Bioshock Writer Fed Up With Industry

TheRightToArmBears

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Desert Punk said:
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.
Really? Pathetic? I think it's perfectly reasonable. Writers can write a story that's as good as anything, but there'll still have to be massive sections of the game where the player kills hundreds of people. They don't have creative control over the entire game so they can't do much about it. If they don't want to write a story in which people are slaughtered, there's pretty much fuck all they can do about it. She already has used her skills to make the medium better and feels she can't do any more.
 

Xisin

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Space Jawa said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
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.
Your comment and a lot of the others in this thread scare the crap out of me. Sure Minecraft thrives without a story, but what would Silent Hill 2 be without one? Could you imagine Mass Effect with just game play or Journey? The entire horror genre relies heavily on story with game play that often leans towards the terrible or restricting, to re-enforce the narrative.

Frankly this industry needs every ounce of diversity it can get. I love League of Legends and sometimes I just want to throw bombs at people with Ziggs. Other times, I want to play as a band of thieves masquerading as a theater group, in order to kidnap the princess of Alexandria. Why should I be limited to just one thing, when I enjoy both. I dislike butter, bread and milk; doesn't mean I can't understand why another person might like them.

This woman wrote the scene of a man, with his dying breath, saying, "A man chooses, a slave obeys;" as the player beats him to death with a driver. The player takes every swing, merging game play and story seamlessly; creating a moment that every person in this thread knows of. To throw that under the bus and to say that it doesn't matter is a travesty.
 

MeChaNiZ3D

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maninahat said:
IronMit said:
I did make that point knowing it was flawed, but couldn't pass up a joke. So what she really wants is less gameplay/story segregation and for people to realise that the game doesn't have to be action from beginning to end, which I can get behind.
 

Revolutionary

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Well the reason stories get left till last is because..well that's the least important bit to some studio's. Just look at Music games, they invest little/no effort in story because the story is less important than the games core mechanics. The same is true for other genre's of games to varying extents, some of the most popular games have arse story-lines. Look at call of duty...the story is...America is in trouble and....guns. If you take issue with that then I suggest trying to get work at Bioware, Bethesda, Square Enix or something.
 

Machine Man 1992

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Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
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.
having good game play is no excuse for not having an at least decent story, especially now. Besides, you think most these devs care if they're 'cheapening the medium'? For that to even cross there minds they'd need to see it as an art-form, more Okami/SotC/Dust less Madden/CoD/Gears if you will, but we all know which are more likely to get green lit now don't we
Oh what? CoD and Gears aren't art? I though all games were art, or were they not just not pretentious enough to deserve that label?

In fact, keep the label. Gears of War and Call of Duty are art. Want to know why? Because the developers devoted all their time to making the games fun. Remember that? Fun? What gaming used to be about before it got too mainstream for us?
 

Lunar Templar

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Machine Man 1992 said:
Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
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.
having good game play is no excuse for not having an at least decent story, especially now. Besides, you think most these devs care if they're 'cheapening the medium'? For that to even cross there minds they'd need to see it as an art-form, more Okami/SotC/Dust less Madden/CoD/Gears if you will, but we all know which are more likely to get green lit now don't we
Oh what? CoD and Gears aren't art? I though all games were art, or were they not just not pretentious enough to deserve that label?

In fact, keep the label. Gears of War and Call of Duty are art. Want to know why? Because the developers devoted all their time to making the games fun. Remember that? Fun? What gaming used to be about before it got too mainstream for us?

I know of fun very well, probably better then you, and if you think 'fun' excuses Gears or CoD of they're faults you are mistaken. hiding behind a wall and being lead by the nose down a linear corridor is not 'fun', and as a personally note, staring down the side of a gun is just as dull.

Okami is fun, there is a sense of wonder to exploring that world, Shadow of the Colossus is fun, the satisfaction of bringing a Colossi down can not be matched by all but the most elaborate of kills in CoDs MP, Dust [http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/229151-dusthead.jpg] is as close to 'the perfect' game as I have seen in some time. You wanna talk about some one 'pouring all they're effort' in to making a game fun, you'll find few better examples then Dust.

that's not getting into the games I play that I wouldn't consider art, but are fun regardless, such as Devil May Cry or Darksiders.

funny thing is, even those have better storys then CoD or Gears, hell Halo has a better story then ether of those games, and its an FPS like CoD.

so

what's the excuse again?
 

immortalfrieza

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No. Wrong. Just... wrong. This woman couldn't be more wrong if she tried. I have been playing video games my entire life, and I have never seen stories as deep, as moving, as just plain good in any other media that I have seen in dozens of video games, while still managing to have excellent gameplay at the same time. While the pickings have been slim lately, there's still plenty that evoke feelings that reading just the words of a book or sitting there watching a movie/TV show could never do. It's not about the medium, books, TV shows, and so forth have their own set of restraints to them that limit them that this arrogant woman would have to deal with as well if she went on to work in any other industry. If Susan thinks that video games are weak in story, she doesn't deserve to call herself a writer to begin with much less a video game writer.
 

gamernerdtg2

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Super frustrated with the way she ends this article. Games (at the risk of sounding Neanderthal) are for playing. If you want to add story to the play, then the game could be better. But if the game sucks with the story in it, the game will suck. If the story is great, the game needs to be better.

I think women these days feel this way about gaming because it was primarily a male dominated thing. I know someone who is a writer, she's got a husband and a kid, but she loves Mass Effect. I got on my soap box about gameplay and skill. She didn't understand. Her husband had to explain it.

There are certainly women who enjoy the "sport" aspect of gaming, but I find them few and far between. It's like gaming bores them unless there's emotional attachment through story. Me - I like when the gameplay tells stories. Dragon's Dogma does this in grand fashion. Just roam around the forest for a while and bump into a large enemy.
 

Grabehn

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shameduser said:
V
Grabehn said:
I think that Half Life 2 would be a really forgettable game with no story. Shooters with really strong stories, like Half Life, Bioshock, Mass Effect, FEAR would all be either terrible or boring as shit with a weak ass story tacked on to move the player from level to level. Also it's not just shooters. Zelda games, RPGs, Stealth games (Dishonored) are all things vastly improved with a strong story. A context-less romp around a dungeon may be fun but you would care after you're done.
Yeah but there's a difference there. Which was exactly what I was trying to say, why do you kill headcrab guys in Half Life 2? Cuz they're attacking you whie you're escaping that city. In Zelda you're talking about wild monsters or bad guys, But is there any reason why you'd need to explain that? Not really. In Fear you're entering a facility full of hostiles in order to reach a person. All those already have a reason for why you're killing what you're killing (scientist that already went throu crazy shit, all-time hero and soldier).

The problem begins with things like the last Tomb Raider, which had a girl that was sort of afflicted by killing one guy, but then procceded to kill 40 more, and what annoyed me quite a bit was that in the next part she acted like she hadn't killed any other than the first one. Which if I remember correctly was what one of the writers said, "If it followed the script directly, you'd be only killing 4-5 guys through the entire story", which wasn't the case.
 

A Curious Fellow

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erttheking said:
A Curious Fellow said:
I feel like i can just namedrop Bioware and win this argument, but someone probably already has.
Bioware a paragon of good writing? Maybe once upon a happier time that I personally would love to go back to but...sadly that's in the past.
Well, I admit I haven't played The Old Republic, but nobody can bat a thousand forever.
 

Serrenitei

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Some of the responses here amount to, "She's just not looking in the right place, look at X!" I think that while some games have good stories, I don't think we've had a game with great stories. I whole-heartedly with her assessment. Currently, most video game stories revolve around "Evil guy is evil because reasons. Here's a gun and about 10,000 people standing in a line between you him. Go."

I also think its really hard to abstract gameplay from story. In a lot of ways, words are to books as gameplay is to games when it comes to telling a story--its the element that carries us through the story. You can't have gameplay withtout story, and you can't have story in games without gameplay. To say that gameplay is more important in games than story is like saying the words of a book are more important than the story. Both gameplay and story are equally important.

I really think that games have the capacity to tell a depth of story beyond even that of books or movies because of the interactive element, but right now we are stuck in the story-telling equivalent of playing cowboys and indians in the back yard with sticks. Most games (the operant word is most) don't have any depth of narrative and character. BioShock Infinite was a great game -- but how much better could it have been if Booker had just taken a moment to reflect on all the people he was slaughter for reasons. Even in BioShock, there are thousands of people who rush headlong to their deaths with seemingly no regard for themselves or others.

Our characters don't evolve, they don't grow, they don't change. They get better guns and that's the primary story telling mechanism.

There will always be a place for the shoot'em'up blow em up Michael Bay-esque action game. I don't think anyone wants them to go away -- but I think there's so much potential for more than what we have.
 

Machine Man 1992

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Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
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.
having good game play is no excuse for not having an at least decent story, especially now. Besides, you think most these devs care if they're 'cheapening the medium'? For that to even cross there minds they'd need to see it as an art-form, more Okami/SotC/Dust less Madden/CoD/Gears if you will, but we all know which are more likely to get green lit now don't we
Oh what? CoD and Gears aren't art? I though all games were art, or were they not just not pretentious enough to deserve that label?

In fact, keep the label. Gears of War and Call of Duty are art. Want to know why? Because the developers devoted all their time to making the games fun. Remember that? Fun? What gaming used to be about before it got too mainstream for us?

I know of fun very well, probably better then you, and if you think 'fun' excuses Gears or CoD of they're faults you are mistaken. hiding behind a wall and being lead by the nose down a linear corridor is not 'fun', and as a personally note, staring down the side of a gun is just as dull.

Okami is fun, there is a sense of wonder to exploring that world, Shadow of the Colossus is fun, the satisfaction of bringing a Colossi down can not be matched by all but the most elaborate of kills in CoDs MP, Dust [http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/229151-dusthead.jpg] is as close to 'the perfect' game as I have seen in some time. You wanna talk about some one 'pouring all they're effort' in to making a game fun, you'll find few better examples then Dust.

that's not getting into the games I play that I wouldn't consider art, but are fun regardless, such as Devil May Cry or Darksiders.

funny thing is, even those have better storys then CoD or Gears, hell Halo has a better story then ether of those games, and its an FPS like CoD.

so

what's the excuse again?
Clearly, I'm just an uneducated plebeian who happens to find the simple act of shooting things and blowing shit up enjoyable. So please, oh wise one, tell me more about how I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong and you're OBVIOUSLY right, because you enjoy artsy fartsy games and I don't.

[Do I Even need to /SARCASM ?]
 

gamernerdtg2

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Serrenitei said:
Some of the responses here amount to, "She's just not looking in the right place, look at X!" I think that while some games have good stories, I don't think we've had a game with great stories. I whole-heartedly with her assessment. Currently, most video game stories revolve around "Evil guy is evil because reasons. Here's a gun and about 10,000 people standing in a line between you him. Go."

I also think its really hard to abstract gameplay from story. In a lot of ways, words are to books as gameplay is to games when it comes to telling a story--its the element that carries us through the story. You can't have gameplay withtout story, and you can't have story in games without gameplay. To say that gameplay is more important in games than story is like saying the words of a book are more important than the story. Both gameplay and story are equally important.

I really think that games have the capacity to tell a depth of story beyond even that of books or movies because of the interactive element, but right now we are stuck in the story-telling equivalent of playing cowboys and indians in the back yard with sticks. Most games (the operant word is most) don't have any depth of narrative and character. BioShock Infinite was a great game -- but how much better could it have been if Booker had just taken a moment to reflect on all the people he was slaughter for reasons. Even in BioShock, there are thousands of people who rush headlong to their deaths with seemingly no regard for themselves or others.

Our characters don't evolve, they don't grow, they don't change. They get better guns and that's the primary story telling mechanism.

There will always be a place for the shoot'em'up blow em up Michael Bay-esque action game. I don't think anyone wants them to go away -- but I think there's so much potential for more than what we have.

Yes - the gameplay is what should be telling the story. We've made the mistake of investing too heavily in movie-like games, which has left games feeling less than what they should be. I've never been opposed to good storytelling, but it's just a part of what makes a great game (as you've said). I have a major issue with the way story has been taken apart diagnostically as if it was THE piece of the puzzle. Michael Bay would be terrible at designing a game. There is special kind of quality that "shoot'em'up, blow'em'up" games need to have, and he wouldn't get that at all. Those games are far from mindless.

I'm saying it's as if someone has declared that gameplay isn't enough. This woman seems to be saying that story is the main issue, but we've had a generation of games that were trying to tell good stories while the gameplay is mediocre.
There needs to be more of a balance so that people who want to discuss story can do so over a solid game.
 

Moth_Monk

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People in this thread are only complaining because it's a woman that's telling them their precious games aren't that good.
 

cikame

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I don't know, i love Devil May Cry for the stylish action, the gameplay demanding i demolish my enemies with unrivaled aggression and speed, making me feel like a badass, then watching Dante be a badass in cutscenes so i can sit back and smile, he doesn't need justification, he's a dude with a giant sword and dual pistols and i love him for it.

Modern stories in most mediums are so obsessed these days with bad events, every time your character creates good in the story 2 bad things happen to bring them down again and this repeats so often it becomes almost a parody of itself... it's a real drag after the double digit hours a video game can span.

Look at the new X-Men Wolverine movie, they have to make him mortal so that he can fall and be vulnerable, and coincidently less awesome than Wolverine has been in the past.
 

Lunar Templar

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Machine Man 1992 said:
Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
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.
having good game play is no excuse for not having an at least decent story, especially now. Besides, you think most these devs care if they're 'cheapening the medium'? For that to even cross there minds they'd need to see it as an art-form, more Okami/SotC/Dust less Madden/CoD/Gears if you will, but we all know which are more likely to get green lit now don't we
Oh what? CoD and Gears aren't art? I though all games were art, or were they not just not pretentious enough to deserve that label?

In fact, keep the label. Gears of War and Call of Duty are art. Want to know why? Because the developers devoted all their time to making the games fun. Remember that? Fun? What gaming used to be about before it got too mainstream for us?

I know of fun very well, probably better then you, and if you think 'fun' excuses Gears or CoD of they're faults you are mistaken. hiding behind a wall and being lead by the nose down a linear corridor is not 'fun', and as a personally note, staring down the side of a gun is just as dull.

Okami is fun, there is a sense of wonder to exploring that world, Shadow of the Colossus is fun, the satisfaction of bringing a Colossi down can not be matched by all but the most elaborate of kills in CoDs MP, Dust [http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/229151-dusthead.jpg] is as close to 'the perfect' game as I have seen in some time. You wanna talk about some one 'pouring all they're effort' in to making a game fun, you'll find few better examples then Dust.

that's not getting into the games I play that I wouldn't consider art, but are fun regardless, such as Devil May Cry or Darksiders.

funny thing is, even those have better storys then CoD or Gears, hell Halo has a better story then ether of those games, and its an FPS like CoD.

so

what's the excuse again?
Clearly, I'm just an uneducated plebeian who happens to find the simple act of shooting things and blowing shit up enjoyable. So please, oh wise one, tell me more about how I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong and you're OBVIOUSLY right, because you enjoy artsy fartsy games and I don't.

[Do I Even need to /SARCASM ?]
Not that it matters, since you've been missing the point so bloody hard I'm pretty sure we're not even on the same subject, and since you've resorted to the oh so helpful debating practice of sarcasm, to not make a point, again, it's raining, so I have to go wash my car, then straighten out the stereo wires.

IF you actually manage to get on the same page as me feel free to reply, other wise, I've no more time for some one whom can not listen.
 

Rebel_Raven

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I hope she gets to work for tell tale games, or places that will indulge her writing wants. I sincerely do.

It sounds like she gets stuck writing for the action genre more than anything which doesn't exactly cater to plots too well.
That said, I gotta wonder what her real vision for Tomb Raider was? How different would it have been if it wasn't so full of unrestricted action gunplay? I mean reviewers have noticed the disconnect between her aversion to fighting/killing while she guns down men by the dozens, and stabs them violently with her climbing axe and arrows. I have, too, but it's not terrible. It seems her combat quotes get more bold as she gets along, but she's always fearless in combat because we are. Her confidence is really ours.

I'd not mind at all more well written protagonsits, and well written stories they're in. I'm not alone in it. People often complain about the meathead violence junkie male protagonist.
 

Machine Man 1992

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Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
Lunar Templar said:
Machine Man 1992 said:
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.
having good game play is no excuse for not having an at least decent story, especially now. Besides, you think most these devs care if they're 'cheapening the medium'? For that to even cross there minds they'd need to see it as an art-form, more Okami/SotC/Dust less Madden/CoD/Gears if you will, but we all know which are more likely to get green lit now don't we
Oh what? CoD and Gears aren't art? I though all games were art, or were they not just not pretentious enough to deserve that label?

In fact, keep the label. Gears of War and Call of Duty are art. Want to know why? Because the developers devoted all their time to making the games fun. Remember that? Fun? What gaming used to be about before it got too mainstream for us?

I know of fun very well, probably better then you, and if you think 'fun' excuses Gears or CoD of they're faults you are mistaken. hiding behind a wall and being lead by the nose down a linear corridor is not 'fun', and as a personally note, staring down the side of a gun is just as dull.

Okami is fun, there is a sense of wonder to exploring that world, Shadow of the Colossus is fun, the satisfaction of bringing a Colossi down can not be matched by all but the most elaborate of kills in CoDs MP, Dust [http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/229151-dusthead.jpg] is as close to 'the perfect' game as I have seen in some time. You wanna talk about some one 'pouring all they're effort' in to making a game fun, you'll find few better examples then Dust.

that's not getting into the games I play that I wouldn't consider art, but are fun regardless, such as Devil May Cry or Darksiders.

funny thing is, even those have better storys then CoD or Gears, hell Halo has a better story then ether of those games, and its an FPS like CoD.

so

what's the excuse again?
Clearly, I'm just an uneducated plebeian who happens to find the simple act of shooting things and blowing shit up enjoyable. So please, oh wise one, tell me more about how I'm OBVIOUSLY wrong and you're OBVIOUSLY right, because you enjoy artsy fartsy games and I don't.

[Do I Even need to /SARCASM ?]
Not that it matters, since you've been missing the point so bloody hard I'm pretty sure we're not even on the same subject, and since you've resorted to the oh so helpful debating practice of sarcasm, to not make a point, again, it's raining, so I have to go wash my car, then straighten out the stereo wires.

IF you actually manage to get on the same page as me feel free to reply, other wise, I've no more time for some one whom can not listen.
What else is there to say? You could have just said you don't find the games very fun, but noooo- you had to get dismissive and make it seem like enjoying CoD or Gears was somehow wrong. At least that's what I got from it, or do you not think about how others might interpret your writing?