story and plot development. I've seen each of them work hard to craft something they wanted to be proud of. Doom and Quake are the exception, not the rule. If plot and story are so meaningless, then why are the designers of the two greatest examples of plot-less gaming still focused on story?

They've designed a perfect game, and made successful entertainment software based upon it. If you follow my meaning carefully, plot and story are not meaningless in context of entertainment software, only in terms of games. Romero, Hall and Petersen probably realise, like the rest of the world does now, that adding story and game together generally creates supperior entertainment software. The sum is greater than the total of the parts, and it's easy to expoit this to great success.

Jaffe has said, "I don't seek total domination of the market. My goal is to do as Romero and Carmack once did, and create a core of gameplay so pure and perfect that angels may weep."

[NulloModo]

Sad really, we've been losing gameplay and now storylines. What does that leave us with? Graphics, which as we've seen is pretty much becoming the focus of the next gen (other than for Nintendo). The game industry really is becoming the movie industry.

Sony is doing some pretty innovative stuff with the new eye-toy. I am really looking forward to seeing how that turns out. They made some interesting steps with the first one, but no killer app to really sell it. If the new one can capture a full range of motion that could make for some very cool games.

[Torgo]

If you take a game that has great action/gameplay and add a great story, that game becomes even better. That is the reason, you make that special game. Obviously these succesful games that did not have a story are proof that you do not need a story for the game to but fun and succesful.Right. Is it necessary? Nope. There are great games that don't have it. If you look at the list of the greatest games of all time, the overwhelming majority will have a fantastic story that elevates it above others. I think we're in agreement.

Nobody's saying that the products people buy are shitty because they have stories to cover their flaws. What I'm saying is the games, the math, the economies of choice and chance within those products can't stand up on their own, and need stories to prop them up.Alright, perhaps you're not making yourself clear, because those two sentences contradict each other. Okay, let me see if I can find some common ground. To recap your thoughts GG, to you the perfect game doesn't require a tacked on story. Games like Street Fighter and Risk are already perfect the way they are, so why bother spending time making some stupid backstory that only cheapens the game in the end?

Okay, I agree that the type of games like Street Fighter and Risk doesn't require a story. I'm with you there. I could care less that Ryu and Ken were once gay lovers that had a falling out. In this case, yes, it's really stupid. The same goes for Doom and Quake. They don't really need a story and the designers have pretty much admitted to me they only used the plot to come up with cool monsters to throw in.

Your theory is perfectly fine for those type of games: action. Games that speed and skill are what really matter. Everything else is secondary. It's about how fast you can complete the level and how many points you rack up. That's is a perfectly acceptable form of entertainment and gaming experience. It's what I pretty much did dumping quarters into arcade cabinets and I loved doing it. I was entertained and happy.

However, that's not the total sum of the gaming world. Not all games should be action games. Just like not all movies should be action films, a chick flick is a nice change up once in a while. Once you remove the fast pacing from the games, you're forced to deal with plot and story. That's what everyone else is saying. You can't completely ignore story and plot all the time. You can't pretend it doesn't exist, but at the same time you shouldn't just tack one on to have one. Those games that utilize story, plot and character development are just heads and shoulders about those that don't have them. It makes for a superior game.

You use the term "entertainment software title". It doesn't mean what you think it means. If you're being entertained, you're getting enjoyment or pleasure out of it. Galaga is just as much of an entertainment software title as is Baldur's Gate. It's software designed to entertain the masses. If you need to classify games into groups that need or don't need storylines and plot, you're safer grouping lumping them into action/arcade oriented and perhaps something along the lines of interactive adventure games. Gosh, that last one sounds goofy. It's just far easier to lump all those games that don't need storylines into their little subsection than it is to make one for those that do.

I think we've found some common ground here. To sum up, there are what I call action/arcade games that need no storyline or plot. Adding a storyline to these games tend to detract from what is otherwise a "perfect game".

At the same time, story and plot cannot be completely ignored (which is what I think Jaffe is stating, perhaps he really doesn't feel this way. I still think he's just burnt out.) because so many other types of games pretty much require them to have the optimal gaming experience.

Everyone happy yet?

[Green Genes]

I am sad English lacks the precision to discern the system of rules within a piece of software. The meaning of the terms 'game' (term A) and 'video game' (term B) are quite different, and when people shorten video game to just 'game' (term B), you have one word for two different concepts. The confusion here is rampant, especially when talking about game(term A)design and game(term B)design. In conjunction with the heated passions the hobby and industry attracts, this failure in the vernacular is so powerful I've seen it rip minds appart.

Maybe a new word needs to be coined. What I mean by entertainmetn software also includes Galaga. To try and distinguish the rules of gameplay from the software the runs them, I use entertainment software as a rather clumsy and ugly euphanism for 'video game'. It's only because I'm so interested in designing the rules and mathematics of games as well as the plots and stories, settings and characters to create a unified piece of entertainment software that I find the inability to talk about the two topics sepperately frustrating.

Torgo: If you don't mind me asking, what was your role as a game developer? I've gone to a couple game(B)design schools in Vancouver and always enjoy meeting people with industry experience.

[Grando]

Nowhere in the definition of “Game” will you find the word story. Stories are a tool used to retain a player’s interest. They are not integral to games and have nothing to do with pure mechanics and the underlying state machines that dictate what a player can and can’t do within a predetermined set of rules. That is what a game is in its purest sense. Everything else is opinion and subjective hyperbole.

[wonkavator]

SO does any game actually need a story?

I am just curious what people think. Think about all the games you have played over the years and really enjoyed.


if you friend sat you in front of one of these games and said play this game its friggin great. You say whats the story about. He looks at you blankly and says um to win.

Now you play this game (insert whatever game you want) is the story needed for the game?


I am thinking here of what games I have played over the years that really needed a story to be enjoyable. Meaning would I have stopped playing it because the story did not exist or was that bad. A game is a game the purpose is to win/progess/defeat/etc that is pretty much the concept of any game. Tic tac toe, checkers, solitare, to win.


Is the story really needed? Don't get me wrong I like stories in games when done right, just being devils advocate.

[Green Genes]

SO does any game actually need a story?

I am just curious what people think. Think about all the games you have played over the years and really enjoyed.


if you friend sat you in front of one of these games and said play this game its friggin great. You say whats the story about. He looks at you blankly and says um to win.

Now you play this game (insert whatever game you want) is the story needed for the game?


I am thinking here of what games I have played over the years that really needed a story to be enjoyable. Meaning would I have stopped playing it because the story did not exist or was that bad. A game is a game the purpose is to win/progess/defeat/etc that is pretty much the concept of any game. Tic tac toe, checkers, solitare, to win.


Is the story really needed? Don't get me wrong I like stories in games when done right, just being devils advocate.

Hooray! I think the point is being made!

Precisely, Wonk. Peel back the layers of Street Fighter and you find a system of rules and variables very close to chess. The is the game(term A). The timings, priorites and outcomes of the 14 different player inputs and their combinations. Add in the characters of Ryu and Ken, the rivalries, the art and animation, the music, the levels and the coin slot and you have a game(term B). A piece of Entertainment Software.

This is what I'm doing such a poor job of trying to get at, that within everything you buy at EB there are different levels of gameplay(A) and extra stuff (Story and graphics) that together make entertainment software, no matter what genre or level of action and complexity. All these parts together define the product. Just like at the liquor store, peoples' taste range wildly from margaritas to Newfie screech, and they're all represented there proportionally, due to the free market. But they contain the same ingrediants. Alcohol(A) plus flavour equals drink(B). And Jaffe is talking about opening a distillery for 190 proof Scotch.

[wonkavator]

Precisely, Wonk. Peel back the layers of Street Fighter and you find a system of rules and variables very close to chess. The is the game(term A). The timings, priorites and outcomes of the 14 different player inputs and their combinations. Add in the characters of Ryu and Ken, the rivalries, the art and animation, the music, the levels and the coin slot and you have a game(term B). A piece of Entertainment Software.

This is what I'm doing such a poor job of trying to get at, that within everything you buy at EB there are different levels of gameplay(A) and extra stuff (Story and graphics) that together make entertainment software, no matter what genre or level of action and complexity. All these parts together define the product. Just like at the liquor store, peoples' taste range wildly from margaritas to Newfie screech, and they're all represented there proportionally, due to the free market. But they contain the same ingrediants. Alcohol(A) plus flavour equals drink(B). And Jaffe is talking about opening a distillery for 190 proof Scotch.


GG I think you are being a little too literal. But I also think you are missing the concept of game vs entertainment software.

The things you are listing as the game, the controls, the 14 inputs, these are the actual hardware programmed functions, this is not a game. If you did not have the second half of the equation, what you are calling the entertainment software. All you would have is a serious of programmed funtions and results. Exactly what a program is, that is not a game. A game is the combination of both.

I take it English is not your native language and is a dam wierd language as that. The actual definition of a game is:

An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games. computer games.

So the entire street figther is a game, it is made up of different components, hardware, programming and visual aids that make it interactive and enjoyable to the human.

It will much easier to convey your thoughts and have others understand in that regard.

[NulloModo]

As far as this forum goes, I think it is safe to use the terms game and video game synonomously. Is a game of Final Fantasy or Quake anything like a game of Football? Of course not, they are two completely different animals.

All of my comments are in reference to video games. Sports, board games, games of chance, etc, are a whole other element and not really relevant to this discussion.

[Grando]

Jaffe’s job title is Professional Game Designer… not Professional Writer. Since I happen to share the same title myself I can honestly say that he’s got his head in the right place. Writing stories (even interactive ones) is not in a game designer’s job description and shouldn’t be a game designer’s priority. Leave that to the writers.

[NulloModo]

Jaffe’s job title is Professional Game Designer… not Professional Writer. Since I happen to share the same title myself I can honestly say that he’s got his head in the right place. Writing stories (even interactive ones) is not in a game designer’s job description and shouldn’t be a game designer’s priority. Leave that to the writers.

And that is fine if that is what he wants to do and what he does well, however, he has to let the writers do their jobs well too.

[Torgo]

I was lead tester at Ensemble Studios. I had to work closely with both designers and the programmers to make sure that all of the Age games not only met the programming requirements (something concrete and absolute) but also the design requirements (the esoteric "Is it fun?" aspect).

Green Genes, what I think you're going for is the Unified Theory of Game Making. If you actually come up with it, the world will beat a path to your door. However, I really don't think that you can equate game mechanics with plot development. I mean, they intertwine in many ways, but it's hard to get the right balance. Designers will often sacrifice one for the other in several areas. It then becomes an ugly mess.

It used to be a little less complicated back in the day. You'd have one or two man teams where the programmer was the designer/artist/programmer. Today's environment requires an army of people each with a specific role. To get all these people on the same page is darn near impossible.

Grando, you bring up the point that nowhere in the definition of game is the word "story". No, but the definition (which happens to be "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement") doesn't state that it can't be there. So it's an activity done for fun. It's easy to define an activity. Yeah, it can be checkers or some other simple thing with a set of rules and a goal. That's half the equation. The subjective part, the other half of the equation is "diversion or amusement". Without that, a game of checkers is just an activity.

Ever remember picking up the house when you were little and just dreading it? What did mom used to say? "Make a game of it?" It's still the same activity but now you're deriving fun out of it somehow.

You see, it's that fun that's the X factor in gaming. What makes a game fun? It's not the same for everyone. Fun isn't something universal. There isn't an activity that everyone can agree that is fun. (Before you say "sex", there are strangely enough people that don't enjoy it.) This is the one aspect of game design that you can't define Grando, and you just can't explain in a formula Green Genes. It doesn't mean that we don't try.

We've been playing with video games for over 30 years. Game designers pretty much knows what works and what doesn't work. They're still experimenting to find that mythical perfect mix of gaming elements to make the perfect game. But since we have that one subjective element, fun, that perfect game is going to be different for everyone.

That's why a group of people will say, "See, Street Fighter II is the greatest game of all time. It's perfect." For that subset of people, that's the definition of fun. They get the greatest amusement from playing that particular game. There's nothing wrong with that viewpoint from the perspective of the game player.

However, there just happens to be a larger set of people that think that element of fun also needs to include a storyline or plot somehow. To what extent story plays in that equation is also different for the end user. For some, a text adventure where 95% of the game is based on story and plot is the perfect mix for the perfect game. For someone else playing a RPG game, the mix needs to be around 50/50 of plot and action.

A game designer needs to be acutely aware of what is fun for those various groups of people. Usually those groups of people are defined by marketing droids and surveys. The beancounters look at the largest group and say "Aha! Make a game that appeals to this large group! Start printing money!" The designer in a publisher shop usually doesn't have the freedom to tailor the game to any other market segment. Not that they don't try somehow. That's where you get your slapped, patched plot in an effort to lure those on the fringe to buy the game. That's not necessarily what the designer wants, but what is forced upon him by upper management to make the game appeal to everyone and everything in order to make more money.

Here's where Jaffe goes wrong in his thinking as a game designer. He states in his blog: I think somewhere in the last year, I realized that electronic games have always had an amazing ability to evoke emotion. They are not the emotions that many of us- including me- have been pursuing. But they are emotions nevertheless; they are feelings that the best pure games can always evoke. Feelings of tension and release, feelings of fear and anxiety, feelings of triumph and defeat, feelings of confusion followed- sometimes- by joy at having overcome the challenge. These are REAL emotions and they are not to be denied or ignored or belittled. They are to be- as game makers- embraced and enhanced and held up as one- if not the only- real path for game makers to follow.

Now when I read this, I'm thinking "Yeah, I'm with ya. I loved games like Ultima IV where you had to go beyond the hack n' slash and become an example for everyone, or when I cried when Floyd the Robot died in Planetfall." Then I realized that Jaffe is on a totally different page when he writes: Well, wait a sec...it’s the path for me. For now. It’s wrong for me to try and deny teams that make games that are more of a multimedia mix (like MGS and TOMB RAIDER and even our own GOD OF WAR). Those games- for me as a player- ARE fun and DO work. But I think even the best ones feel forced, like they are not speaking the true language of video games.

What the hell?!? True language of video games? What crack pipe are you on as a game designer? Hey, Jaffe's free to go off and design games that appeal to the action crowd. That's a viable segment and have some great gamers in it. My problem is that as a game designer he totally ignores and turns his back on the vast majority of gamers who think fun also happens to incorporate story and plot.

It was all explained to me why Jaffe is out of his freakin' mind when he stated this. And I quote:
This last week I spent 3 days in Utah tweaking the crap out of the game with Scott and the guys and man, it was such a joy to be working on the pure play aspect of the thing; it felt like we were communicating with the game- and the player- on the most fundamental of levels. And the nice thing is, besides the game being a blast to work on (whereas God Of War was a slog), it's also a game that I am enjoying playing. That is something I can’t do with the single player, action-adventure stuff I work on. And that’s a great feeling. Because I just can’t play God Of War. It holds not joy or surprise for me because it’s all planned out; because I already enjoyed all of the elements of God Of War on the day me or the team thought them up, way before they were executed.
So he's burned out on games with plot and story because he worked on a game that spoiled everything for him ahead of time. Because he knew the ending from the beginning, he can't play his game. This is the worst excuse for a game designer that I've heard in a long time. Seriously. And I know quite a few.

Hey, I know what it's like to be burned out on a game. I think I've played Age of Empires 2 maybe twice since it came out. Why? I'm burned out on it. Try playtesting it every day for twelve hours straight doing the same things over and over and over again. It wasn't a game for me, it was an activity (see above). It was work.

Jaffe, you friggin' work in the game industry. It's a damn job. It's not fun. Working in the video game industry is the best job and the worst job you'll ever have. Just because I'm burned out on Age II doesn't mean I can't recognize what makes the game so great. It doesn't mean that I don't play Starcraft, Warcraft 3 or any other RTS game. What Jaffe is essentially saying is that he isn't a very good game designer because he doesn't like designing games that don't fit his playing style. He's just given up to his weakness and caved. He admits that he doesn't like planning out a game. Good grief! That's like a chef saying he doesn't like cooking.

Look I've rambled a bit on Jaffe. It's clear that he's an idiot of the first degree. If I were his boss, I'd fire him from being a game designer. He can't hack it. It's his lack of understanding of what gaming totally encompasses that just galls me. Green Genes, at least you recognize that plot and story have a place somewhere in the gaming world. I respect your viewpoints and glad you participated. If there's one thing that I'd ask you, is to take another look at Jaffe and what he's really saying on his blog. It's not game design. It's a rejection of an entire segment of gaming in this false illusion that only his way is the true way of game design. It's not. We've been down that road before. It has it's place in gaming, but it doesn't lead to gaming nirvana for everyone.

[Torgo]

Jaffe’s job title is Professional Game Designer… not Professional Writer. Since I happen to share the same title myself I can honestly say that he’s got his head in the right place. Writing stories (even interactive ones) is not in a game designer’s job description and shouldn’t be a game designer’s priority. Leave that to the writers.If by right place, you mean up his own ass. Go back and reread what he's saying in his blog and not just the cut n' paste section on Blue's. He's states clear as day that as a gamer he's switched to preferring action/arcade oriented games. Why? Because he got burned out on God of War because everything was layed out for him from the beginning.

A game designer should never let his personal preference totally cloud his judgement like that. Don't ever assume that you're God's gift to gaming and you know all the answers. Jaffe is going to make the mistake of narrowcasting to a specific group of gamers. His games will appeal to that group only and that group will love him for it. If that's what he wants, fine. Go ahead. His choice.

That's not why he's an idiot. He's an ass because he did let his personal gaming preference blind him to every other aspect of gaming. Jaffe didn't say, "Hey, I think story based gaming is great and has produced great titles. I've done that and want to try something else and see if I can make an action oriented title." That's fine and good. I've known plenty of designers that have done that. I think it's a great idea. But no. Jaffe instead says:
"Now it’s just a slog to execute the damn thing so OTHERS- the PLAYERS- can enjoy what you’ve already finished enjoying." Sound like someone who has his head in the right place? Being a gigantic prick and pissing on the people who are buying your product?

Screw Jaffe. Tell 'em Torgo said so.

[Green Genes]

A game is an activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games. computer games.

This is innacurate. I think you're muddling games with play. Games are not at all neccessarilly fun. There is nothing about a game that requires participation to be enjoyable or even volluntary.

Game theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory) in its essence is a manipulation of variables to achieve and end. Play is a frivoulous amusement undertaken for enjoyment. Sometimes you can play a game, recreating yourself in a friendly contest. It's not serious, it's enjoyable. It's play. Or you can work a game. Like the stock market, or the legal system. You're doing the same things for different reasons.

A game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game) itself is much more than a playful activity. It is entirely defined by the structure of rules. The 14 sacred moved of Street Fighter are the game. The moves of the chess pieces are the game. Once you have rules, you have games. That's all games are, and that's all rules are.

Perhaps it's because games and play are not considered serious topics that language has not arived to accurately describe them. There is a void that needs filling.

As for Jaffe doing what he wants: ABOUT FUCKING TIME. Games have been shit lately because they are managed and commiteed to their fucking knees. The bottom line dictates too many efforts today. Creating art is about doing what you want and then people pay you for it afterwards. Asking people very carefully what they want in minute detail and then delivering it is pandering, and the result is always a weak, compromised piece of drivle. I wish Jaffe tremendous success with his creative endevours no matter even if I hate the finished product.

[SamuraiInBlack]

I remember playing Final Fantasy. The original. I loved the story to that one. In fact, I still do, over all the other ones in the series, with the exception of maybe the American 2nd and 3rd ones. FF7 had a great story too, but to me, nothing will top the original FF storyline.

Personally I feel it should be like this:
Great story + great gameplay = great game overall. Period. I don't care if the graphics look like ass, or the sound is warbled beyond recognition as long as I dont' get a headache from either.

Great story + bad gameplay = I'm not going to even bother.

Bad story + great gameplay = I might play it if only because I can do something interesting. Take Diablo 2 for example - the storyline was great, but you go into Nightmare and Hell modes...and what point is there in the story again? Nothing. If Nightmare and Hell were a continuation from that point on, then I'd probably keep going. OR, if Nightmare was extended out to say, Acts 2 and 3, maybe even 4, and Hell mode was Acts 4 and 5? I'd have more incentive to play, because Hell really would feel like the mode's namesake. Just add in more quests to make each mode worthwhile.

Bad story + bad gameplay = I wouldn't buy it used for 3 bucks if the guy at EB was begging me for the sake of his job to take it off the shelf for him.

And some games out there have no real story at all - Quake 3? Look at how popular that title was. I don't remember seeing anything in-game in regards to a story. Some of them make it. Others don't make the cut. Counter-Strike - pre-Valve, what the hell story was there? Kill the bad guys? :rolleyes:

As for cinematics, if there's more cinematics than game, you're in the wrong business for what you're doing - you need to go into film. People aren't paying $30-$60 to WATCH a game on their console. They already pay about that much for a night out at the theater. They're paying that to PLAY the thing. Cinematics are great. The assholes in marketing who use them as advertisement points are mean and use those as the selling point, which to me, disappoints me when I find out it's only a cinematic and not something in actual gameplay. So now, I'm at a point where if I see it on TV, I just shrug and say to myself it's a cinematic, and I'll never be able to play something that badass looking. THAT is what I want.

As for players making their own story, yeah it's nice to have an actual choice in the matter. The problem is, most games, you dont' get much of a choice. Oh sure, Black and White, you had a choice. But guess what? It was still more rewarding to be good than evil. That is bullshit to me. If you make choices, those choices should reap both the benefits AND consequences of them. VtM Bloodlines to me is about the closest I've seen to that, and even then, you still couldn't go Sabbat or Independent or even Caitiff. If you've ever played the tabletop game, you'd know it's open season on character types unless your Storyteller says no.

So in the end, it's still sad that to me, a tabletop game is still my game of choice over most video games, because of the fact that it incorporates everything that you guys are up in arms over or debating over what's right and what's wrong, and it leaves the player in control of just how bad or good any single aspect of it becomes.

Frankly, I think more game designers need to sit down to a tabletop game and take notes. Maybe then we'll find a good balance and establish the perfection of the Unified Theory of Game Making.

[Grando]

Don’t pull that “Fun” definition crap with me. It is and always will be a weak argument. Now I agree that action games are not the be-all-to-end-all of videogames, but the fact of the matter is you can have all the stories you want without ever picking up a controller. Stories are in no way integral to gameplay. They provide motivation and a little purpose to what you are doing, but from a hardcore mechanics point-of-view it has nothing to do with game design. Remember it’s what you do that makes it a game, not what you’re told.

As for Jaffe, he seems to be doing a lot better in the development arena than you Torga so cut the man some slack. I personally agree with everything he says because I know exactly where he’s coming from. Game designers should not be concerned with stories. It’s distracting and not immediately relevant to the job. Personally I don’t give two shits about the “Hero’s Journey” and neither do any of the designers I know (which there are many). You have writers for that and you let them work their magic while you work yours and hopefully the sweet sweet love you make will conceive something that’s functional... preferably enjoyable.

[Torgo]

Ah, just when we were making headway. Okay, Wikipedia isn't the best place to be linking to for a definition. Use the best tool for the best job; a dictionary.

(Good grief I can't believe we're stooping to this level.)
Main Entry: 1game
Pronunciation: 'gAm
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English gamen; akin to Old High German gaman amusement
1 a (1) : activity engaged in for diversion or amusement :
]game1 P Pronunciation Key (gm)
n.
An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime:

[quote=Cambridge dictionary]game (ENTERTAINING ACTIVITY) Show phonetics
noun
1 [C] an entertaining activity or sport, especially one played by children, or the equipment needed for such an activity:
a board game
indoor/computer games
The children played a game of cops and robbers.
I told the children to put their toys and games away.
Seriously, you're like the only one that I know that (with the possible exception of Grando) that uses such a narrow definition. I mean, even your vaulted Wikipedia entry on games has this lovely tidbit that encompasses what I've been trying to say.
In Philosophical Investigations, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that the concept "game" could not be contained by any single definition, but that games must be looked at as a series of definitions that share a "family resemblance" to one another. Games were important to Wittgenstein's later thought; he held that language was itself a game consisting of tokens governed by rough-and-ready rules that arise by convention and are not strict.
I'm about to make a generalization, but I just can't help myself. I can totally tell you're primarily a programmer and mathmatician because you're falling into that stereotype that I've seen in the gaming industry where the programmers have to have everything labled and stacked in nice piles that make logical sense to them. This seems to piss off the graphic artists to no end that programmers wouldn't understand true art if it bit them in the ass. Graphics to a programmer is vertices, light sources, polygons and collisions. To the artist, it's about texture, style, weight and color. The poor project manager has to somehow referee the cage match to get the product out the door.

Green Genes, seriously, who says that every game has to have rules? The latest revolution in gaming is the possibility of open ended gaming. The opportunity to do whatever the hell you want. You can talk game theory and it works in some cases, but not all. Game Theory is based on rational behavior, and as a former QA lead and as life experience has tought me, people are often irrational. Remember what WOPR said at the end of Wargames (a movie heavy based in game theory)? "he only winning move is not to play." Oh yeah, that's going to make a great game there.

Look, I agree that the game industry is overmanaged and mismanaged to death. No argument there. Jaffe isn't wrong for decided to make an action game. Jaffe is wrong because he's making an action because he feels that story based games have no meaning for him and therefore he is ignoring them because as a game designer he thinks they have no place in today's games.

[The_Law]

The current bloated industry cannot be supported only by people who cannot stomach a pure gameplay experience...

"Pure gameplay" is a relative term. For you gameplay is ONLY the actual button mashing part (I know there is more to it than button mashing). We are talking about video games. The definition of "game" does not fully encompass what a "video game" is. In my opinion, most games need a story to really captivate the audience (with the exception of a few genres likes sports or sims). That doesn't make it any less of a game. The problem with having all gameplay and no story is that most games just get extremely repetitious. Running around for hours at a time shooting things is just boring to me if there isn't some reason to be doing it. Again, I understand that people have different likes and dislikes in games, but I don't think you can say anyone who likes story doesn't actually like "games."

Off topic: I am glad I went to law school instead of game design school, because this crap you all are talking about seems boring as hell. :) And I always thought making games would be cool...

[Green Genes]

You see, it's that fun that's the X factor in gaming. What makes a game fun? It's not the same for everyone. Fun isn't something universal. There isn't an activity that everyone can agree that is fun. (Before you say "sex", there are strangely enough people that don't enjoy it.) This is the one aspect of game design that you can't define Grando, and you just can't explain in a formula Green Genes. It doesn't mean that we don't try.

This is pretty basic stuff you're getting wrong here. These bad assumptions at the foundation level lead to a rickity, dangerous crack house where instead there should be a mighty ziggurat.

Beauty That which is pleasing to the senses.

Immersion Going into an environment different from one's own.

Intellectual Problem Solving Finding solutions to problematic situations requiring thought.

Competition An activity where the goal is to show ones superiority.

Social Interaction Doing things with other human beings.

Comedy Things that make one want to laugh.

Thrill of Danger Enduring risky behaviour unharmed.

Physical Activity Activities requiring intense physical movement.

Love A strong affection toward somebody.

Creation To make exist that which didn't before.

Power The capacity to have a strong effect, or to act with strength.

Discovery Finding something that wasn't known before.

Advancement and Completion Going forward in and eventually completing an activity.

Application of an Ability Using ones abilities in a difficult setting.


This stuff is not impossible to nail down. More difficult concepts than "What do people enjoy doing?" have been slam dunked in ancient history. The entire world changes again and again when the rules are changed and new ones are invented or discovered.

Now, if you've all eaten enough hallucinogens in your lifetim, thoughts and ideas are living organisms. This is not a metaphor, it's a fact. Game sytems and social values are strong, seperate species. They are capable of reproducing and mutating over millenia. They're hardy and addaptable. And the really neat thing, they can also be symbiotic. They can exist one within the other and the result is again stronger than the sum of the parts. Like algae, the united pair can exist and thrive where niether half would have purchase on its own.



Green Genes, seriously, who says that every game has to have rules? The latest revolution in gaming is the possibility of open ended gaming.


A game with no rules is not a game. It's play. It's sitting in a sand box and doing what you want. An open ended game is a play session where you make up your own rules. Be vigilant in your scrutiny.

Classification is not a purely mathematical trait. In your own words, artists classify the qualities of their craft using color, composition, symbolism, tricks of eye. Artists also struggle with the metaphysical. The impressionists, the idealists, the cubists. These aren't so much different ways of making stuff look neat, it's different ways of thinking about images and subject matter. If you've studied art you find the same rigerous techniques applied with the same creativity and passion as programming. I say fuck the project manager, just breed an all singing, all dancing Renaissance man, a polymath who cuts out the middle men and gets the fucking job done.

Me and Grando are specific in our definitions because until you distill a subject to its core you're not going to do good work with it. Like a chemist and a solution of some metal oxide. Until you know precisely what your dealing with, all your work is at best an assumption. The way the language stands now, over half my day has been spent bantering semantics.

[Green Genes]

Off topic: I am glad I went to law school instead of game design school, because this crap you all are talking about seems boring as hell. :) And I always thought making games would be cool...

It's a labor of love.

[Torgo]

Don’t pull that “Fun” definition crap with me. I just did. I can and will so... nyaa nyaa nyaa.[/quote]
It is and always will be a weak argument.Yet, it's usually the first and last question that a gamer asks himself when playing, "Am I having fun?" Seriously, you're a game designer and don't know that fact? It's one of the first questions we asked everyone while playtesting. "Yeah, there were bugs, but... did you have fun?" Do you go around and recommend games because the particle collisions are top notch and the game is so much better in the sequel because now researching Laser Cannons gives you a bonus of +3 to hit? Get a grip.

Go up to your friend and tell them you just played the latest hit game. What's the first question out of his mouth? "How did you like it?" or "Was it fun?" You do the same with movies and books. He's asking you for your enjoyment level that you had with your experience. Why, oh my gosh, it's the fun definition! EVERYBODY PANIC!!! Everyone rates their experiences based on fun and enjoyment.

Stories are in no way integral to gameplay. They provide motivation and a little purpose to what you are doing, but from a hardcore mechanics point-of-view it has nothing to do with game design. Remember it’s what you do that makes it a game, not what you’re told.The first sentence here about stories not being integral to gameplay is true. Do you have to have a story to have a game? Nope, we've already covered that ground. The second sentence has you on a one-way trip to Crazyville: Population You. Game design can exist without mechanics, which may be a suprise to you. Just go to any playground. You'll see kids running around having fun. "Ah, but they're using rules!" Obviously you've never been a kid and you're just a clone from a alien harvesting ground. Kids change and break rules all the time. You're not a parent are you?

Okay, all the parents in the forum raise your hands if you've ever heard this: "Tag! You're it!" "Nuh-uh. My foot was touching the base. I'm safe." Then they go back and forth establishing new rules and breaking them whenever they feel it's convienent. It extends to the online world. Go to a World of Warcraft chat room and you'll have people not even in the game world yet chatting away about plots and strategies with other people. You can't create rules to cover all situations and ethics in the online world. People go out and create their own rules, their own games and ignore whatever you had intended. It's one of the reasons that people like WoW so much. They can do pretty much whatever they want without rules.

I mean, you've got these level 60 characters that have pretty much done all that they could do. They've finished the game so to speak. So why are they still playing? Is there a rule or game mechanic that states "YOU MUST PLAY!" Don't think so. Could it be that F word that you don't want me saying? Fun? Oooo... does that make you cringe when I type it. I'll do it really slow... F.... U.... N. Yeah, feel the burn.

As for Jaffe, he seems to be doing a lot better in the development arena than you Torga (sic) so cut the man some slack.Yeah, it's pretty easy to do better than me considering I'm not doing anything professionally in the gaming arena. I earn more money doing less and get more enjoyment now. Eh, that's a personal thing. Then again it depends on what you call doing "better". If having a crisis of faith and having some craptastic titles on my resume is doing better fine. I'll just quietly sob in the corner while stroking my Game of the Year award. Both of them. Because deep down inside (well, no not really. I'm being a smartass.) Jaffe is right because a game designer should never be concerned with the story. Hey, you shouldn't be concerned even when you know all along it's crap and you did nothing about it. Having a story just ruins the surprise for the designer when he gets his shiny disk from the production plant. Why bother playing since you know how it ends? And those damn gamers who finally get to have enjoyment over something I created months ago. It's just not the same feeling, and that feeling was crap to begin with. Well, it was just a little tingle like when a girl walks by in a bikini, but it's not the thrill that you get getting to the pure base of gaming.

I'm having a real hard time believing you guys are calling yourselves game designers. I've got a little street cred and I've been published and know that fun is what ultimately determines sales and satisfaction. I mean, you guys try to talk a good game but you're not backing any of this stuff up very well. I get this feeling that y'all read Chris Crawford's book, took a few classes in college in some gaming program and know thing you know everything. Unless you guys come to understand that the gaming is large, fun and there's room for all sorts of gaming, you're going to one day end up divorced on a park bench with newspaper sheets.

[The_Law]

It's a labor of love.

Well, then I must say it's a noble profession. Unfortunately, law is often just about making money.

Back on topic: What are some of the best "games" in your opinion GG? Just wondering what you consider a really great game.

[Grando]

I’m not talking about gaming; I’m talking specifically about “game design”. You’re talking about play. Your ignorance is astonishing and really goes to show your complete lack of familiarity with the subject.

[Torgo]

This is pretty basic stuff you're getting wrong here. These bad assumptions at the foundation level lead to a rickity, dangerous crack house where instead there should be a mighty ziggurat. The way the language stands now, over half my day has been spent bantering semantics.
Bwahahaha! I was right! You're a college noob whose been to a few philosophy classes and actually absorbed everything said as truth. Go back and reread what you posted. Does any normal human being talk that way? Don't say yourself, because you're definately living in the crack house ziggurat. Don't think for one instant that people are playing your game thinking "Oh my gosh! The way he used that powerup is a metaphor for how we can gain enlightenment in life."

Okay, you can make your little checklist: Beauty, check. Immersion, check. But your list contains elements of gaming that are story and plot based. Pong is game mechanics to it's very core. You might find beauty in the mathmatics of how the game operates, but beauty in itself is subjective. So is comedy, social interaction. What Jaffe is designing are games that are pleasing to the base levels of the brain. There's nothing wrong with that. It's the rat pressing the button and he gets some cheese.

Your list encompasses higher brain activity, such as discovery, love (not lust) and creation. To have a game with all those features you'd pretty much have to have some story and plot to it. OH MY GOSH! THE MADNESS!

Oh, and I just have to comment on the whole thoughts and ideas being actual living organisms. For someone who is so anal about the definition of what a game is (completely ignoring dictionaries by the way) you're really going off the deep end when presenting this concept as fact. The concept of memes is facisinating and has characteristics of living organisms, but there's plenty of criticism out there on the subject. I wouldn't be so hasty as to present this as fact. It just makes you look like you slept with your philosophy teacher. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As long as you had fun.... oh that's right. Can't use that word can I? Hey, as long as she was keeping with in the parameters of the game, right?

(Hey, mods, I'm actually on topic and making a point on that one.)

Last thought... you've never seen kinds in a sandbox have you? Go to a park and observe them sometime. (Just don't be mistaken for a child molester.) A child, by himself in a sandbox will sit there and make a game for himself. He's using something called imagination.

Try using it sometime. It's a lot of fun. (Darn, it I said fun again.)

[Torgo]

I’m not talking about gaming; I’m talking specifically about “game design”. You’re talking about play. Your ignorance is astonishing and really goes to show your complete lack of familiarity with the subject.Really, let me go back then.
Stories are in no way integral to gameplay.
Oh yeah, you're right. You were talking about game des... whuuuuuh? Gameplay? Hey, how did that word get there? Oh, you must of typed it. So you really were talking about gameplay after all. Funny, how when I look back at my post I managed to make points on both game design and gameplay. In fact, I agreed with you that statement about stories are in no way integral to gameplay.

I didn't mention it earlier, but your statement "Remember it’s what you do that makes it a game, not what you’re told" is in line with what I've been saying. Doing what you're told is game mechanics. It's the rules of the game. You will do this because it's the rule.

Focusing on what I'm doing is the F part of the game. "Hey, I'm not playing by the rules! This is F!" It's what makes open-ended games F. Hey, I was told to give the Fed-Ex package of the Eye of Kaboozle to Whattshisname, but instead I'm going to kill him.

Hey, look! I just created my own story! I didn't play by the game designers expressed wishes! EVERYBODY PANIC! I'll just take that "ignorance" statement as another way of you stating, "I don't have any comeback to your brilliant and well-thought ideas. I have nothing else to say but you're a poopy head."

Seriously guys, keep it up. I haven't had this much fun in a long time.

[Grando]

What GG posted was Garneu’s list of 14 forms of fun. It can be applied to any activity to accurately define and identify the characteristics of an enjoyable experience (or what a layman would call “fun”). It has nothing to do with games specifically.

[Green Genes]

Look, nowhere do I say that video games are better for throwing out the story, the human elements. My true argument is that when designing a game system, when you goal is a set of rules, not the entire experience, taking the story out of the picture lets you get at the real nitty gritty. It's like saying, I'm going to take the best possible picture using only black and white, I'm throwing color out the window to focus on light andshading. You master that, and then you go, I'm going to paint a picture using only fields of solid color, to master the interaction that these shapes and hues have on our minds. Ever see the Voice of Fire?

And if you're not allowed to be pompous and wordy on the internet, where the fuck can you ever go with these ideas? Why the hell shouldn't you put a metaphor into a power up? Is legitimate theatre and classical art the only venues appropriate for careful meaning in everything you do or say? Where is it written games are silly pieces of trash that must not be taken seriously? I'm glad I'm a fucking lunatic. I take it as evidence I'm headed in the right direction. Pure madness. It's wonderful.

Oh, and for the record, my philosophy teacher comes like a banshee.

[Psychotext]

Oh, and for the record, my philosophy teacher comes like a banshee.
:eek:

[Green Genes]

Well, then I must say it's a noble profession. Unfortunately, law is often just about making money.

Back on topic: What are some of the best "games" in your opinion GG? Just wondering what you consider a really great game.


Chess. You can see everything, all the possibilities. You've got to be able to hide your intentions while keeping them in plain sight. You got to be able to create advantageous situations while defusing dangerous ones. Totally abstract, no story other than the position of the pieces.

Poker. You control almost nothing. the amount of influence you exert on the game is done with only one variable, and the rest is so subtle.

Magic The Gathering. Ultimate in mutable rules. The way the cards cross talk, mix together for amazing tricks. The story layered on top is an awesome tale of dueling wizards, monsters, armies. Fantastic memories of masterful plays as well as epic battles.

Street Fighter. Chess at a million miles an hour. You have a playing field, a set of pieces, strategies, responces, counters and tricks. And it's a sweet looking kung fu fight.

Risk. Talk about emotion. How'd they get people to divorce eachother over the role of a die? Using tricks to layer a story on top of simple math, emotion explodes where a canned script would wimper and fizzle.

Shadowrun. Old school pen and paper RPG. Most wonderfully complete and adaptable set of rules, tailored to be endlessly applicable layered with a setting so rich that every time I sat down to game master, exciting experiences and characters seemed to happen on their own, no heavy-handed authoring required. A living world.

Paintball. Shooting your friends is terrific fun. I've seen the most daintiest, pacifist girl next door squeal with delight at shooting her best friend in the head.

Drinking games. It's a reward and a punishment all in one.

[Torgo]

What GG posted was Garneu’s list of 14 forms of fun. It can be applied to any activity to accurately define and identify the characteristics of an enjoyable experience (or what a layman would call “fun”). It has nothing to do with games specifically.No, but there's a great article at Gamasutra that uses Garneau's Forms for use in video games. In fact, it's written by GASP! Pierre-Alexandre Garneau. (Cue DUM DUM DUM music) Yes, thanks for posting that. I recognized that immediately.

In fact, there was one critique I read somewhere... can't remember at the moment that Garneau should have also included altruism and learning about the real world. You'll especially see altruism in MMORPGs where players help other players... just because.

Anyway, I wouldn't use Garneau as a source for your argument because his ideas support mine better than yours. Of course, that could also be because your argument is flawed, but I don't think you'll admit that. Oh look, Green Genes posted again.

Let's see here... Oh, he claims he never said "video games are better for throwing out the story, the human elements." He's right he didn't say that. He did say:

I agree with Jaffe. A properly done game provides itself with all the drama and story it needs.And the PERFECT thing, the master stroke about these decisions is that layered on top of a purely mathematical series of choices is a self writing story.Stories are simply the writing down of a few of the details that occur along the timeline of those games. Like in my previous post, one realises that story can not occur without there first being a game.They want to make up experiences and plots and the whole gamut because that's what they think a good piece of entertainment software is. And there's others out there, like Jaffe, who want to be honest to got game designers and design games, with no toppings.
Oooo.... I love this quote. No really, I do. I'll get to this in a minute.
People enjoy the story and asume the game is good.
These quotes above seem to say that all you want to do is separate the story from any human interaction or involvement. Story and plot don't just materialize on it's own. Otherwise it's just a bunch of stick figure fighting in Street Fighter II. At least some thought has to go into the characters. That's your own words up there. What else are we do assume?

Okay, look Green Genes. The essential problem is that you're not willing to accept what 99% of the civilized world knows. A game is an activity you do for fun. Hang on Grando, I see you jumping up and down like a monkey thinking that definition is wrong. Look, every source of your warped sense of definition states that is what a game is. You can't point me to a single source that says it's something else.

Both of you are totally hung up on game mechanics or a game system as apparently I finally got Green Genes to admit. That's all a subset of what a game is. A game can just be a story (just look at a gaggle of three year-olds), a game can also just be a game system. Not only that, it can be a COMBINATION of the two! So yeah, to some people a game with a fantastic story, but very little game mechanics can be great! I remember playing some primative laser disc games (Dragon's Lair) which was just move the joystick in the direction of the flash. Game mechanics? Dude, even the hand held game Simon had better gameplay mechanics than that. Yet, it's the story that made the game so memorable.

I'm wondering if you're my brother hiding behind that moniker. He could never admit to being wrong.

[Grando]

Sweet I got post 100!

I win.

Game Over.

[Staples]

I hate stories in games but most prefer them.

[The_Law]

Chess. You can see everything, all the possibilities. You've got to be able to hide your intentions while keeping them in plain sight. You got to be able to create advantageous situations while defusing dangerous ones. Totally abstract, no story other than the position of the pieces.

Poker. You control almost nothing. the amount of influence you exert on the game is done with only one variable, and the rest is so subtle.

Magic The Gathering. Ultimate in mutable rules. The way the cards cross talk, mix together for amazing tricks. The story layered on top is an awesome tale of dueling wizards, monsters, armies. Fantastic memories of masterful plays as well as epic battles.

Street Fighter. Chess at a million miles an hour. You have a playing field, a set of pieces, strategies, responces, counters and tricks. And it's a sweet looking kung fu fight.

Risk. Talk about emotion. How'd they get people to divorce eachother over the role of a die? Using tricks to layer a story on top of simple math, emotion explodes where a canned script would wimper and fizzle.

Shadowrun. Old school pen and paper RPG. Most wonderfully complete and adaptable set of rules, tailored to be endlessly applicable layered with a setting so rich that every time I sat down to game master, exciting experiences and characters seemed to happen on their own, no heavy-handed authoring required. A living world.

Paintball. Shooting your friends is terrific fun. I've seen the most daintiest, pacifist girl next door squeal with delight at shooting her best friend in the head.

Drinking games. It's a reward and a punishment all in one.

I meant "video games" when I said "games." Some lawyer I must be that I would let such major mistatement slip. Anyway, I can see what type of video games you like.

[Green Genes]

Sigh. This fucking language. I give up. Torgo, I feel you, buddy, but this confusion, this lack of clarity is killing me. 100 posts and the word 'game' is still throwing a monkey wrench into the gears of comprehsion.

I know what the dictionaries say game means. I feel it's wrong, imprecise, inadequate. I'm certain games and play can be further disected to reveal their true cores. There is true worth in looking at our electronic entertainment and distilling from them the kernel of competition, the economy of choice that is their essence. I think the pre concieved notions players and designers alike bring to the table to nothing to help grow the medium, to elevate it to something more than a primal satisfaction of base desires.

[Torgo]

Bursting into song, "These are a few of my favorite things..."Man, you are a trip. Don't get me wrong, I like everything you listed too, but the way you list them and describe them speaks volumes about your personality. Chess fits into your thoughts of game theory, not much in the way of personable interaction.

Poker and Risk are total games of chance which is interesting that you'd pick them. I mean, straight Poker on a slot machine always results in the house winning in the long run. Doesn't seem like you'd pick that. I'm assuming that you're thinking of something along the World Series of Poker, at which there's more variables than you're counting on. There's raising, reraising, bluffing, timing. What am I missing here?

Magic The Gathering - see again, you're using mutable rules which counter many of your arguments you've posted in this thread. But surely you realize that you're being sucked into a fantasy element of this game right? I mean, you could just take away all the art and descriptions (STORY ELEMENTS!?!? What the?!?) and just have numbers and mathmatical equations. Not nearly as fun is it? You have to be careful with card game examples with game mechanics because often there's a booster pack that "breaks" the game. (It's happened several times with Yu-Gi-Oh).

Street Fighter - Saw this coming. Yeah, this is probably the best "perfect" game when it comes to mechanics. It'd be the same game mechanics with a bunch of stick figures flying around, but no one really wants to play that do they?

Shadowrun - Okay, this totally blows your game mechanics is the end all be all. You have the rules, but you still had to make content for it didn't you? It doesn't come in a vacuum. Playing SR isn't just sitting there rolling dice all day. Boring. I mean, you state that "exciting experiences and characters seemed to happen on their own" but they didn't. I mean, you helped create them. So was it the rules that made it fun, or was it the content? A combination perhaps? The social interaction with friends? Starting to see that rules by themselves don't always make the game?

Paintball. Shooting your friends is terrific fun. I've seen the most daintiest, pacifist girl next door squeal with delight at shooting her best friend in the head.I had to quote you on that to point you only mention the social interaction and the fun word and didn't mention anything about game mechanics. Dude, are we about to have a breakthrough?

You can design the game mechanics first, but you just can't totally ignore plot and story. Slapping one on isn't the best answer, or should it be the first one. It's better to give it your best effort to make a great story if you're not designing a Yahoo! Games or Hoyle's 1001 Games of Solitare.

Oh wait you posted more!

I know what the dictionaries say game means. I feel it's wrong, imprecise, inadequate. I'm certain games and play can be further disected to reveal their true cores. There is true worth in looking at our electronic entertainment and distilling from them the kernel of competition, the economy of choice that is their essence. I think the pre concieved notions players and designers alike bring to the table to nothing to help grow the medium, to elevate it to something more than a primal satisfaction of base desires.You can't really argue against the dictionary or truth. You can feel all you want that's it's wrong, it's not going to change reality. Like I'm saying, don't confuse game mechanics/game design or whatever you want to call it with games. It's a subset. A part of the whole.

Jaffe, you and Go-go-Grando will make career killing mistakes if you totally ignore plot and story. They have their place. It's totally fine to concentrate on exciting game mechanics and interactions. What you're doing there *IS* doing nothing but appealing to primal satisfactions of base desires of gamers. Seriously, go back and and look what you're advocating. It's not wrong wanting to get those primal urges of kill or be killed, that adreneline rush of barely making it by the skin of your teeth. However, story and plot in combination will elevate your game to use the entire brain, your entire faculties.

This whole thread is about one developer turning his back on his fans and an essential element of game design. It worries me that there are some people that think the same way.

[Green Genes]

What are we even arguing about anymore? Fucking hell I need a drink.

Is story neccessay for the mathematics of games to occur? No.

Are games possible without fun? Yes.

Is play, and fun, possible without games? Yes.

Are the strictly mathematical cores of games fun in themselves, without the addition of humanizing elements? Unresolved. This one needs a fresh start after a nice brainwipe.

Can the human enjoyment of strictly mathematical games be enhanced by packaging them with story elements? Yes, though in a strict sense, the game itself is unchanged.

Can video games be improved by focusing almost entirely on the purely mathematical core? Yes. Careful attention to the way the game works can improve the experience, all other things being equal.

Fucking hell. A whole day spent. Sure beats work.

[Grando]

A game designer’s job is not to think up stories and write character dialog. Game designers are paid to design the underlying framework and define the system's state machines which allow the player to interact with the game. We work with artists, programmers, writers, testers, producers, and marketing to develop a finished product. It is a collaborative effort and from a designer’s perspective I have little to anything to do with the telling or writing of stories. Nor would I want to. Now, I personally don’t have anything against stories, but like I mentioned earlier Jaffe is doing the right thing by focusing on design as a profesional game designer should and leaving the storytelling to the professional writers. Ultimately this will result in a better game.

[Torgo]

Close... Let me fix what's wrong.

Is story neccessay for the mathematics of games to occur? No.
Are games possible without fun? No, it goes contrary to the definition of what is a game. A game without fun is just an activity.

Is play, and fun, possible without games? Yes.

Are the strictly mathematical cores of games fun in themselves, without the addition of humanizing elements? No. Humans aren't computers and humans by nature incorporate humanizing elements into games by themselves independently if not already introduced.

Can the human enjoyment of strictly mathematical games be enhanced by packaging them with story elements? Yes, though in a strict sense, the game mechanics itself is unchanged.

Can video games be improved by focusing almost entirely on the purely mathematical core? Yes. Careful attention to the way the game works can improve the experience for those players who value game mechanics over other content elements.

There much better. I see Go-Go Gadget Grando posted about writers. Dude, it works both ways. I've seen designers that are killer writers and I've seen designers whose writing talent is pretty much "See Spot. Run Spot. Run". I've seen it both ways, although given a preference, I'd much rather see a professional writer do the majority of the work. Of course, that doesn't mean that the writer will save the project. I mean, the writer can only do so much with the elements given to him by the designer.

You're the designer, you're free to do whatever you want (as long as the publisher approves). Which what really means is that as a game designer you're often forced to compromise with the artist, programmers, writers, testers, and marketing to get the money to pay all of them from the producers and the publisher. Hey, I'd love to have it with your system in place. It'd be awesome. It's rare to find a situation like that.

[Torgo]

Oh hey on a side note, although misguided, Grando and Green Genes are keeping some important game concepts in mind. For instance game theory has great application in AI in gaming. While not perfect in accounting for everything, it can give a good player a run for his money. Just saying that I'm not debunking everything y'all are saying. Just that's it's just misapplied.

Please feel free to visit the other threads and contribute. There's bound to be something that you can post on that we can all go "Dang... he's right. Good point." Don't make 'em all in this thread. Two noobies who just registered posting all their comments in the same thread... people just might start talking. ;) Don't be strangers to the rest of the gaming forum.

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

I'd also like to add that there are some things about a story in a video game that no other media can even come close to, and it deals with the mechanics of the game itself. Although it's something minor, it does make quite an impact on me whenever I see it.

Any FFVII gamers remember the final battle of Cloud Vs Sephiroth where Cloud's Limit slowly reached it's max before the battle started? That, to me, was an awesome display of a character's rage that can't be described in a book or movie the same way it was done in a game. When you understand the mechanics of "Limit Breaks" in FFVII, and see Cloud building it up automatically, you kind of get the grip of how much determination Cloud had. And the simple display of a single Omnislash (scripted a little differently to add drama) was done quite beautifully as well. On top of all that, even the character models were done specially for that scene. Both Sephiroth and Cloud had much more detail on them than they normally would, and it really emphasized the significance of that scene.

Another example is more classic: Super Metroid. It's a simple side-scroller that told a simple story, but the ending was one of my favorites of all time. Samus didn't just get the Hyper Beam outta nowhere when a big Metroid died. The Metroid saw her as its mother (because she was there when it hatched), it saved her at the last moment, and gave it's last dying breath to give Samus the ultimate attack, which made the final boss a joke. It was pretty moving if you ask me, and it needed no dialogue, and no cinematic sequence. The entire scene from start-to-finish fitted the game perfectly. Stories can be told that way too, ya know.

And the original Mega Man X too!! Ugggh... so many good stories told in these classics. Its a shame that they dont come like this anymore... Not only do we got people shunning stories in games, we got people who arent implementing stories the right way. It's too excessive, its too boring, it gets in the way, etc. This was a totally different story back then.

[SuperSparky]

This is amusing. Everyone both for and against the original article don't see the facts as this debate clearly shows them. The simple fact that there are many people insisting story based games are necessary to their enjoyment pretty much negates the original article's comments against them.

What the debate also clearly shows is that clearly a very good game can be made without a story, provided it is of certain genres. The debate also shows that other types of gaming genres could not exist without a backbone of a story.

The other amusing thing is, is that both sides of the debate are generally correct about their claims. However, what is also clear is that a loss of story based games would also mean a great loss of revenue. Also, story based games take a lot of varied talent to be able to be called successful. This doesn't mean non-story games don't have talented people making them, it just means a greater variety of talent is required for story games.

[Psychotext]

Was thinking about this again last night. Of the memorable games I've played going back over the years I think most of them had stories. Again, that's my preference, and I'm sure I enjoyed a lot of other games but it seems that the ones with stories stick with me. Here's a quick list of the ones that come to mind (NS / S - No Story / Story):

Roughly in the order I think I played them

Pong - NS
Paperboy - NS
Sonic - NS
Tetris - NS
Mario - NS
Streets of Rage - NS
Monkey Island (All) - S
The Dig - S
Populous - NS
Dungeon Keeper 1/2 - NS
Command & Conquer 2 - S
Final Fantasy 7 - S
Settlers (All) - NS
Broken Sword (All) - S
Quake 2 - ?
Resident Evil (All) - S
Half Life 1/2 - S
Homeworld - S
Oddworld - S
Diablo - ?
MGS - S
Splinter Cell - S
Gran Turismo - NS
Halo - S
Neverwinter Nights - S
Pikmin - NS (I wouldn't call it a story!)
Ninja Gaiden - NS (Not much of one anyway)
World of Warcraft - S
Dancing Stage Unleashed - NS

Long list I know, but trying to be as honest as possible with the games I remember most. :) Seems like in the old days, games just simply didn't come with stories. :)

[Torgo]

Seems like in the old days, games just simply didn't come with stories. :)No, you just didn't play them. Early PC games were filled with story based games and were the top sellers. It's how Infocom and Sierra made a living. Just because you didn't play them in the "early days" doesn't mean they weren't there.

[Psychotext]

I'm sure you're right, I think it's probably likely that as a kid I was more interested in action games than story games. As I got older I started wanting a little more substance than just playing games because they were games. Stories draw me in and keep me playing. Either way, even if I had played story based games when I was a kid. I don't remember.

I did just recall a couple of games like "Legend of kyrandia" (or something like that) and "Future Wars" both of which were adventure games I played fairly early on. I never really rated the text based adventures (I'd rather read a book) and I never tried the X quest games from sierra.

[Green Genes]

Close...


Are games possible without fun? No, it goes contrary to the definition of what is a game. A game without fun is just an activity.

So game-situations without fun are no longer games? What about gold farmers on WoW? Are they playing a game to make a living, like pro athletes? I don't think they're playing, in the sense that 'playing' as it is done by animals of all kinds even in the absense of rules is purely amusing. If you can participate in a game without the intention of having fun, is the game over? If you're participating in a game without actually playing, is another word needed to describe this?



Are the strictly mathematical cores of games fun in themselves, without the addition of humanizing elements? No. Humans aren't computers and humans by nature incorporate humanizing elements into games by themselves independently if not already introduced.

Think about a rubic's cube or tetris or solitare or something. They're not humanized on their own. People play them and derive satisfaction from succeeding, and get fun from that. At their core almost all games in and out of computers consist of nothing more than rules and a goal and the human element is found in humans, not the game.


Can video games be improved by focusing almost entirely on the purely mathematical core? Yes. Careful attention to the way the game works can improve the experience for those players who value game mechanics over other content elements.

I'd refrase. "Can the field of video games be improved by focusing closely on the purely mathematical core? Yes. Careful attention to the way the game works can improve the experience for those players who value game mechanics at all.

I know pretty damn well that the way people feel about how to make games for fun and the way to make games for money are leagues apart. I currently work outside of games because what I got to know looking at the employers around Vancouver was that I really don't want to take a job where what I ultimately want to create is pretty much impossible.

I've found a much better route for me to get involved in the industry to be programming. I like solving the puzzles and building the invisible towers and machines out of numbers, and even just rounding up all the maddening little sprocketts that go boing until the process is smooth and steady. It's gratifying regardless of the context, so I figure there's endless demand for code slingers in and out of video games and better pay to boot. And my design dreams are left intact, safe from the crushing weight of the real world and will still be there to be worked on for their own sake.

[Torgo]

So game-situations without fun are no longer games? What about gold farmers on WoW? Are they playing a game to make a living, like pro athletes? I don't think they're playing, in the sense that 'playing' as it is done by animals of all kinds even in the absense of rules is purely amusing. If you can participate in a game without the intention of having fun, is the game over? If you're participating in a game without actually playing, is another word needed to describe this?
Yep, it's called work. You think these workers in Chinese sweat shops chained to their desks are doing this for fun? It's their job. They're getting paid to do it. Can you have fun at work? Sure, but the main focus is work. If it becomes a total burden, a chore and all fun sucked out of it, then it's totally work. Doesn't matter if it's a video game, sports or sex.

Speaking of sex, here's another example. Let me put on my pimp hat for a second and stroll down with my pimp cane to my crack ho' on the corner. Now she works for me, but she also get to have sex for a living. If she doesn't enjoy the sex, she's just doing work. And I'm living the good life from it, slappin' her around and driving my Caddy.

Just like this thread. It's a total game to me because I'm obviously having fun. Last night you mentioned that you were getting tired of it all. It was becoming work. It wasn't fun and it wasn't a game. We're playing by the same set of mechanics and rules. I say it's a game, and you would probably say it wasn't because you've being pwned by myself so often. I'm having fun. It's a game. To you, it wasn't a game because it lacked fun. You were just doing an activity or work.

Think about a rubic's cube or tetris or solitare or something. They're not humanized on their own. People play them and derive satisfaction from succeeding, and get fun from that. At their core almost all games in and out of computers consist of nothing more than rules and a goal and the human element is found in humans, not the game. Ah, good example. Finally, a good comeback. The one flaw is that the feeling of success comes from the individual and varies. Take the Rubic Cube. If the world followed your way of thinking, everytime that I solve the Rubic's Cube, the game mechanics should generate the same feeling of success or euphoria everytime regardless of that person. That's because the game generates it's own content.

It doesn't work that way. I could pick up the cube, solve it and go "Eh, that sucked. That was a complete waste of time. I want those 30 minutes back." Where's the satisfaction? Where's the fun? It's bad fun. What if I solved it and thought it was the greatest thing ever? Will I have the same feeling after I solve it for the 100th time? Perhaps, but I'll probably attribute it to the fact I did it 100 times which means something only to myself. I'll probably get so bored after doing it 57 times that I'll just toss it down.

My enjoyment from simply following the rules just diminished to where it became work. Your game no longer becomes a game, but a chore. The fun is gone.

I'll make another thread that covers this (I'm still working on the concept and I'm pretty sure it has some holes, but it's pretty solid at this point), but simply put a game (an activity that generates fun or amusement for the participant) consists of two parts. The two parts are percentages and can be of any value. Those two parts are content and rules. You can rename those two parts to whatever you want. It doesn't really matter that much. Now, we've established that the value of game is activity + fun. Since activity cancels out on both sides of the equation, we're left with fun.

Alright, so we have the formula fun = content + rules where fun changes based on each individual player. Some players place more weight on rules and other place more weight on content. You end up with a bell curve where a 50/50 ratio of content to rules will appeal to the most people.

Let's quantify Fun for the purposes of this example. Let's say the scale of Fun ranges from 1 to 100. 100 being the most fun a human being could possibly have before his or her body would literally explode. The thing is, people value Fun differently. Each individual has a threshold of Fun that an activity has to have to become a game. It's different for everyone. A person easily amused, maybe a simpleton like myself only need 10 Fun units for something to be truly enjoyable. A person hard to please like yourself maybe needs 50 Fun units for an activity to be enjoyable.

Not only does every person have a threshold that has to be met, people also place more or less weight on rules and content; the elements of Fun. You can have a game like the Rubik's Cube above that has a absolute value of 99% rules + 1% content. That would equal maybe a hundred units of Fun for you since you weigh on the side of rules. You've not only met your threshold of enjoyment, you scored a 100 and are about to explode. Ah, the perfect game, right?

Well, If I placed a super high weight on content, the result would be that I think the Cube sucks. I didn't meet my Fun threshold and it's not a game to me. Let's sum up. (I know I'm simplifying the math here.)

For you, the Rubik's Cube formula ended being 99% rules x Heavy Weighting on Rules + 1% Content = 100 Fun Units. Does 100 Fun units exceed the threshold of 50? Yes. Rubik's Cube is a fun game. Rubik's Cube is the r0xx0rs!!111

For me it's: 99% rules / Heavy Weighting on Content + 1% content = 1 Fun Unit. It didn't meet my threshold of 10 Fun units so Rubik's Cube isn't fun. Therefore it's not a game.

As a game designer, you'd have to be an idiot like Jaffe in thinking that game mechanics alone is going to make a hit game. You can hit that market segment that wants to play games like that. That's fine. You can make great games and make some money. That doesn't make you a great designer by totally ignoring content.

I'd refrase. "Can the field of video games be improved by focusing closely on the purely mathematical core? Yes. Careful attention to the way the game works can improve the experience for those players who place a greater weight on game mechanics. Fixed again. I'd shy away from absolutes. There are those rare people who don't give a Grando's ass about mechanics to the point where they'd almost read a book. It's still possible that you can design games for them. My changes is more inclusive.

I know pretty damn well that the way people feel about how to make games for fun and the way to make games for money are leagues apart. I currently work outside of games because what I got to know looking at the employers around Vancouver was that I really don't want to take a job where what I ultimately want to create is pretty much impossible.Making fun games and money at the same time is possible. Look at the most popular game today, World of Warcraft. It's fun for most people (just look at the subscriber base) and rakes in the cash. Every year there's one or two titles are are quirky fun and make money. It happens.

What you're railing against is a valid gripe that's being echoing for years: the game industry has no creativity, it recycles, The Man is getting us down, there's no place for the little guy. What you're saying isn't new and has a lot of truth. Don't blame game design for the industry's problems. Could game design be better? Sure, it always could. You could make the argument that it's blackslid a bit. Hey, I'd agree. But there's other factors such as the changing tastes of consumers, the desire for bigger and more and better, platforms, management, lack of experience. Man, there's a whole list that goes on and on about what's wrong with the industry.

You've got to pick your battles. Hey, I think it's great that you want to get into the industry through programming. More power to ya and it pays better usually. But this battle over "shunning" stories is the wrong way. Jaffe is so wrong. So very wrong. You can focus on game mechanics and make better games. We all should as game developers. That's just half of the equation and only hits that small portion of the bell curve of consumers. Want to make a difference? Work on both content and mechanics. Hit the big juicy center of a Tootsie Pop that is the Mighty Bell Curve of Consumers. That's where the big changes will occur. It sometimes only takes one title to change the course game game design.

Maybe it'll be Duke Nukem Forever. Hey, you never know...

[Green Genes]

Pick your battles.


Ok, that means choose a target. Jaffe's target is a solid mechanical gameplay experience before all else. This doesn't make him an idiot. There's loads of ways to add Content besides a scripted story that are easier to pull off and give more revenue bang for your developemnt buck. Sure, you lose out on sales overall. You're aiming at a much smaller audience than a carpet bombing marketing-driven strategy The heavy price of engineering the system will probably take an even bigger bite out of the margin than the savings on content provide, but I think it's great he doesn't have a problem with that. Just because he doesn't take the path of least resistance doesn't make him a fool. If I can be allowed to go even crazier, it's heroic.

For once there's a chance at a game with vision and priority. I find that much more inspiring and exciting than compromised, comittee driven examples. Pandering to a common denominator. Rather than blaming game design for the industry's problems, I'm blaming the industry for game design's problems. The impossible thing isn't making massively popular video games, it's making the video games the creators want to make, fulfilling a vision rather than meeting demands. Whether that has to do with chucking out the story or spending $50 million on an entire herd of Holywood screen writers doesn't matter. The sad thing about video games is that as a medium it offers endless creativity and then flushes it down the toilet.

As for is it a game or is it work, I think I'll just settle on I see things differently. To me, the nature of the activity doesn't change according how its percieved. It's not like an electron or something.

[Torgo]

Jaffe posted a new log entry. Go read the entire thing here (http://www.davidjaffe.typepad.com/). He clarifies a few things, and he (to me) backtracks on some points he made. I'm just going to quote the items that are germane to the topic of game design.

On a side note, he's a got a whole section in this entry on his picture that some people have used. So he presents a different one that makes him look like a stoned hobbit. Just thought it was amusing. Anyway, back to the topic:

ISSUE #2- I DO NOT HATE STORY GAMES!

Read the post. I said I am loving PLAYING story games now more than I have in years. I just don't want to MAKE them anymore. At least for a while. So all of these rants about me not getting that story is important in games and that I am an ass for not seeing that are coming from...hmm, I dunno....but they clearly are not coming from someone who read my blog entry. I think story IS important for certain kinds of games and I LOVE those kinds of games. But why am I a bad guy for not wanting to MAKE them?

snip

ISSUE #5: I AM NOT BURNT OUT

Did you actually read the blog entry? Some online game mag was like "Jaffe sounds burnt out"...and I'm like: dude, in the very blog entry you are reporting on I'm sitting there telling you how much fun I am having at my job now that I am focusing on game design that speaks to my gut...just because I have embraced a theory of game design that you don't agree with doesn't meant I am burnt out...great reporting!

On issue #2, Jaffe basically backtracks from his earlier statement "But I think even the best [multimedia games] feel forced, like they are not speaking the true language of video games." So he hasn't totally turned his back on certain content elements and recognizes it's importantance. Reading his last two blog entries finally clear it up a bit. Of course, he should have made it a bit more clear in the first place. Hindsight, eh? I suspect that he still might not totally get the dynamics of design though, but whatever. He's going to concentrate on action games. Good for him.

However, on issue #5... yeah, Jaffe you're burnt out. You're not burnt out on the whole industry, but the fact that you don't want to tell stories with your games says you're burnt out on designing those type of games. It's cool, it happens to the best of us. Go do some other type of game for a while. He's doing that and he's happy. Jaffe would be better off just stating, "I do not want to just work on dinky little mechanic based games" because I'm burnt out on designing anything with a story element. Oh yeah, that's pretty much what he said in his blog. And he pretty much sums it up with his statement "so I would rather work HARD on something I love than work HARD on something I am no longer interested in."

He later posts in the comments: "I am [burnt out] on MAKING them for sure but I thought I was pretty clear that I still loved playing them."