"Illusions" That You Would Like Dispelled For the Good of Gaming

[Namewithheld]

Myth: Storytelling and narative are most important parts of a videogame.

Reality: If you want a story, you read a book. if you want pretty graphics, you watch a movie. Games are unique in that they have gameplay. Why forgo that to turn a game into a book?

Storytelling isn't just words.

Yes, a single sentence can tell a story - Baby Shoes for Sale: Never Worn - but so can a picture. Stringing together pictures tells a story. A shot of a man, a shot of a bowl of porridge, a shot of the man licking his lips.

The man is hungry.

Games tell stories all the time - in fact, games are the only experience that tell their stories through every form of storytelling we have. A bit of flavor text in WoW tells a story. A cut-scene in Mass Effect tells a story. Audio-logs literally TELL stories in the oldest way possible.

But even a game with all of that stripped away...tell a story: They tell them through mechanics and art design, and by how you interact with the world. The stories can be simple, and yet moving and direct.

Doom, for example! Not exactly what we'd call overburdened with story, but the narrative the game creates through gameplay is honestly one of my favorites, because it distills out a single, unbelievably optimistic and cheery narrative.

A single human - if they are awesome enough - can defeat pure evil. That evil, despite it's seeming power, is inherently weak. Everything ABOUT Doom tells that story. The way that the combat is skill focused, and rewards clever use of weapons and position to herd enemies. The way the enemies fight one another at the smallest provocation. The fact that human technology, from the simple shotgun to the hyper-advanced BFG - can eradicate SUPERNATURAL MONSTERS as if they had never been.

"Oh, but ID software wasn't TRYING to tell that story!" I'm sure someone has said. Well, there's a reason literary theorists have said that the author is dead. Authorial intent is meaningless in criticism and analysis because criticism and analysis are about taking what is on the page...or, in this case, the floppy disk...and trying to enlighten ourselves through that study.

The myth I would sorely love to see destroyed, though, is the myth that hardcore gamers want gaming to be taken seriously.Because if they did, they wouldn't throw a massive fit every time someone tries to critically analyze their game - whether it is through a political, racial, sexual, or religious lens.

Guess what!

Getting analyzed by people who think too much about things?

That's a sign that your favorite medium is BEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

We live in a world where S.T.A.L.K.E.R is both an FPS/RPG and a Tarkovsky film. We live in a world where video games - silly little things played just for fun - are getting real, serious attention for the stories they tell through their gameplay and their narratives and their themes and their ideas.

That's FANTASTIC!

...of course, I'm fine with people disagreeing with my or anyone else's reading of a game. Just so long as they do it politely. Just...don't say, "Oh, stop bringing up X in gaming!" because that's just being a dick.

 

[Strazdas]

Storytelling isn't just words.

And neither is a book. If you think a book is just words then a game is just code. Though i can see where you are getting there. But i never said story is a bad thing, i only said that it should never overshadow the parts that make gaming unique - player agency.

"Oh, but ID software wasn't TRYING to tell that story!" I'm sure someone has said. Well, there's a reason literary theorists have said that the author is dead. Authorial intent is meaningless in criticism and analysis because criticism and analysis are about taking what is on the page...or, in this case, the floppy disk...and trying to enlighten ourselves through that study.

and this is why literary theorists are nothing more than assholes. Authoris intent is not meaningless, what is meaningless is incorrect interpretation somone made and then had the gall to teach others. this is exactly the reason we get schools where they teach that "curtains is blue means the author was sad" even after author has flat out stated it simply meant "curtains are fucking blue"

The myth I would sorely love to see destroyed, though, is the myth that hardcore gamers want gaming to be taken seriously.Because if they did, they wouldn't throw a massive fit every time someone tries to critically analyze their game - whether it is through a political, racial, sexual, or religious lens.

good thing that they dont then. they only throw a fit when somone is clearly trying to be Jack Thompson v2

Getting analyzed by people who think too much about things?

That's a sign that your favorite medium is BEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

No, it is not. thats only a sign that some people like to analyze things.

Getting put into the national art gallery - thats the sign of being taken seriuosly.

We live in a world where S.T.A.L.K.E.R is both an FPS/RPG and a Tarkovsky film.

As somone who has actually saw the film in question in its entirety (damn it was long) the two have pretty much nothing they share.

That's FANTASTIC!

It is as long as it is not the only reason they get attention.

Just...don't say, "Oh, stop bringing up X in gaming!" because that's just being a dick.

I dont agree. im always of the opinion that we should let people say things even if they are stupid because that is an easy way to spot people that keep saying stupid things.

 

[Namewithheld]

and this is why literary theorists are nothing more than assholes. Authoris intent is not meaningless, what is meaningless is incorrect interpretation somone made and then had the gall to teach others. this is exactly the reason we get schools where they teach that "curtains is blue means the author was sad" even after author has flat out stated it simply meant "curtains are fucking blue"

But the thing is..."the curtain is blue means the author was sad" isn't a very good reading. It's nonsensical and anyone who tried to use that in ANY of the lit classes I've been in or ANY of the discussions I've participated in both on and offline would be laughed off the stage.

The author's intent doesn't matter because actions have consequences divorced from intention. If I shoot someone, they're dead no matter what my intention was.

If I write a racist scene in a book, the scene is racist. It doesn't matter what my intention was.

If a game tells a story, the game tells a story. It doesn't matter what the game programmers intended to do. What matters is what HAPPENS, what the effect is, what can be learned and inferred from something.

 

[Strazdas]

and this is why literary theorists are nothing more than assholes. Authoris intent is not meaningless, what is meaningless is incorrect interpretation somone made and then had the gall to teach others. this is exactly the reason we get schools where they teach that "curtains is blue means the author was sad" even after author has flat out stated it simply meant "curtains are fucking blue"

But the thing is..."the curtain is blue means the author was sad" isn't a very good reading. It's nonsensical and anyone who tried to use that in ANY of the lit classes I've been in or ANY of the discussions I've participated in both on and offline would be laughed off the stage.

The author's intent doesn't matter because actions have consequences divorced from intention. If I shoot someone, they're dead no matter what my intention was.

If I write a racist scene in a book, the scene is racist. It doesn't matter what my intention was.

If a game tells a story, the game tells a story. It doesn't matter what the game programmers intended to do. What matters is what HAPPENS, what the effect is, what can be learned and inferred from something.

And yet it is being taught in schools. But then theres plenty of nonsense being taught i guess.

You may write a scene that may be interpreted as racist when it was not. for example of bad interpretation: recent scandal with Far Cry 4 cover art. A lot of people jumped on racist badnwagon when it actually wasnt. The intent matter because there are plenty of wrong misinterpretations.

A game telling a story was fine and i nevert claimed otherwise.

 

[thoughtwrangler]

The author's intent doesn't matter because actions have consequences divorced from intention. If I shoot someone, they're dead no matter what my intention was.

If I write a racist scene in a book, the scene is racist. It doesn't matter what my intention was.

If a game tells a story, the game tells a story. It doesn't matter what the game programmers intended to do. What matters is what HAPPENS, what the effect is, what can be learned and inferred from something.

I think the Author's intent should carry *some* weight, but no it should not be considered final say, except in a narrative sense. Narrative would be the "physics" of the author's world and the author defines those.

When it comes to meaning--the metaphysics, if you will--I'd say the Author's opinion is only slightly more valid than anyone else reading it. But never the final say. A work that is released to the general public belongs to the general public. The author relinquishes the exclusive "right" to its meaning the moment they show it to someone else.
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Here's one illusion I'd like to see broken:

Dear Majority of Character Designers of Japanese-Style RPG's,

We don't need protagonists to be 13-17 years old to be able to relate to them. Really, you can make young adult characters, middle aged characters, even geriatric characters in the party if you want. If your brand of demographics held true, the only audience for Pokemon would be sapient woodland animals living by Chernobyl that liked to fight one another.

Also, aging does NOT work the way that many of you seem to think it does. Those RPG Protags are supposedly 13-17 years old, but look like they're in their early 20's, which VERY few teens do. Characters that *are* in their early-to-mid 20's are consistently depicted as old, soemtimes even having wrinkles and/or gray hair and complaining about their age.

Misguided fans may try to counter by saying "Well, that's how it was in the Middle Ages, people grew up fast," but you know that's not what you're going for. For Cthulhu's sake, most of the worlds you create don't bear a resemblance to Medieval ANYTHING, hence why those teenage protagonists aren't working a farm with a wife and three kids because the other two kids died of the Plague.

Uh, so yeah. Fix that please.

 

[NPC009]

Here's one illusion I'd like to see broken:

Dear Majority of Character Designers of Japanese-Style RPG's,

We don't need protagonists to be 13-17 years old to be able to relate to them. Really, you can make young adult characters, middle aged characters, even geriatric characters in the party if you want. If your brand of demographics held true, the only audience for Pokemon would be sapient woodland animals living by Chernobyl that liked to fight one another.

Also, aging does NOT work the way that many of you seem to think it does. Those RPG Protags are supposedly 13-17 years old, but look like they're in their early 20's, which VERY few teens do. Characters that *are* in their early-to-mid 20's are consistently depicted as old, soemtimes even having wrinkles and/or gray hair and complaining about their age.

Misguided fans may try to counter by saying "Well, that's how it was in the Middle Ages, people grew up fast," but you know that's not what you're going for. For Cthulhu's sake, most of the worlds you create don't bear a resemblance to Medieval ANYTHING, hence why those teenage protagonists aren't working a farm with a wife and three kids because the other two kids died of the Plague.

Uh, so yeah. Fix that please.

Wait, what? I don't know what games you've been playing, but if anything adult JRPG characters are guilty of looking too young. Look at Sterk in Atelier Meruru. Must be like 40 by then, still looks 25.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

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Thanks, that's the word I was looking for but couldn't think of when writing that. X-D

Yes, sidequests should have some weight to them. Not just a box to tick off on a menu screen.

No problem and spot on. The "creative" part of so many games studios are leaderless and don't have half a clue why they include half the things they do.

It's almost as if the checklist of an RPG reads "gove the user something to do" as opposed to "add depth to the characters, world and story via side missions"

The basic failing in this in so many games is shocking.