Why gaming is still inferior to film (and books)

I think you'll find that authors have been playing with non-linear narrative for a lot longer than games have been around.

 

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

 

Personally i think games are better off without a plot and story.

I like mario galaxy - would it be better with a massive MGS4 plot?

So go have your discussions on whether games match up to the quality of books and movies.. I'm to busy PLAYING games to care...

 

Put another way: Games that think they are movies are inferior to movies.

 

fixed

 

Come on.. im not THAT bad...

it's not as if my life is so shit that i've started up a shit blog, which no-one cares about, about the games industry that i'm so desperate for everyone to read (as it'd justify my sad existence) that i pimp it everywhere or anything is it?

 

That doesn't make any sense, quote unquote non-linear narrative structures have existed in literature far before video games.

This is like calling the egg chicken-like. Interactive game shows ARE games and their existence predates video games. They were incredibly popular after World War 2 (which, by the way, was a real thing, not just a game):
http://randsesotericotr.podbean.com/category/quiz-show/

What do you mean "rubbish?" In what way is it "rubbish?"

 

OK, I don't know why I chose this as my first post, but here goes!

Computer games are different. I think that most people agree that they cannot be compared to books or movies, or plays for that matter, though they can encompass them all - just look at GTA4 and it's comedy shoes, radio or TV.

I think if you really want this discussion to go somewhere useful it would be good to bring examples into it, and then comparative movies, how they make you feel and why you'd interact/watch either.

One difference I see is that films and TV have a set pace. If you're watching a film you're very unlikely to stop and check your email mid-way, and even more likely to tell someone "stop bugging me can't you see I'm watching a film" if they start talking instead of pausing it and asking what they want. TV works in the same way but in a more episodic way (at least good TV) where you want to keep watching, waiting until the next week just to see what's happening next.

A good game to compare this to might be Half Life 2, which both has a great pace and episodic format. I think you could compare it favourable with a great action film, there are moments that you remember, scenes really, that you go to your friends (especially if they've "experienced" the game too) "oh, and that bit where blah blah blah". But what make HL2 different than a movie? Pace is not completely set by the director, and generally it's an experience set for one. There's another thing to talk about, the very personal experience that a game provides VS a movie.

Anyway, there's a start. Can we have a useful discussion about this, because I think this is actually quite interesting, as opposed to "red", "no green", "no blue".

Hope I haven't made too many enemies with such a serious start on these forums.

 

My turn to bash this sentence! Almost all games operate on a strictly linear timeline, pretty much free of the time/space manipulation you see in film. So nah, I don't think this part of your theory really holds up too well.

Anyway, I think this guy at the end says it best.

 

Lost also has a linear narrative. The mistake some people make is thinking that chronological=linearity, and therefore that because the story jumps backwards and forwards in time that this is somehow non-linear. Hate to burst your bubble, but no.

Anyway,

The dream of all 80s gaming nerds. The reason people still watch movies and read books is because told stories are inherently more interesting than interactive ones (as 30 years of games have conclusively shown at this point). The lack of control, the dramatic inevitability, all that sort of stuff works because the reader/viewer gives themself to the storyteller.

When people stop wishing oranges (games) were more like apples (stories) and start looking at them on their own terms then this lazy fantasy about interactive storytelling can finally fuck off. And good riddance to it.

 

Why the insulting tone?

I strongly disagree. One reason why people still enjoy these art forms is because they are enjoyable art forms. It is not an either-or situation. The kinds of stories told well by books and films are enjoyable in their own right, as are the kinds of stories that can be told through the medium of videogames. There are plenty of other factors as well. Please don't try to force unrelated facts to fit your your opinion on this subject. Besides, ironically, you keep ignoring actual evidence to the contrary. You know, people actually giving you examples where they themselves have experienced game stories that they feel is deep, valuable, worthwhile, or interesting or whatever term you want to use. Telling those people they are "wrong" is flatout ridiculous. YOU may not be able to enjoy that aspect of some games, but others clearly, demonstrably, and CONCLUSIVELY do. As was seen in the last thread on this subject, which made very clear that you won't take into account facts that undermine your extreme position.

The player gives him/herself to the game as well, There is as much a contract between artist and audience in games as there is in other artforms. Besides, "That sort of stuff" does not preclude a narrative being "interesting".

And here come the insults again. Why debate in terms like this? Most people don't "wish" for games to be something they aren't but they do wish to explore the scope and potential of the form to its fullest extent. And in some (not all) games this can mean strong and artistically vital narratives. You don't get to decide what the full potential of the form is, how can you even pretend to be able to do so?

To me it seems that you had a bad experience with this in the past (The Movies I take it), and it has limited your view to such a hardline stance that you can't rationally look at this subject, something borne out by the excessive amount of insults that always accompany your "arguments" and the refusal to acknowledge proof to the contrary. But hey, I may be wrong on that one.

Just because you have such a limited view of narrative and games, one that you insist others must agree with, doesn't make your view the only valid one on the subject. The insults you cannot help but spew everytime this subject comes up do your credibility on the subject no favours either. By all means have an opinion, but asserting it is fact, and then insulting everybody who does not agree with it it really poor.

You keep judging story and narrative within games in a context that fits literature and film, and agressively opposing any notion that there is authorship within game narrative that is worthwhile, and that is specific to games, and that game narrative can be made up something else than traditional words and sentences. Nice circular logic you have going on there.

Having said that, Bruce's article and his bizarre statements on Lost are as always beyond ridiculous. No argument there

Anyway, here: have a nice short poem.

 

The insulting tone is because it's just a lazy flaccid and increasingly outdated argument that people keep dragging from the grave.

It's not about whether games can be fun, engaging, any of that really. It's about the bullshit logic of "one line of story is less good than many branched tree". There are, count them, ZERO examples of game-stories being inherently better than films or books, or them being somehow outdated or whatever. ZERO. We've been making games for nearly 40 years now and there are ZERO examples of this unicorn. It's a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

It's also about learning to define our self esteem on our own two feet. Many developers and people in games STILL latch on to movies as some barometer of cultural acceptance and can't seem to develop the language or perspective of looking at games as they are and developing a more intellectual and esteem driven position from as they are. So they still propagate this lucid dream of interaction and stories and a bizarre obsession of seeing what other media have and wishing that that was what they had.

And I'm sick of hearing and reading a series of increasingly inane drivel in blogs and the like trying to find some way to square this circle. Even as the whole damn planet is showing that what it actually wants from games is fun gameplay and more of that please thankyouverymuch, but no, we keep getting this sort of "I want to live in a holodeck" cock trundled out again and again.

(And no, The Movies is about as far from this argument as you could possibly get as that essentially a toy-chest game)

 

See? Completely incapable of approaching the subject with any rationality.
You don't even know anymore what is is you are arguing about. Out come the old strawmen arguments about what other people say (when that isn't anything that people are actually saying). There is no point in engaging in any debate if you refuse to be civil or even address the actual arguments that actual people put forward. (Rather than the made up people and the made up arguments you always end up quoting and fighting) I am not talking about Bruce's ridiculous "article", I completely agree it is nonsense, I am talking about your blind attacks on anybody who dares to claim that good stories can be told through games.

It is quite simple Particle, it is an observable fact that games CAN be used to tell worthwhile stories. You assert a lot to the contrary, but assertions don't amount to fact just because you claim it. You also hilariously claim some kind of progressive agenda, when you are stuck in the past in some ludology vs Narrativist argument that nobody is interested in anymore.

The moment the subject comes up you go into some bizarre rage and start insulting everybody left and right based on arguments they are not putting forward. I for example am certainly not putting forward the things you are attacking in your last post.

I do however know that as a medium video games can have a strong and worthwhile narrrrative component. That is becasue games can be an authored experience with dramatically interesting content. End of story. (Pun intended). The reason that you cannot understand this is because you refuse to accept the possibility of gameplay itself being part of a narrative. Which makes you more conservative and than the people you always attack for being behind the times and achieves the opposite of your stated goal: Accepting games for what they are and judging them from within their own merits.

Again, your divergent opinion would be perfectly acceptable if it were argued as such, but you cannot write a sentence on this subject without insulting others and claiming to hold the one and true definition of all that games can ever be. People want all kinds of things from their game experiences. Sometimes they want pure systemic gameplay, sometimes they want games that also offer interesting dramatic content. And you know what? Game developers have been offering this diversity for years in spite of your illogical claims to the contrary.

By all means please save us from what normally comes from you next at this stage: a sad attempt to redefine language to fit your prejudices and TELL us what story and narrative is and isn't and what games can't be. Then you can tell us that game narrative doesn't "count" despite the fact that millions of people play games where it clearly DOES count. (of course it does, why on earth not). Oh, and more insults of course.

Maybe you should wait a moment before you post on this subject again and ask yourself if it is really needed to tell people to fuck off or to leave the industry or to call their arguments lazy or stupid or flaccid etc, because they don't happen to agree with your stance that games can't be good at delivering a story.

 

I bet Canute got pretty pissed off at the tide too.

 

The question we should be asking ourselves is surely not:

"how do we become better at telling stories"

and more:

"why do we want to tell stories, when there are lots of other mediums available to do that fo us in the first place?"


Surely a game needs to be fun first and story second? If story came first - then why not just make a movie?

 

Weeelllll.... I personally agree in principle, but I do think there is a certain kind of story you can tell better with games; the kind where you can explore and tease out as much back-story as you like, getting as much extra detail as you care to or skipping to the important bits if you'd rather. Like a form of story that has a large index of footnotes.

 

You mean geeky sci fi/zombie shit?

 

Why make a movie when you can just write a book?
Why write a book when you can just TELL a story?

Because they are different forms of expression? Because they have their own inherent value?

The point is that games are also a potential medium of expression, and in some (not all) cases it can be used to tell a story, and it is probably best done through the strengths of the medium. Nobody HAS to do so, and yes, fun and gameplay is what it is all about in most cases, but there is no problem with the form itself. It will of course heavily influence the way it can be done but the same is true for poems, film, books, theatre and so on and so on.

I already posted "today I die" as an example of a little poem told through the medium of games, in a way that I personally find very inspiring. This is a fairly literal interpretation however. The same can work without using TEXT to tell the story, but through authoring the gameplay itself as well as the content of the environment. Take for example Shadow Of the Colossus, or The Sims, or ARGs or Pen and Paper RPGS etc etc. All examples that have shown that meaningful or enjoyable stories can be told through the medium of games, over and over again. Indeed, games don't HAVE to use an iota of story or narrative, but that doesn't mean they can't do a good job at their own version of stories.

Of course they can, and many in fact already do. There is no need to make this a binary choice at all.

 

If it is observable then... where is the evidence?

 

Where is the evidence that movies can tell a good story?

If you want anecdotal evidence, which by definition is evidence, I can supply a list of games that told really great stories to me when I played them; I could retell those stories in written and spoken form but they would probably lose a lot in the translation.