We live with the constant idea that, though video games are a narrative art form, their stories are not the best stories ever told. That video game stories are not yet as good as stories told in other mediums. This irritates me.
You will not find me denying that most video game writing sucks. I think it's pretty well established that most developers do not spend enough effort or give enough priority to storytelling, and the writers end up needing to work around a half-finished game. There are also problems of writers being brought in from non-interactive mediums and having no idea how to write for the relatively new idea of interactive storytelling. Most game stories and writing are pretty terrible; you won't find me denying that.
But first of all, that is true of everything. Everything artistic, at least. The arts almost always follow the second principle of Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. There are many people out there with the creativity to create great works, but lacking in the skill to bring their creative vision to life. There are also many people out there with the technical skill but lacking in the creativity. Many people think they can do great things artistically, and only so many people actually can. This is why Youtube is simultaneously home to some great talent and a lot of pointless video blogs and stupid music videos. It is why most movies are derivative and badly-made, but many are quite good and a few per year will be remembered for decades to come. It is why books are the host medium of some of the greatest literary works in history, yet the harlequin romance section of the library takes up about half of the building. And it's why most video games tell terrible stories. It is a widespread artistic principle, not some disability only video games bear.
There are other things to consider as well, such as the fact that video games are more diverse than other mediums and can include works made solely for competition or social game nights, the artistic status of which can be debated. But it is usually assumed that when we are talking about bad game stories we are talking about games that tried, at least to the extent of having a story at all. It is debatable whether we should criticize a game made solely for the sake of online competition for its lack of artistic vision when art was obviously not their intention, but I think it is much clearer that we should not judge the quality of an entire medium based on these examples.
When looking to see if video game stories have told tales worthy to stand with history's great stories, we should not look at the worst of the medium but the best. We do not determine the comparative worth of film to literature by comparing The Room
to The Odyssey
, nor should we use Killzone
as the measuring stick we put next to Star Wars
to determine the relative worth of video games as a storytelling medium.
I imagine anyone who plays video games for their story can name at least one game that has impacted them emotionally just as much if not more than any other story from other mediums. I know many people, myself included, can say that about games as far back as the Super Nintendo, possibly even before that. Thing is, most gamers who claim the storytelling inferiority of video games know that perfectly well. So why do they say that games haven't told truly great stories?
I think there is one thing games need to get better at before they will more widely be considered able to stand among the greats. Developers need to figure out how to best integrate interactivity and gameplay with the narrative.
Consider what Citizen Kane
is to film. It used brilliant cinematography and revolutionary storytelling techniques to set the standard for what film is capable of. It was the first to create many film equivalents to well-established literary techniques, and presented itself visually like no film had. It took advantage of the medium's strengths and potential to create an experience like no other at the time. It is remembered now not because it is the best film ever made, but because it set the precedent for what the medium is capable of doing and the ways it can uniquely present it.
Though we have some stories in video games that, in my opinion, deserve to stand among history's best, we have yet to see a game that fully, completely, and effectively ties interactivity into it. We have had games that do one or more of these, but not a game that revolutionarily does so on the level that Citizen Kane did for film. Once that happens, I believe people will more easily accept video game stories into the same league as the greats of history.
Is it necessary to take full advantage of a medium's unique strengths to make a good work in it? Absolutely not; that idea causes a lot of problems that I plan on addressing in a later article, as it's too big a topic to tack on to this one. Suffice it to say that good, well-told stories are good, well-told stories regardless of their medium or how thoroughly they utilize said medium's unique abilities, else we begin to settle into a decorum-based, systematic art theory. But despite this, a medium comes fully into its own when it figures out how to separate itself from other mediums in one or more important ways.
The problem? Gaming will never have a single work that revolutionizes the entire medium's storytelling. Video games are a much more diverse medium than any other because of the varying styles of gameplay. For example, storytelling techniques that could revolutionize RPG storytelling do not necessarily work for a shooter, and vice versa. Take the idea of first-person games taking place entirely from that perspective; the player becomes the character, with no cutscenes or even lack of control to take them out of the experience of being that character. This simply would not work as well for an action game or a JRPG, or at least it could not have quite the same effect. The diversity of gameplay styles and the subsequent diversity of storytelling principles that go with them makes it impossible for a single work to revolutionize the way every game and genre tells stories. Video games will eventually learn to very effectively interweave interactivity and storytelling, but I have a feeling it will sneak up on us rather than arriving in one grand artwork.
If you have not played a game that impacted you emotionally on the same level as a book or movie that you've read, that's fine. But if you have, I see no reason why that story shouldn't be considered on par with many great stories of other mediums. However, I bet we will be seeing more and more games that reach the heights set by the great literary works of history, not only because of excellent storytelling, but because of the interactivity that only video games has to offer.
to The Odyssey, nor should we use Killzone as the measuring stick we put next to Star Wars to determine the relative worth of video games as a storytelling medium. I imagine anyone who plays video games for their story can name at least one game that has impacted them emotionally just as much if not more than any other story from other mediums. I know many people, myself included, can say that about games as far back as the Super Nintendo, possibly even before that. Thing is, most gamers who claim the storytelling inferiority of video games know that perfectly well. So why do they say that games haven't told truly great stories?
I think there is one thing games need to get better at before they will more widely be considered able to stand among the greats. Developers need to figure out how to best integrate interactivity and gameplay with the narrative.
Consider what Citizen Kane
is to film. It used brilliant cinematography and revolutionary storytelling techniques to set the standard for what film is capable of. It was the first to create many film equivalents to well-established literary techniques, and presented itself visually like no film had. It took advantage of the medium's strengths and potential to create an experience like no other at the time. It is remembered now not because it is the best film ever made, but because it set the precedent for what the medium is capable of doing and the ways it can uniquely present it. Though we have some stories in video games that, in my opinion, deserve to stand among history's best, we have yet to see a game that fully, completely, and effectively ties interactivity into it. We have had games that do one or more of these, but not a game that revolutionarily does so on the level that Citizen Kane did for film. Once that happens, I believe people will more easily accept video game stories into the same league as the greats of history.
Is it necessary to take full advantage of a medium's unique strengths to make a good work in it? Absolutely not; that idea causes a lot of problems that I plan on addressing in a later article, as it's too big a topic to tack on to this one. Suffice it to say that good, well-told stories are good, well-told stories regardless of their medium or how thoroughly they utilize said medium's unique abilities, else we begin to settle into a decorum-based, systematic art theory. But despite this, a medium comes fully into its own when it figures out how to separate itself from other mediums in one or more important ways.
The problem? Gaming will never have a single work that revolutionizes the entire medium's storytelling. Video games are a much more diverse medium than any other because of the varying styles of gameplay. For example, storytelling techniques that could revolutionize RPG storytelling do not necessarily work for a shooter, and vice versa. Take the idea of first-person games taking place entirely from that perspective; the player becomes the character, with no cutscenes or even lack of control to take them out of the experience of being that character. This simply would not work as well for an action game or a JRPG, or at least it could not have quite the same effect. The diversity of gameplay styles and the subsequent diversity of storytelling principles that go with them makes it impossible for a single work to revolutionize the way every game and genre tells stories. Video games will eventually learn to very effectively interweave interactivity and storytelling, but I have a feeling it will sneak up on us rather than arriving in one grand artwork.
If you have not played a game that impacted you emotionally on the same level as a book or movie that you've read, that's fine. But if you have, I see no reason why that story shouldn't be considered on par with many great stories of other mediums. However, I bet we will be seeing more and more games that reach the heights set by the great literary works of history, not only because of excellent storytelling, but because of the interactivity that only video games has to offer.
Storytelling is an odd one, and I think that the Sturgeon's Law comment needs an addendum when it comes to videogames.
ReplyDeleteFor most other media, 90% of everything is crap, but the 10% is often paraded. Although the summer blockbusters do tend to get a little clogged with hypermasculine Jason Statham or Bourne-esuq films, there will always be The King's Speechs, or the 127 Hourses. The point being that for other media, although the dross of course gets some publicity, the good writing get sjust as much if not more as the bad. Schindler's List is a good example of a brilliant story that got marketed just as hard as any of the summer releases, and even something like Saving Private Ryan, which was a lot more involved than a lot of people would claim, has received just as much attention as, say, Armageddon or Dr. Dolittle.
This is not true of games. As it stands the best writing has not yet spread to the AAA titles. Some studios such as BioWare of course get lauded for their storywriting, but when the biggest sellers with the most publicity continue to be samey war-time realistic shooters it's understandable why people claim videogames don't have good stories. We don't trumpet our succeses, and to the outside world we tout our Godzillas louder than our Deep Impacts (these are all the big 1998 releases)
Until gaming can start really putting the time and effort into saying 'look at the magnificent story in X Game' or until we start bringing the big writers to the AAA industry, we won't grow out of this phase. Right now our good writing is still confined mostly to the indie titles, and no matter how many people decry big budget gaming, that's where we need writers if we want gaming to progress as an art form.
Money moves the industry, so we need to get the writers in with the money, not hope the money will come to them.