Why gaming is still inferior to film (and books)

There are hundreds, nay thousands, of films that show this. Many easily pointable-to examples of the good, the bad, the questionable, subjective, objective and so on. The debate about films is not if they can, it's how they can be better. Even since the early days it's been more about evolving the technique than justifying the basic mode.

Games have been around for a third of the life of films and have shown many great things that they can do. But there has never been a game story that even shows a glimmer of the supposed interactive future that Eclectic talks about. There's fun game worlds, occasional choice engines, plenty of opportunity for good set dressing if you like. But never once beyond that that I know of.

Therefore it's worth demanding proof of this idea at this stage. Not some Facade like terrible academic project either, but a real demonstration of these ideas in motion. I can't think of any and I've played a very large amount of games. This is why I conclude that it's just techno-fantasy nonsense, and worse, an excuse for some terribly lazy writing.

If you disagree, show me I'm wrong. Name those games.

Which is a weak dodge at best and contributes to the circularity of this nonsense. If all that the argument can be boiled down to is "WELL I LIKE IT" then we may as well pack up all critical examination and go home because it's essentially a point of religion.

At some point, somebody on the pro-side of this idea has to stick their head above the parapet and say "Game X is an example of what it means" in the full knowledge that they're probably making themselves a target. Like anything it needs to be subjected to scrutiny for it to have any validity.

 

Nah you're doing the same thing - you're asserting that films have thousands of examples that show they are good at telling stories, but you are not pointing to any evidence. Is there a scientific or academic examination of the story which you can point to and then refer to films that exhibit these characteristics? Then I might be able to take your argument seriously.

What exactly are you asking for evidence of? You seem to be asserting that the only way in which games can tell stories is in a uniquely game-like way, which is untrue since we can point to nearly every game in existence telling a story in a traditional way. These stories often work fine in a game context and would totally suck as movies, or books, which is validation in itself. You say that there are zero examples of branching storylines that are better than movies, but that's a subjective opinion. For instance, I had more fun with Way of the Samurai, by Acquire, which has a branching story, than I did watching "Transformers" by Michael Bay, which has a linear story and isn't interactive. The fun was in exploring the story in different ways. But since this is only my opinion you probably don't count it as evidence, when that's all you've been giving in return.

You can offer up your own subjective opinion as fact and then claim invalid everyone else's subjective opinion, fine, but you end up looking like a tit.

 

I have already stated several times that I am not talking about Eclectic's ridiculous stance, but you ignore that of course.

I am talking about your denial that games can be used to tell worthwhile stories. That is all.

I have, and many others have already given plenty of examples of this, even in recent posts in this thread, you however just say that it doesn't count or ignore them etc. etc, etc.

We have already gone through this nonsense of finding "proof" in the last thread on this, where you were telling people like Jake Simpson that the SIMS doesn't count or that ARGs are not popular enough and more bullshit like that or flatout ignoring the posts from Mr Luisp and others, including myself, where you were provided you with what you were asking for.

Evidence has been supplied to you many times over, please don't present this disingenious attitude that nobody has done so. it is rubbish ten times over. Besides, you are the one who is making this extreme statement, so the onus is ON YOU to prove that games CAN'T tell good stories.

The CURRENT argument is "can games as a medium be used to tell good stories".

Despite your jumping up and down, this has obviously been proven many times over to be possible, and indeed, it is bizarre to even think they can't.

 

QFT

 

This:

The presumption of eventuality.

 

Well, the discussion is over then because we all disagree with that. Good job everyone, let's go and have a pint. (y)

 

Well, everyone except Bruce, and even then, who knows if he agrees with anything he writes?

 

Well you're obviously wrong

 

Sprinkles.

 

Ok then.
Um.
Alright.

Back to the Private forums so.

 

I think that a combination of a game interspersed with scripted sequences can tell a very good story, and this has been demonstrated plenty of times. Games that do this badly are usually due to a simple lack of talent rather than flawed methodology.

Dramatic plot points are probably best handled in a largely non-interactive fashion. But dramatic plot points only make up a tiny fraction of a well-paced story. Identifying with the protagonist, the hero's journey, bonding between characters and all that second-act stuff can be done during gameplay very nicely. Who cares if it's canned gameplay? Forget about creating the Infinite Story Sandbox. Linear game structures work just fine for stories.

 

This thread is too long for me to read anything but the initial post, but when I read it all I could see was a basic questioning similar to:

"Cars has the three vast technical superiorities of speed, comfort and badassness. Yet still people are making shoes and riding bicycles, despite them being outdated means of transportation. So why do the public continue to be prepared to put up with this?"

Why would an evolution in media, culture and technology mean the death of something that is still relevant? Especially when the sources of application are very different.

The original question makes no sense.

 

Yo, what about MAX PAYNE series? That was a really enjoyable Storyline that I thought was seamlessly put into 3d gameplay. Never took the time to watch the actual movie of Maxy Payne 2, but from what I had seen on the previews and what not, they took the Game a whole step further when they made it into a movie. Also, in the game itself, which played out like a noir flick, told the story before each chapter in the form of a comic BOOK! But I mean, honestly, when 2012 hits , do you think enough people will be alive to even play, let alone even have electric power to playing video games much less making horrible adaptations of movies/books into them?