Bioshock Writer Fed Up With Industry

[Abomination]

But hasn't she disproved her own point in that her game-writing skills are well... pretty damn good? Lead the pack! Show everyone else how it's done. "Good for us" may not be "good enough for you", but when you're offering the best, you can only lead by example.

That doesn't work when you're in the AAA industry where ludonarrative dissonance is so, so common because of the segmented way that games are made.

See: Tomb Raider 2013.

One one hand, we have a young woman calling on inner strength she didn't know she had as she attempts to escape a dire situation, and does it by the skin of her teeth. That's the story part that Susan O'Connor is part of.

On the other hand, we have a young woman mowing down baddies in waves. That's the engine, scripting, and actual gameplay part that ruins Susan's best attempts.

It's a trapping of the action genre, really. It's so very hard to have the story she wanted to write in an action game and pull it off well, especially in a risk-adverse environment such as AAA.

If we want story to shine, we have to look to other genres. Personal, character-focused stories are well suited to adventure games. They also work in RPGs, if the story is naturally violent. Epic stories work best in RPGs (due to length) and strategy games (due to scope). Second-rate setpiece-to-setpiece stories are ideal in action games with a shooting focus, and that's where she is right now.

She might have a better time at TellTale, is what I'm trying to say.

It seemed like the writers weren't able to change the story as the development process moved forward.

The whole Tomb Raider 2013 thing is the perfect example, why didn't she get some input to change maybe a few things with the story to fit that situation. Maybe insist that during the firefights Lara was having mini panic attacks about all the people she was killing and those attacks reduce or slowly disappear until at the end of the game she's killing people in a more matter-of-fact way. The story could remain essentially the same but the character of Lara would be different in some regards.

It's why I will often hark back to Far Cry III and how Jason Brody's character changes from a white rich adrenaline junkie way out of his comfort zone into a deranged B-movie action hero... or how Captain Walker changed during Spec Ops: The Line. The characters REACTED to what they were doing mechanically.

 

[RJ 17]

She doesn't sound like the kind of person that loves games or really wants to make them better.

That's the other thing that people have to keep in mind about her and why she wants to leave the game industry...she's not a game writer, she's just a writer. She says so herself that writing for games is just kinda how things turned out for her. She doesn't have any real attachment to games or the gaming industry.

Just saying to those that are wanting to throw stones at her. Granted, this is the internet, but do we REALLY need to hate and insult everyone who has a different opinion/goal than us?

 

[theultimateend]

She doesn't sound like the kind of person that loves games or really wants to make them better.

That's the other thing that people have to keep in mind about her and why she wants to leave the game industry...she's not a game writer, she's just a writer. She says so herself that writing for games is just kinda how things turned out for her. She doesn't have any real attachment to games or the gaming industry.

Just saying to those that are wanting to throw stones at her. Granted, this is the internet, but do we REALLY need to hate and insult everyone who has a different opinion/goal than us?

I would falcon punch a Polar Bear to get a full time job writing for video games.

I recently got to do a small project writing for a F2P game and it was so damn fun. The challenge of matching the narrative to the game itself is really neat.

Bioshock Infinite (for example) was beautifully done, I think people are really hungry for a solid story. If they aren't I know I certainly am. Can't get enough of it.

It's why I will often hark back to Far Cry III and how Jason Brody's character changes from a white rich adrenaline junkie way out of his comfort zone into a deranged B-movie action hero... or how Captain Walker changed during Spec Ops: The Line. The characters REACTED to what they were doing mechanically.

Incredibly jarring for me in FC3 when my character bitches about skinning a tiger but happily guts 30 soldiers seconds later.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Im sorry if I didnt read the whole article, I couldnt get past the whole "Far Cry 2 is an example of good storytelling". No, it was not, in fact, it may be the worst story out of the far cry games. Putting it alongside Bioshock and TombRaider is a joke.

Agreed. No disrespect to her and I agree with her point, but the Far Cry 2 story was just a shitty rip-off of Heart of Darkness.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

Oh for christ sake. They're games, can you really be so dense as to be surprised when the GAMEplay of the GAME take more precedence over story?

And why are we so concerned about being compared to other media? Games have different rules to films and books, and by trying to make games more like them, you cheapen the medium.

If this is the kind of person we have writing games, I'm glad she's gone.

 

[RJ 17]

She doesn't sound like the kind of person that loves games or really wants to make them better.

That's the other thing that people have to keep in mind about her and why she wants to leave the game industry...she's not a game writer, she's just a writer. She says so herself that writing for games is just kinda how things turned out for her. She doesn't have any real attachment to games or the gaming industry.

Just saying to those that are wanting to throw stones at her. Granted, this is the internet, but do we REALLY need to hate and insult everyone who has a different opinion/goal than us?

I would falcon punch a Polar Bear to get a full time job writing for video games.

I recently got to do a small project writing for a F2P game and it was so damn fun. The challenge of matching the narrative to the game itself is really neat.

Bioshock Infinite (for example) was beautifully done, I think people are really hungry for a solid story. If they aren't I know I certainly am. Can't get enough of it.

And I agree with pretty much all of the above. I'd love to get a job writing videogames. For her, though, it was just a job she fell into (at least as she describes it).

 

[IBlackKiteI]

by treating a game story the same as a movie you lose the most potent component of video games their interactivity. i feel that to create a truly great story in video games writers must be allowed to work closely with designers to merge story and gameplay seamlessly.

This is exactly it and it seems to be be forgotten sometimes. It's not just writing it good story, it's marrying it to the strengths of the game. You can write a story that doesn't do this kind of thing, that's essentially only told in cutscenes and it might still be great, but it won't be making use of that one extremely important thing that games are the only medium capable of truly offering, interactivity. And if the game's story isn't making use of the player's input, it might as well be told in a book or film.

Doing this sort of thing successfully must be hard as hell, but when a game does pull it off, making you feel like you're playing the story rather than just watching and listening to it, it can be awesome. Unfortunately, while there are loads of games with great stories I feel there are few which truly feel like those stories can only exist in games. If, for instance, all the main events of Deus Ex were put into a novel you'd still miss out on the many ways that the game gives you information, you'd miss out on the many conversations, newspapers, emails, the player choices and the general feel of being in the game's world created by the myriad of ways story elements are conveyed to the player through gameplay. If Max Payne were a novel you'd miss out on very little, as while I love it that game's way of revealing the story to the player is almost exclusively in it's non-interactive cutscenes rather than gameplay itself.

In short I reckon when it comes to making better stories in games we mostly need better collaboration between game designers and story writers and/or more people who are truly passionate and good at both.

 

[frizzlebyte]

So... She admits she has the skills, but doesn't want to do the work to help make the medium better and wants to apply those skills elsewhere...

Pathetic.

Problem is, if all you can get made in the industry (without going indie and risking not being able to pay the bills) is a game that has to have guns and shooting, then it isn't pathetic at all to go elsewhere, but just realizing that the games industry is full of technically-minded people who are not story tellers, or a bunch of publishers who don't think a game can lack guns or shooting people as the core mechanic and still be a game.

The phrase "be the change you want to see in the world" comes to mind when I read this article. If she wants to abandon ship and not be a contributor to paving the way for better storytelling in games then good riddance.

The problem is that the people who make games right now, aside from a select few, see video games in a rather narrow field of view, either incapable of being anything beyond mere "fun," or as being stunted by a lack of VR technology.

When the industry sees you as a third wheel to the "main" dev team, you can't exert change without sacrificing something.

But hasn't she disproved her own point in that her game-writing skills are well... pretty damn good? Lead the pack! Show everyone else how it's done. "Good for us" may not be "good enough for you", but when you're offering the best, you can only lead by example.

I'd say she's more saying that she can't exert enough creative vision within the industry as it stands now. Can't lead by example if you can't get to the front of the pack.

All of these comments are coming from someone who would love to get more liberal arts people into game development, by the way. Her reasons for leaving are the same reasons I had for not going into it in the first place. I'd love to make a video game that stretches the medium, but I think I can tell the stories I want to tell better if the world is of my sole creation, which is why I decided to become a writer and teach English.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

She might have a better time at TellTale, is what I'm trying to say.

Damn, someone beat me to it.

But yeah, TellTale is pretty much a successful company devoted to fixing her issues with the industry, so I imagine she'd do some damn good work there.

 

[Trishbot]

I know the industry can eat you up and spit you out, but, as a female developer myself, I cling to my female video game designers, writers, and role models, and change will NOT happen so long as people give up on the medium and give in to the "it's for dude-bro shooter types only" mindset.

 

[Maerx]

She doesn't sound like the kind of person that loves games or really wants to make them better.

That's the other thing that people have to keep in mind about her and why she wants to leave the game industry...she's not a game writer, she's just a writer. She says so herself that writing for games is just kinda how things turned out for her. She doesn't have any real attachment to games or the gaming industry.

Just saying to those that are wanting to throw stones at her. Granted, this is the internet, but do we REALLY need to hate and insult everyone who has a different opinion/goal than us?

I have nothing more than respect for her. Although I can't really condone her if she thinks that videogames aren't a good medium for storytelling. Do games need to evolve and get better? HELL YES. But she doesn't look like she wants to part of it.

On top of that she sounds really arrogant, or maybe that's just me.

 

[RJ 17]

She doesn't sound like the kind of person that loves games or really wants to make them better.

That's the other thing that people have to keep in mind about her and why she wants to leave the game industry...she's not a game writer, she's just a writer. She says so herself that writing for games is just kinda how things turned out for her. She doesn't have any real attachment to games or the gaming industry.

Just saying to those that are wanting to throw stones at her. Granted, this is the internet, but do we REALLY need to hate and insult everyone who has a different opinion/goal than us?

I have nothing more than respect for her. Although I can't really condone her if she thinks that videogames aren't a good medium for storytelling. Do games need to evolve and get better? HELL YES. But she doesn't look like she wants to part of it.

On top of that she sounds really arrogant, or maybe that's just me.

Yeah, she really does. But that goes along with the fact that she was never in it for the games in the first place. To her it was just a job, and I'm guessing that's were a lot of her bitterness comes from. Her point, though, wasn't that games can't ever be a good medium, it's that with current industry trends and practices it isn't a good medium right now. Like you said: it needs to evolve.

 

[Callate]

Maybe she's just in the wrong part of the pool. Of course the competitive AAA-market is going to have a higher proportion of technical people to creative people; pushing the technical side of things has been where the industry staked its claim to expansion for years. But in single-A games like Spec-Ops: The Line, Bastion, and Zeno Clash, not to mention an enormous number of smaller independent titles, story has a place of honor and even reverence.

Things aren't going to get better without good writers, and a "good" writer in the world of mainstream fiction has to struggle against both writers who are better and a publishing world where the risk-aversion of publishers falls directly on the writers' heads and stifles creativity, rather than one where that risk-aversion falls farther up the chain and has less direct influence on their work. If I had a job writing for video games, I'd thank my lucky stars for the opportunity to be sheltered and pioneering at the same time.

 

[Grabehn]

"You have to justify why am I shooting everything?" Well... the thing is you don't, You can work around that with the story. I mean, it's not like GAMES have as a main point the GAMEplay. If you cant a story centered product I'd say... read a book. I guess books couldn't really put gameplay over story, could they?

 

[HaraDaya]

My favorite games aren't the ones that tell a story, but the ones that let me create my own.

 

[kordo]

Perhaps Roger Ebert was right after all.

 

[Space Jawa]

Oh for christ sake. They're games, can you really be so dense as to be surprised when the GAMEplay of the GAME take more precedence over story?

And why are we so concerned about being compared to other media? Games have different rules to films and books, and by trying to make games more like them, you cheapen the medium.

If this is the kind of person we have writing games, I'm glad she's gone.

This, because...

Speaking with Gameological, she explained that game stories are so often an afterthought, providing only enough effort to keep the player moving from one level to the next.

and I'm saying this as a writer myself, but the bolded part is all videogames really need as far as story goes.

You know the thing about the all time classic games? Games like Mario and Tetris? Or Pac Man? Even more recent titles like Angry Birds? They have squat for storytelling and yet they're the biggest names in the industry.

Does anyone really care that much about the stories behind Halo, Gears of War, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, or others compared to what they're getting out of the gameplay? If the gameplay stayed the same, does anyone really think the number of players of each would change all that much based on how much more or less work was put into the story?

Can anyone tell me what the story of the current industry juggernaut known as Minecraft is? Does anyone really care what the story of Minecraft is?

Frankly, the story doesn't matter worth a hill of beans if you don't have a game worthy playing. THAT'S why story comes second to gameplay.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well the lady is absolutely right, but I think the responses are the ones who outline the real problem, sadly people are the ones who aren't ready for games with good stories.