Sean Bouchard

To me the interactivity completely changes the way a story is played out. I think that having a set story would severely limit not only the gameplay, but the story as well. To use games for story telling, the story and gameplay must adapt to one another. So changes should take place during development in order to weed out aspects that just don't work. That is why I think testing is a much more active part of development then movies, because of the fact that players in a sense are "living out" these experiences. This aspect of gaming evokes different emotions then those of static story telling. Thus for me telling a story trough interaction should be handled in a much different way then the way it is handled trough movies.

The story development on Kung Fu Panda actually sounds like it was quite a bit more troubled than BioShock.

Check out one of the writers (Dan Harmon) grousing about it on the Channel 101 forums: http://www.channel101.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117862

Except for text-based games like Zork, narrative in video games is hype and schlock. Kill the monster, check it for traps, and take its treasure. That's what most are computer RPGs are about.

After spending the $35-$45 bucks on Bioshock, I got so bored swimming to shore in the beginning that I couldn't go on. So, I read a book instead. Narrative doesn't add much to an FPS, and when it comes to cut scenes, I (almost) always hit the ESC key.

My book was more immersive and engaging. Most movies are that way too.

Daniel: Yeah, interactivity is the issue when it comes to drawing parallels between games and movies, and when approaching problems like storytelling in games. It's the big difference between the media and, frankly, still something of an unknown quantity. Cinema has been around for a century and has spent much of that time as the medium of pop culture; it's had time to develop a language and explore storytelling techniques. Games - modern games, the kind that are only really possible with digital technology - are still finding their feet in this arena.

Of course, there are different types of storytelling, and games allow for different approaches. Linear storytelling is what we're used to, it's what we have experience with in traditional passive media, and it's no surprise that it's frequently used in interactive media as well. With varying degrees of success. But what you're talking about, interactive storytelling, is a newer and harder problem. There's been a lot of great work in Interactive Fiction that explores this space, although I don't know much about how IF authors operate. That's a process I'd like to learn a lot more about.

Dallas: Wow, great link! I'm still working my way through the conversation over there, but Harmon's post apparently inspired another fascinating thread over at Cartoon Brew. It gives you a bit of a sense of both sides of the conflict.

I confess I know next to nothing about the production practices on animated films, and only slightly more about live action. Most of what I know about game development comes from experience with very small projects, which are obviously not the same animal as large-budget AAA titles. So I am by no means an expert, just someone intrigued to learn more about the way these media are created.

That said, I feel quite a bit of sympathy for Dan Harmon and his perception of the Dreamworks development process. The crowd at Cartoon Brew seems to be arguing that storyboard isn't just the visual breakdown of structured writing into scenes, it is structured writing for visual media. Which makes some sort of sense, although I'm not sure I'm completely on-board with it. The fact is, Kung-Fu Panda was structurally flawed. So was Bioshock. Both manage to be fun in spite of it, which is great.

As someone who cares about story, these examples don't convince me that writing should take place during production rather than pre-production. But I find the parallel in production practice interesting. It's something I didn't realize (some) games have in common with (some) animated films.

Yabu: I can see where you're coming from, although I don't share your cynicism. It's true that story isn't a strong feature of "most computer RPGs" or, indeed, most modern games. But it's not true that storytelling doesn't exist in many of these games, and it certainly doesn't mean that storytelling isn't a goal worth striving for. There are a number of recent titles that I believe show the advances that are being made in story-in-games: Mass Effect, for example, made great strides in cutscene design. The Sam & Max games have a strong emphasis on story and making it work in an episodic context. Portal and Bioshock both did excellent things with environmental storytelling.

To be perfectly clear, I don't mean to imply that Bioshock is the be-all-end-all of interactive storytelling. What it attempts is, in some ways, very conservative (it's awfully linear, for example) and it has a lot of problems in the execution. But it does a few things very well, and, like it or not, it has become a touchstone in the cultural conversation about story in games. It's a shame you didn't play more of it. (Although I can relate to your experience - I got so frustrated by the interminable cutscenes at the beginning of Ico that I was in no mood to actually play the game when it started.)

I love books. And movies. I certainly don't want to deny their ability to be immersive and engaging, or to deny you the pleasure of enjoying them. But I believe games can and will be just as powerful a medium for teaching, inspiring, evoking emotion, and sharing experience. Perhaps that is a controversial view. As for how much narrative adds to an FPS, I must respectfully disagree with you. Some of us, myself included, have had the experience of playing games - even shooters! - improved by the addition of narrative structure, developed characters, and story elements. It's hard to convince us that those things have no value.

Point is, single player video RPGs are contrived, directed, and don't engage the imagination much. Although movies and books may have a more linear narrative style, they spark contemplation and ideation during their course...which is why they can often be revisited.

Multiplayer RPGs (including FPSes) used to work similarly for me. (Why else buy a Half-Life game? The "new" tech gets dull very quickly.) But, they always devolved to finding, then re-employing, the right spots, timing, and weapons to kill naifs.

In abstraction, the games became about killing monsters, checking them for traps, and taking their treasure. Essentially, dungeon crawling.

Single player RPGs are about constantly, and without any intellectual depth, pushing cartoon dolls around through figurative dungeons (whether in third or first person doesn't matter). They are inherently puerile and dull exercises in thumb twiddling and key punching.

On the other hand, most respectfully speaking, I understand that it can be difficult to convince a person raised on Budweiser to see how nasty it is...so I can almost sympathize with some of the recent gibber on the topic.

(By the way, Budweiser goes well with chocolate chip cookies.)

As long as we aren't claiming that story-telling is king, I think we'll be all right. :)

RJ, as long as you can accede that the attempted narratives in all of the Zelda games are superfluous to their meager playability (except to kids idiopathically driven by contrary delusions), I'll nod back a tad out of a sense of...something.

BTW: Again metaphorically speaking, one usually has to check crates for power-ups, including in Zelda games. Stop drinking Budweiser.

Yabu, what does that have to do with the issue at hand, or my response?

If you want to make a post on Zelda's "attempted narratives" and "meager playability," go right ahead.

RJ, defender of the Nie and Zelda-lover, I beseech that you reconsider your last.

Narrative in computer RPGs is needless. That was my salient point.

Kill the monsters, check them for traps, take their treasure. Then, when monsters aren't around, smash crates and look for power-ups. Story just adds icing to an ugly cake.

Yabu, you insist that RPGs and the like have terrible stories and while we may all disagree on what makes a story terrible or brilliant, I imagine most of us who play games all do believe in one single, very important thing: we want to actually *play* the game. You seem to abhor the very mechanics of playing a game -- ANY game -- great story present or not. No wonder you don't find any joy in the medium?

We actually enjoy killing the monsters, checking them for traps, and taking their treasure. And might I point out that this is no different from the basic drives of D&D -- when was the last time you played in a campaign in which there were zero enemies to swing a sword at or levels to be earned? Is rolling your d20 really so much superior to a mouse click?

Yes, I can read a book or watch a movie and I do both frequently when I'm in the mood for such things. And while such activities can be equally or more satisfying (or less! -- there are such things as bad books), there is an inherent delight in BEING the one with the agency, or at least perceived agency. We enjoy the process of being moved to act and challenged to succeed, not just in video games, but in all aspects of life. Why else would we be pursuing our respective degrees? But we can't exactly pick up a bow and arrow and go hunting orcs in real life, so we have to do it digitally.

To tie this back into the original topic, narrative is present in most games to just give the player the extra oomph of motivation. Perhaps you could argue that narrative is not ever strictly necessary in an FPS, but then I would say the result is just as empty as taking out the story in an action flick... all you get is a lot of flashy images of people dying and no reason for it. Having a narrative accomplishes many things, from providing motivation and context for the player to added satisfaction when the player has finally achieved the last objective.

Even in games where I would agree that a narrative is really superfluous to the gameplay, I cannot concede to the idea that it makes the narrative completely pointless. Patapon is an example of a game which does not need a story with its mechanics (rhythm game), but the simple premise added so much to the design, function, and feel that you would never want to try the game without it.

By the way, I find that children are much better at enjoying life than adults are, so if playing "childish" video games makes me one on occasion, so much the better.

::rolls up his sleeves::

Sean, the reason the "story is king" remarks seemed so off-handed is that this is something of a mantra in the film industry.

I have a T-shirt from the first film I ever produced that says "SERVE THE STORY" -- which is an homage to advice given by Production faculty Brenda Goodman here at this school to her fledgling producers, the intention being to not lose sight of the fact while watching numbers and dealing with shmucks that you are making a MOVIE and that everything ultimately comes down to that.

I think you're right in that it 100% applies to games. What people are squabbling over in this thread is the same reason the games industry is so notoriously poor at following this advice.

In games there is an additional layer of story. Firstly, there is the narrative conceit, the tale and the characters most games use to provide an escapist fantasy for the player. That's the only one most anyone ever thinks about. And in that lone respect, detractors of what you bravely chose to begin your career with posting here are correct -- that may or may not be so much icing.

But what it does do is lay the bedrock for the story in games that matters -- the story every player tells through their interactions.

A lot of us in this industry don't immediately think about it like that and fewer still acknowledge that one might be linked to the other. That's the fun part of what we get to do!

Oooh, we've got more spice on the roast. The last two: you're both off base...but I'll let the meat rest for a few more hours before digging in. I'm enjoying the rub. 8)

Video game RPGs are Pet Rocks.

Cynthia: I'm with you. Story can be a great motivator. It can also have intrinsic value. Sometimes it fails to do either, but not always.

You suppose an action movie with no story and imagine an incoherent, disjointed light show. I agree with you completely, but let me reiterate that story can be more than just a cohesive mechanism. Even an action flick, a well told story can make its audience think, or move them, or inspire them. Games have this potential, too, regardless of how well it's usually executed.

The bottom line is that you, and I, and a lot of other people, appreciate the story in many games and have had play experiences that were improved by the story in a game. Another person who has never felt motivated, or touched, or inspired by the story in a game doesn't invalidate that.

Jesse: Thanks for the great comment! I guess I didn't think this was going to be quite so controversial when I posted it.

It's interesting to hear from people who have a background in film; I have near-zero film production experience, so a lot of these stories are new to me. But I think it's interesting to try to understand the trajectory of games as a medium by examining the history of cinema.

You're spot on about the two levels of story in games, of course. A lot of times, the emergent stories are the most interesting and the most memorable. This is especially true when other players are added into the mix - either in strictly competitive environments, or in games like WoW and other MMOs where interaction between players and cooperative decision-making account for so much of the play experience. I saw Warren Spector give a keynote at the Sandbox conference last year, and he talked about overcoming the fear of giving up complete control over the experience and allowing emergent stories to flourish. I wonder how many developers will take that advice to heart as the medium continues to mature.

There's another type of story, though, that I believe is distinct from the two layers you mention: the stories that the player tells. I'm talking about what happens when the player gets imaginative, begins actively creating narrative elements that aren't directly represented in the game. Of course, this isn't unique to interactive media. Detective novels and crime dramas, for example, frequently ask the audience to participate in the narrative experience - "I bet he's the real murderer," or "I'm sure she's innocent. Maybe she's protecting someone." But I think it may become especially important in games, where it could be possible to nudge the player's imagination along, or even react to it.

Oh Cynthia, you first. I'll get to Jesse later (I suspect he's not as much fun.) I'm gonna simply Poindexter your comments.

"You seem to abhor the very mechanics of playing a game -- ANY game -- great story present or not. No wonder you don't find any joy in the medium?"

Nope, I enjoyed 488 and my thesis will involve a paper and pencil RPG. Now, if you're saying that I'm jaded with computer RPGs (hell, even with a few beers under my belt, they are generally dull), you're right. They are Pet Rocks! The coolness is gone.

"Is rolling your d20 really so much superior to a mouse click?"

Yep, especially when a player can't tell whether or not the GM is being honest. And,besides that added intrigue, there are fewer chances for replay, so more ends up being at stake for all concerned: both the GM and the players struggle for an elevated experience of story and immersiveness. As things evolve, the dice become less important. Also, unless the game is about dungeon crawling, fighting monsters is only a spice in the pie. Computer RPGs can't operate without statistical calculations.

"Why else would we be pursuing our respective degrees? But we can't exactly pick up a bow and arrow and go hunting orcs in real life, so we have to do it digitally."

I should probably address the whole paragraph, but this snippet will do. I smell a hint of Budweiser (without cookies) in the question, so I won't even touch it. As for hunting Orcs: I can do that in my dreams (but dealing with people is more interesting). Anyway, I prefer to lure Orcs into alleys with taffy and then tickle them with cockatrice feathers.

"Having a narrative accomplishes many things, from providing motivation and context for the player to added satisfaction when the player has finally achieved the last objective."

Nope. I don't see it. It's an intellectual sleight perpetuated by the industry to make these games seem to be more than they really are: Pet Rocks. Now, if you're referring to context, Battlefield:Vietnam was slightly interesting to me for a while because I was already familiar (a bit) with that war. But narrative and personal histories? Cut scenes == "pound the Esc key." On the other hand, I'm not against games that teach me something new about our world.

Accomplishing the last objective means finally killing enough monsters to get the big treasure. Who needs narrative to get the carrot off the stick? Then it's time to slough off more $$ for another Pet Rock.

"By the way, I find that children are much better at enjoying life than adults are, so if playing "childish" video games makes me one on occasion, so much the better."

I don't know where that came from. I don't think I used "childish".