Do games, NEED story?

[Some_weirdGuy]

Now before all of you comment about the similar thread on the front page, I'm not talking about the same thing as him. I'm not talking about stories being criticized for having shitty stories, I'm just wondering out loud if games need stories in the first place. I mean think about it, Pong isn't the story about two waring nations constantly bouncing an orb of ultimate power back and forth until one of them is destroyed, it's two straight tetris blocks bouncing a block back and forth for points. So let me ask you a question, do games NEED stories? Don't get me wrong, I love a good story in a game, frankly games that make me care about their characters I usually place head and shoulders above the games that I have with good gameplay but a mediocre story. But does every game need to have a cast of characters with their own personalities? One common complaint that is commonly heard whenever a developer says something about a game before it is released is that they don't like that particular section of the game, because the money going into it could have gone to something else. So is it possible for a game to completely forgo story in order to simply make the gameplay as pure and as fun as possible? What if a developer comes up with a great idea for a game's mechanics but can't think of a story to go with it.

I'm not trying to say that story in a game doesn't matter or that we shouldn't complain when a game has a shitty story, I'm just theorizing about a possible concept. So let me give you a couple of questions, would you be ok with a devloper saying "I'm going to make a game with no story because I want to focus on the gameplay?" Would you play said game? What would you look for in said game?

Just food for thought really.

I think the thing that most people are trying to stab at here is:

Could you define 'story' as you see it in this context?

Something I've learned as part of critical games studies(Game Design student here) is that you must first clearly define your terms before you can discuss something properly.
In this case for example, you have some people saying 'tetris has no story' or 'pong has no story' while others quite rightfully argue that it infact does.

So it all comes down to: since you started the thread Ert, what are you defining as 'story' for this discussion?

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More generally, story (if you can indeed ever 'escape' having a story) is not required.
However, story is actually an element of the user interface, supplying mental models which the player uses to understand the game 'world' and how they are meant to act.
It also enhances the player's experience of the game, in the same way sound/music, or the graphics do, and as has been mentioned, can often be a motivator.

But yes A game can lack sound or graphics or story or any number of things and still be a game. (though start removing too many of those and you may get into trouble XD )

 

[Mr Binary]

Well, does anything really NEED a story, or is it more 'can they NOT have a story'? I mean, any scene can be tied together by string with no mention of names, setting, or whatever. I think no matter what you do though, a story will somehow be mixed in there... it seems inevitable.

Tim woke up. Tim went to the store. Tim bought milk. Tim went home.

I mean, even these loose scenes will tie in to make a story in some way shape or form regardless. Why even really ask the question? I'd say it all really depends on how much effort is put into the story by the devs, but as mentioned... it would be hard to avoid having no story whatsoever... no matter how shitty it ends up being.

 

[karcentric]

Minecraft has almost no story and people love that, if a game is made with no story it must be able to engage the user somehow, games like Saints Row or GTA could work since they offer you a world to play with if you want and still have a story if you want to go that way.

Driving games have no story and they are great too! Adding a story to a racing game is just a way of linking the races together really.

Most FPS games that have a large community have next to no story and they work too.

So I guess no, some games don't NEED a story but it just makes them easier to sell if you can explain what the game is about rather than saying what the game mechanics are.

 

[Scrustle]

As a medium, no. They don't need stories. But stories are nice. Gameplay is the most important thing about the medium, and the thing that is unique to it. Story is not.

Actually, interactive storytelling is* unique to the medium. And interactive storytelling is the highest potential of storytelling we currently know. Therefore, more games should have stories, to allow those elusive masterpieces to be created, even if they are comparatively rare due to the lack of good writers in games. By no means do I think all games need stories. But gaming as a medium needs great variety in storytelling for our medium to "level up".

*Choose-your-own-adventure books do not count.

Not necessarily. They key word there is interactive. That's what is truly unique to the medium. You can use that to create an interactive story, but it doesn't need to be. There's other ways to create something meaningful with an interactive system other than creating a story. It's one direction to go in, but it's not the only one.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

No. This has been proven again and again, and I still have no clue why we're still asking this question.

 

[Scrustle]

As a medium, no. They don't need stories. But stories are nice. Gameplay is the most important thing about the medium, and the thing that is unique to it. Story is not.

Actually, interactive storytelling is* unique to the medium. And interactive storytelling is the highest potential of storytelling we currently know. Therefore, more games should have stories, to allow those elusive masterpieces to be created, even if they are comparatively rare due to the lack of good writers in games. By no means do I think all games need stories. But gaming as a medium needs great variety in storytelling for our medium to "level up".

*Choose-your-own-adventure books do not count.

Not necessarily. They key word there is interactive. That's what is truly unique to the medium. You can use that to create an interactive story, but it doesn't need to be. There's other ways to create something meaningful with an interactive system other than creating a story. It's one direction to go in, but it's not the only one.

Except stories can touch the soul, challenge concepts, make people reflect and shock. It is, due to it's nature, the only thing in games that is artful, disregarding the minor pieces like concept art, level art etc. The rest is entertainment. A remarkable story that rocks your world, maybe even making you cry and rethink something in your life, will always, always be a more important milestone than making a well-flowing game with tight mechanics and fun.

However, the prior is so rare (I can count 3 definitive masterpieces of art franchises in all of gaming history that achieved some of that*) that most people don't even know what it's like or would rather have the much bigger quantity in gaming's entertainment side than the quality from it's (rare) artful side.

*The Longest Journey, Syberia and Mass Effect**

**There are others too, but I don't consider them complete successes.

So a sculpture can't touch the soul? Beethoven's music can't because it's not a story? Plenty of art forms, like film and music, started off as merely entertainment. But they embraced their inherent qualities and developed them to become something more. That doesn't have to mean it tells a story. Story =/= art, and entertainment =/= not art.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

As most people have cottoned on to, it does depend on the game type... Although most are better with a story involved...

Sports games with season modes are (arguably) more enjoyable than those without... (I like the season modes in Tiger Woods, and that has always drew me back to the game more than just beating all the challenge modes...)

RPG's wouldn't be games without... and for those saying that Skyrim didn't, technically it did... it had a series of mini-stories... Such as each of the main Guild quests were stories, and most missions will have small background stories that fit with the lore... especially if it revolves around the civil war in Skyrim at that time...
Also, imagine playing a JRPG without story...? What would be the point? Why would you even play it? To me, the cutscenes and the continuing story are the rewards for getting to that point in the game!

I don't have the internet, but when I do I don't really like playing online multiplayer... I have never found it that enjoyable, so I play shooters and things on my own. I like playing CoD and BF for the stories... Hell, the Bad Company games have enjoyable stories... I also continue this to the Ace Combat games too... I have always enjoyed the stories in them... hearing stuff happen as you clear each stage... it gives you a great overview for why you are playing, and the mix of Military Briefings and Military Comms from Air, Land and Sea, coupled with the reports from civilians on the ground, and having the insight of the effect you are having on non-combatants is fantastic!

Finally you have your games that don't need stories... or games that you make your own! Viva Pinata was a game that didn't really have a story... you made it what you will, and progressed in % complete rather than actual story...
C&C games use story pretty much as a way to put you in interesting scenarios, that play differently to Skirmish mode... but both modes are enjoyable!
Games like Worms and Bomberman don't need stories at all... and the same could be said of side scrolling games, and 3d platformers (with lots of collectables) as the context is already there... and you know what you are doing and why before you start... the only use for a story there is to theme the game, and give context to the collectables!
And lastly you have games like the Sims, and Theme Park, where you have goals, but not a story, and you just work towards the goals to unlock more things!

 

[AngloDoom]

Do pizzas need toppings?

Not really, but unless the meat's rancid and the veg is looking kind of wrinkling, you're better with than without.

(Yes, I'm hungry)

 

[Treblaine]

You can have characters without a story. Team Fortress 2 has very distinct characters yet a distinct lack of any coherent or at least consistent and inclusive plot.

Story in a game is like lyrics of a song, you don't actually need legible lyrics for a song to be successful. Look at all the instrumental only songs or the success and admiration for the recent internet hit "Gangnam Style" with almost entirely Korean Language lyrics.

Lyrics just have to "flow" with a song and a game can have a "flow" with it as well that the story has to fit into.

But the "plot" can be almost non-existent that doesn't mean there isn't a story.

You could define that a game's "story" is simply everything that happens. Like for example this gameplay footage:


Some might say there is no story here, but there is as much story as there is in the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. It's the story of an American soldier's experience on D-Day moving from his landing craft up the beach and in-land. You can conceive of a novel that writes about this, it would be "quite a story".

You could easily say that it would be impossible to have a game WITHOUT a story. Even if there aren't cutscenes THINGS STILL HAPPEN. And a story is nothing but things happening. A story isn't necessarily rigid scripted dialogue scenes with controlled camera angles (i.e. a cutscene).

Plot is generally machinations of characters expressed and exposited through dialogue. This is the way it is done in film and in theatre which pre-dates film by thousands of years across hundreds of cultures the same principals apply of telling that story by eavesdropping on people talking to each other.

But that's not how the stories of Novels are told, in books they are usually far more personally even if written from the third-person perspective (he drew his gun from it's holster), in this sense video games are more like books than they are like film (or its predecessor, theatre).

 

[Acton Hank]

No. This has been proven again and again, and I still have no clue why we're still asking this question.

I'm with you, a good story can improve a game, but it's sure as hell not mandatory.

 

[Treblaine]

Do pizzas need toppings?

Not really, but unless the meat's rancid and the veg is looking kind of wrinkling, you're better with than without.

(Yes, I'm hungry)

I don't know, A pizza is DEFINED by topping. Without topping all you have is flatbread, which is not called pizza it's called flatbread.

There have been so many highly lauded games without such insignificant smattering of plot it's like a little bit of garlic cheese on your flatbread, sorry but that's still not a pizza it's garlic bread.

Quake (especially multiplayer), Unreal Tournament, Team Fortress, Minecraft, Doom, Pong,

Having a "plot" with regular character development and plot twists is not a definitive part of games but that's not to say they don't have a narrative.

See I've had experiences in Minecraft that would count as stories, I remember on time I got lost in the mountains for the (minecraft) days. Got completely turned around and had no idea which way was home, the more I walked and the more turns I made the more deeply I was lost. It was quite disconcerting, I suddenly had to start from scratch, digging a hole in the ground to survive the nights and running from various monsters and creepers. I eventually found myself looking down a massive precipice into a huge river or lake below. I leaped into the water and found it was a long expanse of water.

Finally, I had a way home. I knew I couldn't survive back over the mountains, I fashioned a raft and floated down the river. So long I followed the river till finally I reached open water. I remember I had built my house near the beach and kept paddling along in my raft till I reached the beach. as I ran ashore more and more seemed familiar till I finally saw my house.

I'd made it home.

This is a story but Minecraft "has no plot". The story emerged from the gameplay. And this experience affected me more than most of the films I'd seen that year, it was my own (virtual) experience of survival, the feeling of being lost and then rescuing yourself. That was something special.

You may not care about this story because I'm not a very good writer, but it affected me. And this illustrates the emotive power of games that don't have "a plot".

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

All visual media tells a story.

Now a narrative... That's completely different.

No, not all games require narrative in order to create the desired experience for the player.

 

[CityofTreez]

Need? No, but in 99% of cases in makes the game better.

 

[CleverNickname]

Games don't NEED story. There is a million great games that don't really tell a story. TF2 exists (the comics don't count). Future games don't all need stories, and there will be games like that.

What bothers me a little with this particular question is the kind of answer that goes "of course, Game X would be terrible without the story!"
No, it wouldn't be. Game X wouldn't be Game X, it would be Game Y, that plays exactly (?) like Game X. You really can't argue in favour of something by citing an example that already exists with, in this case, a story, and then say "know that one? that would suck!"

Actually, Mass Effect could make for a pretty good game even without its story. Relatively good. Objectively, cuz I don't like them much anymore.
Think pure stage progression like in old beat'em-ups, where you went from New York to Paris to Shanghai for absolutely no damn reason. But in space.

... Games should do that again occasionally. Just randomly throw you interesting places for the hell of it, no explanation.

See, that's the thing. Instead of getting so hung up on great narratives (and frankly, this is videogame stories we're talking about...), why not try to think up how to improve gameplay with the other bajillion (or 17) tools developers have at their disposal? This isn't movies, and it's not 1985. Games can do ANYTHING.
Instead they warm up 12 year old concepts and put it in a different desert.

 

[MidnightSt]

Depends on your definition of a "story".
If "story" means a narrative arc in any form suitable for the specific game ( = not necessarily verbal) encapsulating the game's events, whatever they might be, creating a beginning, middle and an end, evolution of the idea, then YES.

If by "story" you mean "words/videos describing events that are supposedly happening between the segments you can actually play, or even during the segments that you actually play, but you don't participate in the events, because the game mechanics is not capable of allowing you to do them", then no. Well, some of them do, but this is not really necessary for games in general, where the first definition is universally necessary for any medium that wants to carry some meaning.

 

[Smeatza]

No, they don't need a story. No form of entertainment or art NEEDS a story.

 

[CleverNickname]

Damn... it is really obvious that you haven't played a single video game this generation or even last gen. Really really obvious.

... yeah, that must be it. I haven't played a game since 1995, clearly.

That statement (but also all the others) makes something really really obvious about you, too.

Which is why this is where this post ends.

 

[burningdragoon]

No. But really it depends on what you mean by "story"... and by "need" I guess.

But really, the only thing a video game "needs" is input controls and resulting effects. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a video game.

 

[Skratt]

As stated before, it depends on the game.

Mario - the princess has been kidnapped and you have to collect X of Y before you can reach the final boss works. It is simple, gives a basic contextual motivation for running around random places as opposed to just racing straight to bowser.

Portal - could have been a basic puzzle game that people would have enjoyed but was actually made fantastic by giving the game a story.

Trine - Story is loosely required.

Mass Effect - The story is the game.

Half-Life - The story is the game.

Bejeweled - any game that is like this with a story behind it actually detracts from the game. Those stupid monster battle adventure games where the fight is a bejeweled game are retarded.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

So let me give you a couple of questions, would you be ok with a devloper saying "I'm going to make a game with no story because I want to focus on the gameplay?" Would you play said game? What would you look for in said game?

If it looked interesting, sure, I'd give it a shot. But I wouldn't expect it to hold my interest for very long, so I'd likely wait for it to drop down to bargain-bin prices.

But in most cases, I'm inclined to say that a game does need a story. I find that a story and cast of characters are what give me motivation to actually play the game. I know that there are many people out there who are perfectly content with games where the purpose of playing is absolutely nothing more than trying to get the most points (or what-have-you)... but that just really doesn't do much for me.

PacMan and Tetris are damn fun and have solid gameplay, but I can guarantee I've put far fewer hours into them than Deus Ex, which I've replayed close to a dozen times.