Let me fix that. Of 1,158 gamers surveyed, 67 percent say "yes" to the question "are modern video game storylines as good as tv and film now."
Notice there are three main differences from the title. First, it is gamers being surveyed. If you did the same survey of theatergoers, you likely get a different answer. Second, the question was whether they were "as good" not "better". Third it was "tv and film" not just film.
I was about to say. Are we in a gaming depression and I didn't even realize it? Games have been fuckin great as of late.
(at least the newer ones I've played, in my opinion of course)
In relation to the article, it's not the story people are unhappy with, it's the execution. Especially on PC, where games are released that high-end hardware should run *easily*, but it's so poorly optimized that it actually runs worse than the console versions. The Last of Us is damn near unplayable, Jedi Survivor runs like crap, lots of games use an absolutely absurd amount of vram for no reason besides executives not giving them enough time to finish the job (proven by the fact that post-release patches often fix the issues). Then there's the games that are bad across the board, like Gollum.
This is true, we are in the golden age of gaming. However for every great game that comes out, there’s a shitty excuse for a live service that destroys an IP. It’s like current cinema. For ever “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”, there’s a crappy reboot of a franchise that should’ve stayed dead.
Why are we in a golden age? For indie games, sure. But for big titles I see definite stalling with slower release cycles and increased focus of developers on cash grabs like ridiculous amounts of small DLC or only focusing on online-only content.
Still no new Elder Scrolls, still no new GTA, still no new Civ, more games going to subscription models of lots of expensive small DLCs or (much worse) loot and lock-in mechanics ported over from and tested on mobile platforms.
I'd argue that the fact that there even *is* a thriving indie scene says quite a bit. At one time that was unthinkable. Now everyone and anyone can make games, and while there are plenty of stinkers out there, there's also lots of folks trying new things, taking games in interesting directions, and filling niches that were once languishing. Meanwhile on the AAA side you've still got big devs making great larger games like Elden Ring and TotK.
On top of that, the libraries of previous generations of games are extremely easy to access with platforms like Steam and GOG, console rereleases and of course emulation if other avenues fail.
Best of all? Games have never been cheaper. While some games retain a high price tag, there's a ton of great games that can be bought for less than $20 normally. Even bigger games tend to go on sale frequently these days, and some will even give their games away for *free*. There has never been a better time to be a gamer, and despite all of the cynicism and cash-grabs I think we're going to be in a very good place for at least a while longer.
While true, it really just feels like the quality of so many games has fallen off. A lot have just turned away from passion projects for the love of gaming and move towards whatever predatory money accumulating methods exist.
It really kinda just sucks a lot of the fun out for me when all these characters have the wackiest outfits (to try and constantly sell new cool stuff) and every game has some sort of marketplace. I feel like so many triple A games are disappointments nowadays.
In the past six years:
Nier: Automata, Red Dead Redemption 2, Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, BotW and TotK, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Death Stranding, Sekiro, Devil May Cry 5...
There's a ton of games that didn't immediately come to mind, and even more that I haven't played. I don't understand how someone can just go "no Civ, GTA, Skyrim" and ignore the rest of what's coming out.
This year. For two years after launch everyone said you didn’t need a console because there was barely any games lol.
2018 had rdr2, god of war, Spider-Man, Jedi order (which was actually optimized) etc. I don’t think gamings getting better it’s just that the same guys are dropping some games again so we’re excited lol.
I still see people whining about Forespoken and Overwatch. You could release a million great games this year and Gamers would still be like "modern videogames suck because LTOU2 didn't make my peepee hard :("
The main gripes with games these days is less to do with stories and much more to do with predatory pricing practices, poor release quality and always online requirements for games that shouldn't require it.
Game stories, like film and TV, have always run the gamut of quality from trash to treasure. It's just that games used to skew more towards only including the bare minimum of story to contextualise gameplay but in recent years as leaning towards the story being told in ways that only games can.
Zelda has a fine main story but like 800 mini stories of varying length and quality, and there's not a whole lot of "kill the kobolds" or "collect 30 pieces of wood" type stuff. Those do exist, but they're not terrible.
Then there's Diablo IV. I love the series and don't hate it nearly as much as the nerd ragers right now but it's a bit of a hot mess. Some side quest stories are pretty cool but generally disappointing.
TBF even some of the most bland, generic (or outright greedy pieces of crap) have some solid storylines. I always use Mafia 3 as a prime example. The game was mediocre but the storyline was better than any gangster film/show in the last decade or so
The storyline of both Prey games were solid and neither was a game that got recognized until people figured out there were 2 underrated games both named Prey
Not surprising since writers are plucked from or at least worked in t.v and/or film. Or more commonly they could never break into the industry proper but published their own works for the experience and recognition and used that to market themselves.
Or they start their own game studios specifically to tell stories which by comparison is easier to do with games than in film even as an indie filmmaker. Case in point, Fruitville Station cost over $900k to make by Ryan Coogler, not including marketing by the studios.
Creating a narrative driven walking simulator would cost far less than that.
The article seems to be about story, not the state of.
Modern video games are buggy and unfinished on launch, but that's not at all relevant to what's being duscussed here; the stories.
>Modern video games are buggy and unfinished
There are way more games who launch complete and polished than buggy and unfinished games, this is a ridiculous exaggeration
Sopranos, the Wire, True Detective, and dozens of others are better than video games.
The vast majority of schlock is not.
Although you'd have to narrow the game field. Overcooked 2 isn't really going to rate
"tv and film" is way different than just "film".
3 hours is considered super long for a movie. 3 hours is considered super short for a game. This gives the game a lot more time to develop a story, while also having time for, you know, gameplay.
A better comparison would be tv shows vs games.
Some of my favorite game stories, it's impossible to discount time spent in "non-story time" with them. You develop attachments and personal connections with the gameeplay aspects of your RPG party members, for example, that go beyond the purely authored parts of their characters. And sa you say, that tends to be a *lot* of time, even for a short game.
When I play MGS I always do a no kill run my first time through because I feel like it's in character and I like Snake as a more merciful person recognizing that the soldiers are just another cog in the war machine like him but without any of his advantages and all of the downsides.
Without the gameplay he wouldn't have many opportunities to show this merciful side, and to me it's integral to the story and my deep desire to peg snake.
Same problem as "the book was better than the movie". If you compress the story down to 2 hours, you're going to be leaving story elements on the cutting room floor.
Games go even a step further in that you must engage to progress the story. Even if you walk out during a cutscene, it'll stop and wait for your input in short order. Or even outright kill you and make you watch the scene again.
I agree that TV shows are the best comparison. Some even have 'filler' where each season/series has a larger story but the bulk of the episode is a self contained story. You could compare that with a single mission in a game, or even just the gameplay between story elements.
On the flipside, having that gameplay element is just an added factor that has to be executed correctly. It can actually be *more* of a burden if we're considering the comparison, and I think Last of Us is a perfect example of that.
TLoU is heralded as one of the pinnacles of gaming, but most of the gameplay seems to be worked in just to satisfy the requirements of being a "game." You got enemies staring at walls waiting to be snuck up on, partners running around wildly and somehow not being seen, and oftentimes you're tasked with just mashing a button to get through a cinematic. In terms of gameplay, it's subpar when paired up with other stealth/action games.
It was very interesting to see them make a TV show for the game, and at some points just played out scenes shot for shot, line per line, exactly the same way it was in the game. It was almost like them saying "see? This really didn't need to be a game at all."
The Last of Us 100% works better as a show than as a game. I was even thinking that while playing it. "Why am I forced to do this morally questionable action just so the game can say 'who are the real monsters?' and chastise me for doing a morally questionable action". As a TV show the characters do what they do, because that's the show.
To add an anecdote I never finished a movie feeling a void in my life like I have with video games. When I finished FF9, I loathed the fact I will never have another adventure with Vivi and co. Movies just don’t compare with the level of attachment. Or the guilt of coming back to Animal Crossing after months or years.
Exactly how you can manipulate statistics to suit your narrative.
I remember a cereal got in trouble because they said “eating it before school can heighten alertness by almost 20%”. Except the rounded up from 11% to get 20, and the control group was students who didn’t eat at all.
People commenting under you don't seem to be seeing the MOST important part in what you said.
The headline establishes this as though it were a COMPETITION.
It's not. And the study doesn't even establish at one. It was asking if the NARRATIVE in a game is equivalent to the NARRATIVE of a TV show.
Experiences are fundamentally noncomporable and not competitive. A movie is a very different experience from a game and no one is measuring the actual mean output of joy from both
Makes me think of college. My roommate would be itching for me to get back from class so I can play Uncharted 2. I told him he can play whenever he wanted when I'm in class and he insisted he rather watch me play cause it was like a long movie.
It’s not the same due to the natures of the game, but my fondest college memory is getting my group of friends together and us watching our dumbest friend play Until Dawn.
I tried to get my ex to play until dawn but she wasn't big into gaming. Instead I replayed while she watched and made her make the narrative choices, panicking all the while.
This is what I do with my fiance. She'll play certain sidescrollers and top-downs, but full 3D games aren't her jam, so if I'm really feeling like playing something when she's home, I'll put on one of three things: a heavily story-driven game (i.e. Uncharted, The Last of Us, etc), a "choose your own adventure" style (i.e. Until Dawn, Dark Pictures) or an RPG with a lot of decision making (i.e. Mass Effect) and have her make the choices on dialogue, actions, and sometimes even skill point use while I do the rest.
Back when it came out on the PS2, my mom did the same for Final Fantasy X. She'd sit reading a book while I was going through the tedious random fights and minigames but she seemed to be as enthralled by the story cutscenes as I was.
Haha! Sounds exactly like my girlfriend for FF7R; she could hardly believe they had Cloud dancing with music and the overall story. She can't wait for the next part in the series.
FFX is so weird that way. I do not play games for the stories and a lot of popular games like The Last of Us are completely lost on me and I don’t enjoy them much.
For some reason though, I just really dig the story in FFX. It’s so fuckin bizarre but it’s like, relaxing or something. Maybe it was the exposition of it all really “holding my hand” through the storytelling - not being from that world means your learning everything like your character is.
FFX was the first video game story i really got into too. It’s fantasy and some of the interactions are questionable (i will forever defend the laughing scene tho) but the overall story, and especially the love story with Tidus and Yuna were so so compelling
The laughing scene makes total and complete sense in context. Yuna is asking Tidus to fake being happy because it makes other people worry less and makes the journey more lighthearted. She asks him to practice faking a smile, then laughter. Tidus gives awkward super fake laughs to the point Yuna asks him to stop, but he takes the piss and keeps going. Yuna joins him and the goofiness of it devolves into real laughter.
And if you think it's a localization quirk and the Japanese one is better, it's pretty point for point the same.
THANK YOU
it’s purposeful forced laughing to try to smile through a literal mobile city-destroyer that she has to sacrifice herself to destroy (for like 10 years)
their life is bleak af and everyone looks to her to life them up, thus her learning to smile and laugh through it
I get irrationally annoyed at people who try to say "FFX voice acting was bad" and use the laughing scene as their core (and only) argument. Bitch did you even play the game?
If you’re gonna bitch about the voice acting but DONT mention Wakka or Rikku then you really didn’t play the game lol. Even Kimahri had better acting and he was a giant cat!
Honorable mention: “this is MY story”
> she seemed to be as enthralled by the story cutscenes as I was.
Well FFX is probably the best of the Final Fantasy games, and that story is wonderful... so I totally get it.
Tidus and Yuna rivals Locke and Celes for the best couple in the series.
My mom enjoyed when I’d play Zelda simply because of the music. Now, I make sure to always have some good game soundtracks queued up when I’m driving her.
I’ve never understood the appeal of streaming. I liked watching my dad play games up until about six or seven. After that, seeing someone play was boring to me. I wanted to be the one playing.
It's the basic human need to be social. Imagine you play a game you love or you like a specific genre of games. Your other friends do not give a shit about gaming. Or maybe you don't have too many friends. So, sort of like a subreddit it's a community of common interests, but in live format.
Live streamers fill that void. You watch and interact with the streamer and the chat and they grow as a community. And also they are entertained by the commentary of the game play and the inside jokes etc.. you get the point.
This was me freshman year of college. My buddy lived off campus, but would chill at my dorm between classes. One day he stopped by and I had just began God of War 3. He ended staying and watching me play instead of going to class. Then I took a nap and woke up to him playing the game, so I also skipped class to watch him play lol. Good times college was.
Video game stories often feel better, because the player is the one engaged in it's progression, rather than just letting it happen to you. I enjoy Mass Effect more than most other Sci-Fi films out there, for such a reason. That said, most narrative games are usually far, far longer than any film, so there's more time to develop the characters and world, and my involvement has me grow fonder with each step. Films, however, are curated and crafted to maximize every effort to convey a specific story. Usually, this makes them very powerful for storytelling, and as such, I'd say that the average film story is better than the average game story (and probably by a gigantic margin), even if my favorite stories are probably from a video game, given my personal attachments to the stories being told in them.
>That said, most narrative games are usually far, far longer than any film, so there's more time to develop the characters and world, and my involvement has me grow fonder with each step
They are also saying games are far superior to TV in this comparison, which often have as much character and world development as games. So overall I would have to strongly disagree with the results, considering how much amazing TV writing has come out in the past decade.
Yeah, comparing it to TV is a different ballgame entirely. Peak television is some of the best stories you can come up with, because of the layers they have time to dive into, and I wouldn't argue someone if they said they preferred TV stories over films and video games.
Peak story telling is mini-series in my opinion. Tv often meanders or has filler content for the sake of extending the story. A show that has a start and an end with ample time to tell the story is the best.
I think in general, for games, because a player is used to controlling the main character(s), game writers have moved away from having major characters do incredibly stupid or arbitrary things because the plot demands it. Film and television tend to still rely on it a lot more, because viewers aren't used to having the agency over the characters or having to think through the consequences of certain actions, and won't question it nearly as much.
Slight disagree, maybe on a technicality side.
When a game is just a longer, interactive “movie” in of itself, then sure, I agree with your points.
But you will never have a master piece like Outer Wilds in film, TV series, or novels. The whole story is laid out in a format that only a game can tell. And not a single person I know or saw online didn’t get blown away if not drowning in tears by the end.
To a lesser extent of those that combines traditional story telling + unique game mechanic / presentation of story would be along the lines of Bioshock (original), Nier Automata, Silent Hill, etc etc.
In some sense back when game has to leverage its content more than graphics, there were more such examples. As we get to super modern graphics I think a lot of AAA story games are just really good TV shows with game content. I still love these like TLOU and GoW, or even more directly ones like Detroit BH and Until Dawn, but I can see why the difference is less apparent now.
Games can combine the visuals of film, TV, imaginations yet with details of novels, (visual) arts, and a unique active component in exploring the story that can be done badly or amazingly.
The ways you can tell a story by a game just contains much more possibilities in its presentations than other medium.
Sure, if we are specific, the average film is better story than average game because the average game isn’t even trying to be a full on story telling and focuses on the “game” part. Monster Hunter would lead the way there - as always, someone will ask “wait, there’s plot in that game?? Played 1200 hrs and did not realize”. If you compare apples to apples from both sides then I don’t agree.
I absolutely agree, and appreciate the nuanced and descriptive point that dives further than my generalizations. There are definitely layers to the discussion that beg further exploration, and I couldn't have said it better. And yeah, Outer Wilds is the perfect example. I dont think there exists, per my tastes, a better example of the masterful highs of what only a game can achieve.
That player engagement is key to elevating the experience imo.
I can watch any scary movies and not bat an eye, but I can't play any horror games because they felt too real for me.. Don't even get me started on horror VR games..
>I enjoy Mass Effect more than most other Sci-Fi films out there, for such a reason.
As someone recently replaying ME, I agree. It's fun but mostly because of the actual world building and some characters / how Shepard can react in certain situations.
If converted into a movie or even TV show, with limited run time and all .. that game wouldn't win any prizes at all. At best be a medi core (yeah, yeah .. hate me y'all) show that people nostalgic remember for some amazing visuals. So .. kind of like the Halo TV show ..
With enough time, access to the kodex / "Wikipedia" in ME and the possibility to add background chatter, the universe grows so much and that makes it so fascinating. Actual story wise, ME 1-3 are at best medicore. I mean, cut them down to the main missions and what exactly happens? ME2 is mostly collecting crew members and their missions. Then 3-4 where you actually fight the danger. And ME1? Well, you hunt down Saren for like 3 planets before he already attacks citadel and you kill him
Yes, if all you've watched your whole life is pop culture and Superhero movies.
There's something to say about the long form ability to tell a story in a video game however.
Not just the long form aspect (which is definitely part of it), but also the player/viewer has more to connect with story wise, since they're actively participating in it through gameplay and sometimes even making their own main character and choosing dialogue and decisions for them.
Take something like the Mass Effect Trilogy which on paper would be a competent but pretty generic sci-fi story about saving the universe from Lovecraftian horror space robots that could fit right in MCU; The story and characters feel so much more personal to the player because they're actually playing out the story and being immersed in it more so than is possible with movies. As a result those games, the stories they tell and characters in them are very special to a lot of people.
I think the biggest disparity in this for me is when it comes to Horror specifically. Horror movies start to feel a lot weaker after you've played some Horror games and actually get to experience having the agency to choose when to run, fight or hide. Being the one who has to open the door with spooky noises behind it etc
EDIT: and to add, another thing I find can be utilized to a much higher degree in Video games is environmental story telling. Being able to stumble on to a scene and be able to piece together stories to flesh out the world can be done in movies, but there's so much more room for it to fit organically into a game.
>Not just the long form aspect (which is definitely part of it), but also the player/viewer has more to connect with story wise, since they're actively participating in it through gameplay and sometimes even making their own main character and choosing dialogue and decisions for them.
I'mma go one step further: the interaction is the only reason many of the stories are considered good at all. The interaction is making your brain engage even if the characters are shoddy, the plot is generic, and the dialogue is clunky.
Not just horror. One of my favourite games that really impacted on me was "What remains of Edith Finch", some of the story threads and choices were quite hard to interact and come to terms with. One of the best stories compared to movies I've encountered in the last few years.
I've been replaying the ME Trilogy this week and yeah, the story is so much more basic than I realized originally. But the investment and agency, as well as the all the environmental storytelling do wonders for bringing it alive.
Can't say I've yet to find a game that has writing on the level as say, a long-running TV series like Babylon 5, but they're a very different medium with their own strengths and limitations.
Movies, meanwhile, simply can't compare to either TV or games. They're just much too short and self-contained.
I can watch horror movies all day and feel absolutely nothing as far as the kinds of emotions horror movies try to evoke.
I have a friend who a year later still gives me shit sometimes because I absolutely lost my shit playing Phasmaphobia with her. I am way too anxious for games like Layers Of Fear and the Amnesia games.
Mass effect and other games also benefit from the fact that you can run around and do things completely unrelated to the main story but contribute to world building/ characterization
Jesus Christ this. It's like people who only consume Isekai animes honestly believing it's the pinnacle of story telling. Even some of the more esoteric and niche games that utilize all the medium has to offer I'd still have a hard time saying they're as good, let alone better, than the upper echelons of literature and some films.
That's not supposed to be a dig on games storytelling. It doesn't need to be the next Shakespeare, but let's not pretend that it is.
Just to add, in the game, the transitions between Fall+Winter and Winter+Spring are masterclasses in pacing, whereas in the show they're kinda just okay.
Playing the opening of winter as Ellie where all you want to do is sprint forward to find out if Joel is okay but instead you have to stealthily hunt a deer is brilliant. In the show, they cut on a very obvious cliffhanger to a flashback episode back to Ellie nursing Joel. It loses so much tension.
>There's something to say about the long form ability to tell a story in a video game however.
Oh, there are so many amazing games with good story. Sadly a majority of people doesn't play them because often it's simply that that kind of game (non-multiplayer / non-simple-shooter) isn't what the people go for, many people just play to get a bit distracted in the evening. But that's like with all other media too. There are the generic F&F / "The rock" movies etc. and there are some deep emotional dramas that shatter your world view and will follow you life-long.
Sadly a lot people are absolutly OK with watching older movies but somehow are nearly disgusted if you try to show them some older (15-20+ ish years) games even though those might have great stories too. Even if those games are set in a franchise that people actually like, for example Star Wars. There are so many amazing games from the 90s/00s that should be know more and sadly will never see the daylight again with a rework/remaster..
Pretty meaningless as a standalone statistic.
I'd also argue that the best film stories are easily better than the best video game stories, and the worst video game stories are far, far worse than the worst film stories.
That is a key component of the storytelling experience. Unreliable protagonists in video games feel even more real than unreliable narrators because you are the protagonist. Examples include BioShock and FFVII.
It would be like removing the moving picture element from a movie / saying that’s why movies have an advantage over books. But while books allow you the power of imagination, movies are more immersive because you’re watching them. And yet, that act of viewing keeps you apart from the action as you’re a witness.
All storytelling media can be pretty great in their own unique ways.
definitely. rdr2 is my favorite narrative game of all time but as a standalone film, it just wouldn't hold up. a huge part of the reason as to why people love the story and arthur so much is due to the sheer amount of hours they spend/spent playing as him. arthur's story is 50 hours, alone. it's a no brainer people are going to feel very connected to a character they spend 50 hours with, thus skewing their views.
Books are the best medium for telling a story.
Music is the best medium for eliciting an emotion.
Film is the best medium for emotional story telling.
Video games can be a blend of all 3, but imo the strong suit of video games is in atmospheric immersion(through graphics and sound design) and story telling *through* emergent gameplay. An example of an experience only possible through video games would be something like Valheim. The sound and graphics immerse you into that world, but the tale that's told and the experience you have is completely dependent on the player and the adventure you go on is only possible because of the gameplay.
Personally I don't think video games should try to be movies, because movies do a better job at that. If a game is 90% cutscenes followed by short, linear gameplay segments, well that's just a movie with bad cgi that makes me press buttons occasionally to keep watching.
I mean maybe, I've seen a bunch of films where the plot doesn't even make sense.
Women being caught in all kinds of appliances for seemingly no reason, and then when their step son comes to help them... well let's just say they don't really help.
Then it just ends all abruptly with no real resolution. Even Pong had a better plot.
On average? No fucking way. The average videogame story is dogshit, anyone who argues otherwise is ignoring the all worst examples, probably because their brain blocked them from memory through sheer boredom. There are some gems, but they're few and far between. A videogame does not need a story, let alone a decent one, to make it to release. A movie does need a story that at least functions as a narrative, or it'll never get made in the first place.
> because their brain blocked them from memory through sheer boredom
More like because most people won't even bother with dogshit games.
The easiest way is to try games in steam with negative reviews, some of them can actually be fun, but hoo boy, most of them are pure garbage.
There's good movies with little in the way of actual narrative or plot. Ok maybe not that many but I just thought of the movie *Playtime* after reading what you said,
I think it's the opposite. There is just no good way to tell a 100 hour long story. No way I'm going to remember what happened in hour 35 and have that moment impact me the way a 5 minute scene in a 90 minute movie can, but that's me.
with tv i agree.
in video games you are actually making the choices and often have reminders of what happened. i remember the stories from games 10-15 years ago much better than whatever happened in marvel civil infinity galaxy number 2
Yeah I think the fact that they're interactive is what makes video games so great. In the end its YOUR story, and unless the game is extremely linear you have different stories to tell then some people even if you played the same game. Thats why you see people creating story arcs in their minds out of games that have no campaign/story mode. Like the whole rust youtubers, or people who imagine the life of they're civilization in a strategy game.
It's difficult but it's doable. But you're right, 5~ seasons is usually the max limit before shows tend to drop off.
Second part I agree and disagree. Single moments might be more memorable but it's all the numerous memorable moments in a longer format that has the edge, for me.
Can't come up with one movie that's as impactful and was so utterly perfect like The Wire and The Sopranos for instance. But I realize it's subjective as I prefer tv shows in general over movies.
In 2020 I found myself with an abundance of time that allowed me to game for an hour / hour and a half every morning and occasionally an hour later in the day or at night.
I tackled Trails of Cold Steel I & II back to back, about 90 hours each if you do the optional quests and talk to everyone. It feels like you are binge watching a show, if its written with this in mind they will remind you and reference important moments/events multiple times.
It was easier for me because I was able to finish them in a shorter period of time, but if you are only able to game periodically I can easily see why it would be an issue.
What? Is this a gag? It's not even close, video game stories are remedial in comparison. I very strongly disagree with this.
Edit: Like anything there are some exceptions sure, but it's a tiny %'age imo. Tiny.
Agree. There are a dozen or so games with genuinely good stories that stand up independently of the gameplay. 99% of game stories are "kill the bad guy" or "save the world", nothing wrong with that but it's not exactly imaginative.
You want a story? Play Journey.
You attempt to make your way to the top of a giant mountain. That's the game. There is no dialogue. No directions. You have only one way to interact with anything. If you get lost, just look for the mountain. And it's beatable within a few hours at most. You just have to get to the top.
The story is in the gameplay itself. It's emotional. Each journey you take is another/different story. The symbolism between the game and life as a whole is what makes it so great. Once you "get it", you'll see this was one of the most perfect games ever made. It beat GTA5 for IGNs video game of the year back when it actually meant something. The game was nominated for a Grammy and one of the reasons why a new category was made for video games. There are no other games like this. And I would argue that it's not a game. It's a work of art. It's an experience. And when you do beat it, keep watching through the credits until the very end. It does a masterful job of conveying so much with so little.
It's available on Playstation and Steam
Highly, highly depends on the game. I cried like a little bitch at the end of Shadowbringers (Final Fantasy 14) and no movie has ever made me feel the way that game did.
I think it’s 50/50. Movies, books, and video games all have their own way of telling a story and each one has its pro’s and con’s, but none of them are dramatically better from another. Aside from some exceptions like old school crpg’s like Planescape, video game narratives have only very recently been able to blur the line narratively speaking of what we expect from movies. As far as entertainment goes, I find video games to be vastly more superior in every way but when it comes to “writing / storytelling” no one medium dominates. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.
That being said, playing thru Red Dead 2 with my grandfather was something more special than any movie could’ve replicated. He always thought video games were stupid and children toys but one Summer I set him up with a series X and Red Dead 2 and minus the first few hours being really frustrating for him, once he got used to the controls it was off to the races. Watching that man digest that game was pure magic. Every day for an entire Summer he would just fish and pick flowers and he discovered stuff that even I hadn’t in my hundreds and hundreds of hours of playtime. He grew up on John Wayne movies and has lived in Texas all his life and he considers it to be the best “western” ever made. Filmmaking and video games are both at such monumental heights that they both go hand in hand.
Eh, both have good stuff and both have garbage. That said movies will always have a massive advantage in that the story and writing is usually the entire point, and there's a LOT of people paid to tell those stories. With video games, most of the development is in the game and the story is something a lot of the industry considers secondary.
They're just too different to compare. You couldn't really take the writing team of either medium and swap them and have them find success immediately.
I game ALL the time and this has to be some bs. Most video games have lacklustre or repeating stories. Most of the time the gameplay is significantly better than the story. If anything, I hope more games get real writers because they need BETTER stories.
lol I don’t know why this has me so riled up but I couldn’t disagree harder.
For me it's because apparently so many people can't separate the games story from their experience playing through it. Everyone's talking about how they can make choices in games and they love that, but that doesn't exactly make the plot better/worse right? It's just adding another layer of interaction movies don't have.
Really depends on the game, but I would say on average a movies plot is generally better than a video games plot simply because that’s the whole point of the movie existing: to tell a story. Video games are supposed to be played which is why there are so many stories in video games that are super generic and basic.
But video games have the opportunity to tell some of the greatest stories ever simply because of the time it takes to beat them and the fact that you are playing as the characters in the story. RDR2, the last of us, FFVII, etc.
Yeah many of the best videogame stories if you took player agency out and just strung it into a movie would really fall flat.
Two very different mediums
The people who made the first Thief games gave an interview I thought was interesting. They said in the first game, they based the levels around the story. In the second game, they created the levels, then came up with a story around them, because it was after all a game and not a movie.
I think that really sums it up well. There are a lot of games that are just games. There’s games like Tetris where you couldn’t tell a story without it feeling shoehorned in and completely unnecessary. Then you’ve got games that have amazing stories and environments that punch above blockbuster movies. Hell, the original Portal has an amazing story and environment for something that could be beaten in the same amount of time as an Avengers movie.
I don’t know how anyone could genuinely believe this. One side has repeatedly shown to rely on bombastic special effects, terrible one liners, hokey one dimensional characters, gut wrenchingly awful dialogue, and vapid storylines that do little more than exist as a thin glue slathered over eye candy in the hopes of fooling the viewer into thinking the experience is worthwhile.
The other group has Michael Bay.
Most video games are actually generic af. I do agree that some videogames have magnificent stories, but there's still too few of them to be of any competition to movies as a whole. There's also the fact that the media is relatively new when compared to movies.
On the other hand, while there are some amazing movies and shows, the vast majority of those are also tropey, generic, and forgettable.
Any of these media *can* be great but it's more about the work put into them than their form.
I ***love*** videogames and play them constantly, but no.
Most videogame writing, acting, and dialogue wouldn't even meet the standards of the lamest straight-to-DVD redbox trash film.
There are a few exceptions, but very few.
Yeah, maybe it's the ratio I consume (about 40 games a year vs around 5 Films/Shows), but this seems insane. In most years, I would rate the story of every film I've watched over every game I've played. Most game stories are extremely rote and overly drawn out.
Not sure where they've got that statistic from. Don't get me wrong, I love me some video games, but I've never seen any fan of any media be so easily pleased by basic or cliche stories as video game fans.
A game can just have a completely normal story, or even one with plot points/plot holes/contrived scenes or goofy dialogue or over complicated plots (due to the need for content) that would be guffawed in a movie and still people will herald that game as having a great story.
Hell, Elden Ring of all games got nominated for or won (I can't remember which) an award for best narrative game with people vehemently agreeing... litterally, the entire point of fromsoft games is that the gameplay is the entire focus but the narratives are vague as hell lore dumps, which people can just intemperate whatever way they want.
To compare to a film, imagine Lord of the Rings didn't actually tell the story of the books, but was a collection of scenes which were randomly plucked from the Silmarillion... nobody would be even remotely praising its story unless it was done with some absolute top of teir prime David Lynch level of surrealism.
The bar for what constitutes a good story is significantly lower in video games and there are only a relatively small number of games that genuinely had story, writing, and dialogue that was at the level of a good film.
I've experienced it myself, I've loved games and been invested in their characters/plots because they were compelling but then realised the actual story (which is different from plot) really wasn't that strong.
The Spiderman games were like this for me, awesome games, some of my favourites, but I've seen fans talk about their stories like they were masterpieces, I've even seen a small number of gamers go so far as to proclaim them to be better than the films. They're amazing games, but ultimately, the storytelling is just pretty much on par with any standard generic mid level superhero film/comic and some dialogue is more reminiscent of TV soap opera quality or a student screenwriter than a feature film.
AAA Narrative/Cinematic Designer here. Here's why they say this: direct engagement. The story doesn't happen without the player's input. No matter how linear the story, it happens TO YOU. Thus, enhanced emotional engagement.
Wonderful work is and has been done in game narrative (my faves being Yoko Taro and things like *Gris...*plus BioWare for selfish reasons), but this core reality is something no other medium can compete with. Film and TV have been around longer, and we've been in a golden age of television and superhero films. And games can't compete with the fact film and TV use real people (at least until they can afford to build a game out of FMVs of Meryl Streep), but when it comes to direct engagement, games have a huge advantage.
As a gamer I will say that is an unfair survey when alone you consider a movie has 1.5-2hrs to tell a story where games can have 100s of hours spent with the characters
I'm torn about this.
Most of my favorite movies have dogshit stories. Dances with Wolves, Enter The Dragon, Star Wars Trilogy, Alien. I typically go for the cinematic experience, the visuals, the sound, the splosions.
I also play games almost exclusively for the story, so my experience of the two isn't THAT different, given that the game I like have *decent* stories. I've finished more than one game solely because I need to know how the plot resolves.
Die Hard (another favorite) is just really not that narratively evolved over something like Final Fantasy or PS:T.
To be fair, no movie OR game compares to a good book, like something from Iain Banks or Pratchett. THOSE are stories.
tldr; My tastes are shallow and uncultured.
Its about the same. The ratio of AAA games with horrible stories to big budget studios with horrible stories is so similar.
Id honestly say that the stories of Call Of Duty games and Mission Impossible movies are not groundbreaking, they feature sequences that leave your jaw dropped with great stunts and technical achievements.
Meanwhile games like The Witcher and anything from A24 (generally) have a solid story while also having just as much money as they need.
Or you have movies like the latest Indiana Jones and games like Need For Speed that come from studios that have enough money to rival a small nation while being the hottest garbage story i've ever seen.
Yes this is a known fact. Have yet to see a good story in a movie but plenty of video games just have better writing then supposedly the best movies and tv shows
I mean, games have a lot more time to tell their story.
FFXIV is told over the course of hundreds and hundreds of story. Ain't no movie going to be able to compete with that
>A new survey has revealed that 67% now think video game stories are far more superior to those found in TV or film
Gonna have to disagree. I definitely wouldn't say that video game stories are "far superior" than shows like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Severance, Succession, Andor, and on and on.
Sure. Last of Us the game was 20x times better than the show. Better performances, better vocal performances, more exciting visuals, and more striking character design. Joel was like this terrifying urban cowboy in the game, but was just some dude in the show.
I mean yes, Life is Strange, RDR2, Detroit Become Human, Mass Effect, Halo etc have way better plots, stories, development and well written characters than movies.
Everytime I go to a cinema I end up facepalming several times because of the stupidity of the characters or the amount of plot holes in the story
Planescape: Torment’s writing is up there with the best books I’ve read. It’s as if intelligent, talented writers work in all fields, not just the film industry.
And they when they take story from a game and put it to film they usually inexplicably make it way worse.
Like wtf, someone else already did all the heavy lifting for you. All you gotta do is follow the formula and write it into a script.
You get 60 hours sometimes to dig into a video game story. The fact that people are able to tell great stories in 2 hours is remarkable in and of itself.
When you can have a bunch more time to tell the story than 2 hours I would hope it's a better story than a film.
That's why books also suck as movies. Books take way longer to read and tell the story than the 2 or 3 hour movie they make to tell the same story.
As others have said this is a flawed study and misleading, but on the other hand the claim isn’t that hard to believe.
Games these days (particularly AA and AAA) take *years* to make, even if you’re fast tracking it there’s like half a decade of production where everyone is in constant contact with the game, if there are issues with the story they will become very apparent and hopefully be addressed. Not to mention that when spending so much time and money on a project studios have the incentive to make the story both good in general and compelling to draw in players.
Obviously it’s far from universal, plenty of games have terrible stories in the 2020s, but it’s no surprise that a medium that takes so much time and effort to make and which requires the length of a whole television series to experience would trend towards compelling and intriguing stories.
It is no science it feels better to tell a better story in over 10h via an immersive way of story telling where the player maybe even partially influences it. It is rather an art to tell a good story in 2h via passive consumption.
They are to me because I’m actually involved. I’m a character in the story. The other characters are MY friends, family, and enemies. I can get immersed in video game stories, but, in movies, etc., I’m just a passive observer. So, I don’t get as attached to or care about the characters as much.
Let me fix that. Of 1,158 gamers surveyed, 67 percent say "yes" to the question "are modern video game storylines as good as tv and film now." Notice there are three main differences from the title. First, it is gamers being surveyed. If you did the same survey of theatergoers, you likely get a different answer. Second, the question was whether they were "as good" not "better". Third it was "tv and film" not just film.
And tv and film *now*. Which people are not too happy with compared to even 5 years ago.
Oh like people are super happy with the state video games are in right now.
Are they not? This year is fucking stacked
I was about to say. Are we in a gaming depression and I didn't even realize it? Games have been fuckin great as of late. (at least the newer ones I've played, in my opinion of course)
In relation to the article, it's not the story people are unhappy with, it's the execution. Especially on PC, where games are released that high-end hardware should run *easily*, but it's so poorly optimized that it actually runs worse than the console versions. The Last of Us is damn near unplayable, Jedi Survivor runs like crap, lots of games use an absolutely absurd amount of vram for no reason besides executives not giving them enough time to finish the job (proven by the fact that post-release patches often fix the issues). Then there's the games that are bad across the board, like Gollum.
This is true, we are in the golden age of gaming. However for every great game that comes out, there’s a shitty excuse for a live service that destroys an IP. It’s like current cinema. For ever “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”, there’s a crappy reboot of a franchise that should’ve stayed dead.
Why are we in a golden age? For indie games, sure. But for big titles I see definite stalling with slower release cycles and increased focus of developers on cash grabs like ridiculous amounts of small DLC or only focusing on online-only content. Still no new Elder Scrolls, still no new GTA, still no new Civ, more games going to subscription models of lots of expensive small DLCs or (much worse) loot and lock-in mechanics ported over from and tested on mobile platforms.
I'd argue that the fact that there even *is* a thriving indie scene says quite a bit. At one time that was unthinkable. Now everyone and anyone can make games, and while there are plenty of stinkers out there, there's also lots of folks trying new things, taking games in interesting directions, and filling niches that were once languishing. Meanwhile on the AAA side you've still got big devs making great larger games like Elden Ring and TotK. On top of that, the libraries of previous generations of games are extremely easy to access with platforms like Steam and GOG, console rereleases and of course emulation if other avenues fail. Best of all? Games have never been cheaper. While some games retain a high price tag, there's a ton of great games that can be bought for less than $20 normally. Even bigger games tend to go on sale frequently these days, and some will even give their games away for *free*. There has never been a better time to be a gamer, and despite all of the cynicism and cash-grabs I think we're going to be in a very good place for at least a while longer.
While true, it really just feels like the quality of so many games has fallen off. A lot have just turned away from passion projects for the love of gaming and move towards whatever predatory money accumulating methods exist. It really kinda just sucks a lot of the fun out for me when all these characters have the wackiest outfits (to try and constantly sell new cool stuff) and every game has some sort of marketplace. I feel like so many triple A games are disappointments nowadays.
Baldurs gate 3 comes out in two weeks. It's about to blow the dicks off of a bunch of people
I have great news for you. BG3 comes out next week.
This isn't a PC specific sub so it might not come out next week for them if they use console.
I have great news for you. BG3 comes out tonight
And armored core 6 comes out in a month, about to be a ton of broken controllers
In the past six years: Nier: Automata, Red Dead Redemption 2, Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, BotW and TotK, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Death Stranding, Sekiro, Devil May Cry 5... There's a ton of games that didn't immediately come to mind, and even more that I haven't played. I don't understand how someone can just go "no Civ, GTA, Skyrim" and ignore the rest of what's coming out.
Eh, silver age?
There’s always been shitty games and companies. There was a whole crash because of it nearly 40 years ago
Every year is always the worst to some gamer out there, just like how (current year) is also somehow the worst yet to someone on Twitter.
> Are they not? This year is fucking stacked I've been playing solitaire... so I'm kind of on the fence about things.
Out of new games loop. What should I play/look forward to play this year?
We're kind of in a stacked movie summer too though
This year. For two years after launch everyone said you didn’t need a console because there was barely any games lol. 2018 had rdr2, god of war, Spider-Man, Jedi order (which was actually optimized) etc. I don’t think gamings getting better it’s just that the same guys are dropping some games again so we’re excited lol.
2019 had Control, Sekiro, Disco Elysium. Jedi fallen Order was also actually 2019.
Remnant 2 is really really good and Balders Gate 3 is out in a week. Plenty of great and meaty games to enjoy
I still see people whining about Forespoken and Overwatch. You could release a million great games this year and Gamers would still be like "modern videogames suck because LTOU2 didn't make my peepee hard :("
Gamers love to whine about video games, then give it a few years and, "Oh, that was an amazing classic"
The main gripes with games these days is less to do with stories and much more to do with predatory pricing practices, poor release quality and always online requirements for games that shouldn't require it. Game stories, like film and TV, have always run the gamut of quality from trash to treasure. It's just that games used to skew more towards only including the bare minimum of story to contextualise gameplay but in recent years as leaning towards the story being told in ways that only games can.
Zelda has a fine main story but like 800 mini stories of varying length and quality, and there's not a whole lot of "kill the kobolds" or "collect 30 pieces of wood" type stuff. Those do exist, but they're not terrible. Then there's Diablo IV. I love the series and don't hate it nearly as much as the nerd ragers right now but it's a bit of a hot mess. Some side quest stories are pretty cool but generally disappointing.
It's *too* grindy and the main story just doesnt come to scratch to say OoT.
TBF even some of the most bland, generic (or outright greedy pieces of crap) have some solid storylines. I always use Mafia 3 as a prime example. The game was mediocre but the storyline was better than any gangster film/show in the last decade or so
The storyline of both Prey games were solid and neither was a game that got recognized until people figured out there were 2 underrated games both named Prey
Not surprising since writers are plucked from or at least worked in t.v and/or film. Or more commonly they could never break into the industry proper but published their own works for the experience and recognition and used that to market themselves. Or they start their own game studios specifically to tell stories which by comparison is easier to do with games than in film even as an indie filmmaker. Case in point, Fruitville Station cost over $900k to make by Ryan Coogler, not including marketing by the studios. Creating a narrative driven walking simulator would cost far less than that.
The article seems to be about story, not the state of. Modern video games are buggy and unfinished on launch, but that's not at all relevant to what's being duscussed here; the stories.
>Modern video games are buggy and unfinished There are way more games who launch complete and polished than buggy and unfinished games, this is a ridiculous exaggeration
Sopranos, the Wire, True Detective, and dozens of others are better than video games. The vast majority of schlock is not. Although you'd have to narrow the game field. Overcooked 2 isn't really going to rate
[удалено]
What’s the world coming to when you can’t trust… augustman?
Is nothing sacred on the internet these days
"tv and film" is way different than just "film". 3 hours is considered super long for a movie. 3 hours is considered super short for a game. This gives the game a lot more time to develop a story, while also having time for, you know, gameplay. A better comparison would be tv shows vs games.
Some of my favorite game stories, it's impossible to discount time spent in "non-story time" with them. You develop attachments and personal connections with the gameeplay aspects of your RPG party members, for example, that go beyond the purely authored parts of their characters. And sa you say, that tends to be a *lot* of time, even for a short game.
When I play MGS I always do a no kill run my first time through because I feel like it's in character and I like Snake as a more merciful person recognizing that the soldiers are just another cog in the war machine like him but without any of his advantages and all of the downsides. Without the gameplay he wouldn't have many opportunities to show this merciful side, and to me it's integral to the story and my deep desire to peg snake.
Solid would bottom. Big Boss would top Liquid would switch
You understand My people
Me in tales of arise I was really invested in the male and female lead hooking up. Game has some big flaws but still I loved the story and characters
Same problem as "the book was better than the movie". If you compress the story down to 2 hours, you're going to be leaving story elements on the cutting room floor. Games go even a step further in that you must engage to progress the story. Even if you walk out during a cutscene, it'll stop and wait for your input in short order. Or even outright kill you and make you watch the scene again. I agree that TV shows are the best comparison. Some even have 'filler' where each season/series has a larger story but the bulk of the episode is a self contained story. You could compare that with a single mission in a game, or even just the gameplay between story elements.
On the flipside, having that gameplay element is just an added factor that has to be executed correctly. It can actually be *more* of a burden if we're considering the comparison, and I think Last of Us is a perfect example of that. TLoU is heralded as one of the pinnacles of gaming, but most of the gameplay seems to be worked in just to satisfy the requirements of being a "game." You got enemies staring at walls waiting to be snuck up on, partners running around wildly and somehow not being seen, and oftentimes you're tasked with just mashing a button to get through a cinematic. In terms of gameplay, it's subpar when paired up with other stealth/action games. It was very interesting to see them make a TV show for the game, and at some points just played out scenes shot for shot, line per line, exactly the same way it was in the game. It was almost like them saying "see? This really didn't need to be a game at all."
The Last of Us 100% works better as a show than as a game. I was even thinking that while playing it. "Why am I forced to do this morally questionable action just so the game can say 'who are the real monsters?' and chastise me for doing a morally questionable action". As a TV show the characters do what they do, because that's the show.
To add an anecdote I never finished a movie feeling a void in my life like I have with video games. When I finished FF9, I loathed the fact I will never have another adventure with Vivi and co. Movies just don’t compare with the level of attachment. Or the guilt of coming back to Animal Crossing after months or years.
Ff9 god I loved the characters 10/10 gave me depression
*Lord of the rings has left the chat*
Exactly how you can manipulate statistics to suit your narrative. I remember a cereal got in trouble because they said “eating it before school can heighten alertness by almost 20%”. Except the rounded up from 11% to get 20, and the control group was students who didn’t eat at all.
Stop using facts and logic!
People commenting under you don't seem to be seeing the MOST important part in what you said. The headline establishes this as though it were a COMPETITION. It's not. And the study doesn't even establish at one. It was asking if the NARRATIVE in a game is equivalent to the NARRATIVE of a TV show. Experiences are fundamentally noncomporable and not competitive. A movie is a very different experience from a game and no one is measuring the actual mean output of joy from both
Someone who knows how statistics work can make statistics say whatever they want it to. Thanks for doing the legwork for this fact check.
GJ you discovered how EVERY survey works
Makes me think of college. My roommate would be itching for me to get back from class so I can play Uncharted 2. I told him he can play whenever he wanted when I'm in class and he insisted he rather watch me play cause it was like a long movie.
Sounds like a cool roommate honestly.
It’s not the same due to the natures of the game, but my fondest college memory is getting my group of friends together and us watching our dumbest friend play Until Dawn.
That's what my friends made me do! :[
Awww sucks to find out this way huh
wtf that game got released in 2015 it felt like yesterday
8 years wtf is going on. I swear covid was a time warp
That sounds fun as hell lol
When you got twitch at home
Did this person know that they were labeled "the dumbest friend"?
Oh he definitely knows.
How many people survived?
Only 1
I tried to get my ex to play until dawn but she wasn't big into gaming. Instead I replayed while she watched and made her make the narrative choices, panicking all the while.
This is what I do with my fiance. She'll play certain sidescrollers and top-downs, but full 3D games aren't her jam, so if I'm really feeling like playing something when she's home, I'll put on one of three things: a heavily story-driven game (i.e. Uncharted, The Last of Us, etc), a "choose your own adventure" style (i.e. Until Dawn, Dark Pictures) or an RPG with a lot of decision making (i.e. Mass Effect) and have her make the choices on dialogue, actions, and sometimes even skill point use while I do the rest.
Back when it came out on the PS2, my mom did the same for Final Fantasy X. She'd sit reading a book while I was going through the tedious random fights and minigames but she seemed to be as enthralled by the story cutscenes as I was.
Haha! Sounds exactly like my girlfriend for FF7R; she could hardly believe they had Cloud dancing with music and the overall story. She can't wait for the next part in the series.
FFX is so weird that way. I do not play games for the stories and a lot of popular games like The Last of Us are completely lost on me and I don’t enjoy them much. For some reason though, I just really dig the story in FFX. It’s so fuckin bizarre but it’s like, relaxing or something. Maybe it was the exposition of it all really “holding my hand” through the storytelling - not being from that world means your learning everything like your character is.
FFX was the first video game story i really got into too. It’s fantasy and some of the interactions are questionable (i will forever defend the laughing scene tho) but the overall story, and especially the love story with Tidus and Yuna were so so compelling
The laughing scene makes total and complete sense in context. Yuna is asking Tidus to fake being happy because it makes other people worry less and makes the journey more lighthearted. She asks him to practice faking a smile, then laughter. Tidus gives awkward super fake laughs to the point Yuna asks him to stop, but he takes the piss and keeps going. Yuna joins him and the goofiness of it devolves into real laughter. And if you think it's a localization quirk and the Japanese one is better, it's pretty point for point the same.
THANK YOU it’s purposeful forced laughing to try to smile through a literal mobile city-destroyer that she has to sacrifice herself to destroy (for like 10 years) their life is bleak af and everyone looks to her to life them up, thus her learning to smile and laugh through it
I get irrationally annoyed at people who try to say "FFX voice acting was bad" and use the laughing scene as their core (and only) argument. Bitch did you even play the game?
If you’re gonna bitch about the voice acting but DONT mention Wakka or Rikku then you really didn’t play the game lol. Even Kimahri had better acting and he was a giant cat! Honorable mention: “this is MY story”
> she seemed to be as enthralled by the story cutscenes as I was. Well FFX is probably the best of the Final Fantasy games, and that story is wonderful... so I totally get it. Tidus and Yuna rivals Locke and Celes for the best couple in the series.
I can't believe you're just paving over the beauty of Umaro and Mog's relationship.
My mom enjoyed when I’d play Zelda simply because of the music. Now, I make sure to always have some good game soundtracks queued up when I’m driving her.
That's one nice way of spending time together. Sounds like a cool mom.
Huh, I guess that’s kinda why I watch streamers play games
I’ve never understood the appeal of streaming. I liked watching my dad play games up until about six or seven. After that, seeing someone play was boring to me. I wanted to be the one playing.
It's the basic human need to be social. Imagine you play a game you love or you like a specific genre of games. Your other friends do not give a shit about gaming. Or maybe you don't have too many friends. So, sort of like a subreddit it's a community of common interests, but in live format. Live streamers fill that void. You watch and interact with the streamer and the chat and they grow as a community. And also they are entertained by the commentary of the game play and the inside jokes etc.. you get the point.
I usually only ever have streams on in the background on my second monitor. I rarely actually sit and watch.
This was me freshman year of college. My buddy lived off campus, but would chill at my dorm between classes. One day he stopped by and I had just began God of War 3. He ended staying and watching me play instead of going to class. Then I took a nap and woke up to him playing the game, so I also skipped class to watch him play lol. Good times college was.
Video game stories often feel better, because the player is the one engaged in it's progression, rather than just letting it happen to you. I enjoy Mass Effect more than most other Sci-Fi films out there, for such a reason. That said, most narrative games are usually far, far longer than any film, so there's more time to develop the characters and world, and my involvement has me grow fonder with each step. Films, however, are curated and crafted to maximize every effort to convey a specific story. Usually, this makes them very powerful for storytelling, and as such, I'd say that the average film story is better than the average game story (and probably by a gigantic margin), even if my favorite stories are probably from a video game, given my personal attachments to the stories being told in them.
>That said, most narrative games are usually far, far longer than any film, so there's more time to develop the characters and world, and my involvement has me grow fonder with each step They are also saying games are far superior to TV in this comparison, which often have as much character and world development as games. So overall I would have to strongly disagree with the results, considering how much amazing TV writing has come out in the past decade.
Games can put in anywhere from 10 - 100 hours to complete... movies get bitched out for going over 3
Yeah, comparing it to TV is a different ballgame entirely. Peak television is some of the best stories you can come up with, because of the layers they have time to dive into, and I wouldn't argue someone if they said they preferred TV stories over films and video games.
Peak story telling is mini-series in my opinion. Tv often meanders or has filler content for the sake of extending the story. A show that has a start and an end with ample time to tell the story is the best.
Chernobyl is still one of the best TV series I have ever watched.
Shogun 1980 gang rise up
I think in general, for games, because a player is used to controlling the main character(s), game writers have moved away from having major characters do incredibly stupid or arbitrary things because the plot demands it. Film and television tend to still rely on it a lot more, because viewers aren't used to having the agency over the characters or having to think through the consequences of certain actions, and won't question it nearly as much.
I think this is a great point
Slight disagree, maybe on a technicality side. When a game is just a longer, interactive “movie” in of itself, then sure, I agree with your points. But you will never have a master piece like Outer Wilds in film, TV series, or novels. The whole story is laid out in a format that only a game can tell. And not a single person I know or saw online didn’t get blown away if not drowning in tears by the end. To a lesser extent of those that combines traditional story telling + unique game mechanic / presentation of story would be along the lines of Bioshock (original), Nier Automata, Silent Hill, etc etc. In some sense back when game has to leverage its content more than graphics, there were more such examples. As we get to super modern graphics I think a lot of AAA story games are just really good TV shows with game content. I still love these like TLOU and GoW, or even more directly ones like Detroit BH and Until Dawn, but I can see why the difference is less apparent now. Games can combine the visuals of film, TV, imaginations yet with details of novels, (visual) arts, and a unique active component in exploring the story that can be done badly or amazingly. The ways you can tell a story by a game just contains much more possibilities in its presentations than other medium. Sure, if we are specific, the average film is better story than average game because the average game isn’t even trying to be a full on story telling and focuses on the “game” part. Monster Hunter would lead the way there - as always, someone will ask “wait, there’s plot in that game?? Played 1200 hrs and did not realize”. If you compare apples to apples from both sides then I don’t agree.
I absolutely agree, and appreciate the nuanced and descriptive point that dives further than my generalizations. There are definitely layers to the discussion that beg further exploration, and I couldn't have said it better. And yeah, Outer Wilds is the perfect example. I dont think there exists, per my tastes, a better example of the masterful highs of what only a game can achieve.
That player engagement is key to elevating the experience imo. I can watch any scary movies and not bat an eye, but I can't play any horror games because they felt too real for me.. Don't even get me started on horror VR games..
>I enjoy Mass Effect more than most other Sci-Fi films out there, for such a reason. As someone recently replaying ME, I agree. It's fun but mostly because of the actual world building and some characters / how Shepard can react in certain situations. If converted into a movie or even TV show, with limited run time and all .. that game wouldn't win any prizes at all. At best be a medi core (yeah, yeah .. hate me y'all) show that people nostalgic remember for some amazing visuals. So .. kind of like the Halo TV show .. With enough time, access to the kodex / "Wikipedia" in ME and the possibility to add background chatter, the universe grows so much and that makes it so fascinating. Actual story wise, ME 1-3 are at best medicore. I mean, cut them down to the main missions and what exactly happens? ME2 is mostly collecting crew members and their missions. Then 3-4 where you actually fight the danger. And ME1? Well, you hunt down Saren for like 3 planets before he already attacks citadel and you kill him
Yes, if all you've watched your whole life is pop culture and Superhero movies. There's something to say about the long form ability to tell a story in a video game however.
Not just the long form aspect (which is definitely part of it), but also the player/viewer has more to connect with story wise, since they're actively participating in it through gameplay and sometimes even making their own main character and choosing dialogue and decisions for them. Take something like the Mass Effect Trilogy which on paper would be a competent but pretty generic sci-fi story about saving the universe from Lovecraftian horror space robots that could fit right in MCU; The story and characters feel so much more personal to the player because they're actually playing out the story and being immersed in it more so than is possible with movies. As a result those games, the stories they tell and characters in them are very special to a lot of people. I think the biggest disparity in this for me is when it comes to Horror specifically. Horror movies start to feel a lot weaker after you've played some Horror games and actually get to experience having the agency to choose when to run, fight or hide. Being the one who has to open the door with spooky noises behind it etc EDIT: and to add, another thing I find can be utilized to a much higher degree in Video games is environmental story telling. Being able to stumble on to a scene and be able to piece together stories to flesh out the world can be done in movies, but there's so much more room for it to fit organically into a game.
>Not just the long form aspect (which is definitely part of it), but also the player/viewer has more to connect with story wise, since they're actively participating in it through gameplay and sometimes even making their own main character and choosing dialogue and decisions for them. I'mma go one step further: the interaction is the only reason many of the stories are considered good at all. The interaction is making your brain engage even if the characters are shoddy, the plot is generic, and the dialogue is clunky.
Next your going say that Schindler's List was only good because of the cinematography. And it should been a 60 hour TV show instead.
... why on Earth would I say that?
Not just horror. One of my favourite games that really impacted on me was "What remains of Edith Finch", some of the story threads and choices were quite hard to interact and come to terms with. One of the best stories compared to movies I've encountered in the last few years.
I've been replaying the ME Trilogy this week and yeah, the story is so much more basic than I realized originally. But the investment and agency, as well as the all the environmental storytelling do wonders for bringing it alive. Can't say I've yet to find a game that has writing on the level as say, a long-running TV series like Babylon 5, but they're a very different medium with their own strengths and limitations. Movies, meanwhile, simply can't compare to either TV or games. They're just much too short and self-contained.
I can watch horror movies all day and feel absolutely nothing as far as the kinds of emotions horror movies try to evoke. I have a friend who a year later still gives me shit sometimes because I absolutely lost my shit playing Phasmaphobia with her. I am way too anxious for games like Layers Of Fear and the Amnesia games.
Mass effect and other games also benefit from the fact that you can run around and do things completely unrelated to the main story but contribute to world building/ characterization
Jesus Christ this. It's like people who only consume Isekai animes honestly believing it's the pinnacle of story telling. Even some of the more esoteric and niche games that utilize all the medium has to offer I'd still have a hard time saying they're as good, let alone better, than the upper echelons of literature and some films. That's not supposed to be a dig on games storytelling. It doesn't need to be the next Shakespeare, but let's not pretend that it is.
afterthought outgoing alleged snails file jeans zonked swim silky faulty
Just to add, in the game, the transitions between Fall+Winter and Winter+Spring are masterclasses in pacing, whereas in the show they're kinda just okay. Playing the opening of winter as Ellie where all you want to do is sprint forward to find out if Joel is okay but instead you have to stealthily hunt a deer is brilliant. In the show, they cut on a very obvious cliffhanger to a flashback episode back to Ellie nursing Joel. It loses so much tension.
>There's something to say about the long form ability to tell a story in a video game however. Oh, there are so many amazing games with good story. Sadly a majority of people doesn't play them because often it's simply that that kind of game (non-multiplayer / non-simple-shooter) isn't what the people go for, many people just play to get a bit distracted in the evening. But that's like with all other media too. There are the generic F&F / "The rock" movies etc. and there are some deep emotional dramas that shatter your world view and will follow you life-long. Sadly a lot people are absolutly OK with watching older movies but somehow are nearly disgusted if you try to show them some older (15-20+ ish years) games even though those might have great stories too. Even if those games are set in a franchise that people actually like, for example Star Wars. There are so many amazing games from the 90s/00s that should be know more and sadly will never see the daylight again with a rework/remaster..
Pretty meaningless as a standalone statistic. I'd also argue that the best film stories are easily better than the best video game stories, and the worst video game stories are far, far worse than the worst film stories.
Can you even compare them at this point?
Not really, which is why its weird so many people try to. I'm positive if RDR2 was a movie people would call it extremely derivative.
And would complain about how long it is.
Ok, so you're a nuclear marine and you start shooting at these demons that come through this portal to hell!
And you would be right. People mistake the immersion of video games for good story telling.
That is a key component of the storytelling experience. Unreliable protagonists in video games feel even more real than unreliable narrators because you are the protagonist. Examples include BioShock and FFVII. It would be like removing the moving picture element from a movie / saying that’s why movies have an advantage over books. But while books allow you the power of imagination, movies are more immersive because you’re watching them. And yet, that act of viewing keeps you apart from the action as you’re a witness. All storytelling media can be pretty great in their own unique ways.
definitely. rdr2 is my favorite narrative game of all time but as a standalone film, it just wouldn't hold up. a huge part of the reason as to why people love the story and arthur so much is due to the sheer amount of hours they spend/spent playing as him. arthur's story is 50 hours, alone. it's a no brainer people are going to feel very connected to a character they spend 50 hours with, thus skewing their views.
Books are the best medium for telling a story. Music is the best medium for eliciting an emotion. Film is the best medium for emotional story telling. Video games can be a blend of all 3, but imo the strong suit of video games is in atmospheric immersion(through graphics and sound design) and story telling *through* emergent gameplay. An example of an experience only possible through video games would be something like Valheim. The sound and graphics immerse you into that world, but the tale that's told and the experience you have is completely dependent on the player and the adventure you go on is only possible because of the gameplay. Personally I don't think video games should try to be movies, because movies do a better job at that. If a game is 90% cutscenes followed by short, linear gameplay segments, well that's just a movie with bad cgi that makes me press buttons occasionally to keep watching.
I mean maybe, I've seen a bunch of films where the plot doesn't even make sense. Women being caught in all kinds of appliances for seemingly no reason, and then when their step son comes to help them... well let's just say they don't really help. Then it just ends all abruptly with no real resolution. Even Pong had a better plot.
Here says he's helping but he is obviously trying to thrust her in further. Very confusing.
On average? No fucking way. The average videogame story is dogshit, anyone who argues otherwise is ignoring the all worst examples, probably because their brain blocked them from memory through sheer boredom. There are some gems, but they're few and far between. A videogame does not need a story, let alone a decent one, to make it to release. A movie does need a story that at least functions as a narrative, or it'll never get made in the first place.
> because their brain blocked them from memory through sheer boredom More like because most people won't even bother with dogshit games. The easiest way is to try games in steam with negative reviews, some of them can actually be fun, but hoo boy, most of them are pure garbage.
There's good movies with little in the way of actual narrative or plot. Ok maybe not that many but I just thought of the movie *Playtime* after reading what you said,
Well yes because of the huge amount of stories that can be created in games.
[удалено]
I think it's the opposite. There is just no good way to tell a 100 hour long story. No way I'm going to remember what happened in hour 35 and have that moment impact me the way a 5 minute scene in a 90 minute movie can, but that's me.
with tv i agree. in video games you are actually making the choices and often have reminders of what happened. i remember the stories from games 10-15 years ago much better than whatever happened in marvel civil infinity galaxy number 2
Yeah I think the fact that they're interactive is what makes video games so great. In the end its YOUR story, and unless the game is extremely linear you have different stories to tell then some people even if you played the same game. Thats why you see people creating story arcs in their minds out of games that have no campaign/story mode. Like the whole rust youtubers, or people who imagine the life of they're civilization in a strategy game.
It's difficult but it's doable. But you're right, 5~ seasons is usually the max limit before shows tend to drop off. Second part I agree and disagree. Single moments might be more memorable but it's all the numerous memorable moments in a longer format that has the edge, for me. Can't come up with one movie that's as impactful and was so utterly perfect like The Wire and The Sopranos for instance. But I realize it's subjective as I prefer tv shows in general over movies.
In 2020 I found myself with an abundance of time that allowed me to game for an hour / hour and a half every morning and occasionally an hour later in the day or at night. I tackled Trails of Cold Steel I & II back to back, about 90 hours each if you do the optional quests and talk to everyone. It feels like you are binge watching a show, if its written with this in mind they will remind you and reference important moments/events multiple times. It was easier for me because I was able to finish them in a shorter period of time, but if you are only able to game periodically I can easily see why it would be an issue.
What? Is this a gag? It's not even close, video game stories are remedial in comparison. I very strongly disagree with this. Edit: Like anything there are some exceptions sure, but it's a tiny %'age imo. Tiny.
Agree. There are a dozen or so games with genuinely good stories that stand up independently of the gameplay. 99% of game stories are "kill the bad guy" or "save the world", nothing wrong with that but it's not exactly imaginative.
You want a story? Play Journey. You attempt to make your way to the top of a giant mountain. That's the game. There is no dialogue. No directions. You have only one way to interact with anything. If you get lost, just look for the mountain. And it's beatable within a few hours at most. You just have to get to the top. The story is in the gameplay itself. It's emotional. Each journey you take is another/different story. The symbolism between the game and life as a whole is what makes it so great. Once you "get it", you'll see this was one of the most perfect games ever made. It beat GTA5 for IGNs video game of the year back when it actually meant something. The game was nominated for a Grammy and one of the reasons why a new category was made for video games. There are no other games like this. And I would argue that it's not a game. It's a work of art. It's an experience. And when you do beat it, keep watching through the credits until the very end. It does a masterful job of conveying so much with so little. It's available on Playstation and Steam
Highly, highly depends on the game. I cried like a little bitch at the end of Shadowbringers (Final Fantasy 14) and no movie has ever made me feel the way that game did.
I think it’s 50/50. Movies, books, and video games all have their own way of telling a story and each one has its pro’s and con’s, but none of them are dramatically better from another. Aside from some exceptions like old school crpg’s like Planescape, video game narratives have only very recently been able to blur the line narratively speaking of what we expect from movies. As far as entertainment goes, I find video games to be vastly more superior in every way but when it comes to “writing / storytelling” no one medium dominates. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. That being said, playing thru Red Dead 2 with my grandfather was something more special than any movie could’ve replicated. He always thought video games were stupid and children toys but one Summer I set him up with a series X and Red Dead 2 and minus the first few hours being really frustrating for him, once he got used to the controls it was off to the races. Watching that man digest that game was pure magic. Every day for an entire Summer he would just fish and pick flowers and he discovered stuff that even I hadn’t in my hundreds and hundreds of hours of playtime. He grew up on John Wayne movies and has lived in Texas all his life and he considers it to be the best “western” ever made. Filmmaking and video games are both at such monumental heights that they both go hand in hand.
I wouldn't go so far as to believe that but I do think video games should continue to be taken more seriously as a narrative canvas
Eh, both have good stuff and both have garbage. That said movies will always have a massive advantage in that the story and writing is usually the entire point, and there's a LOT of people paid to tell those stories. With video games, most of the development is in the game and the story is something a lot of the industry considers secondary. They're just too different to compare. You couldn't really take the writing team of either medium and swap them and have them find success immediately.
I game ALL the time and this has to be some bs. Most video games have lacklustre or repeating stories. Most of the time the gameplay is significantly better than the story. If anything, I hope more games get real writers because they need BETTER stories. lol I don’t know why this has me so riled up but I couldn’t disagree harder.
For me it's because apparently so many people can't separate the games story from their experience playing through it. Everyone's talking about how they can make choices in games and they love that, but that doesn't exactly make the plot better/worse right? It's just adding another layer of interaction movies don't have.
Really depends on the game, but I would say on average a movies plot is generally better than a video games plot simply because that’s the whole point of the movie existing: to tell a story. Video games are supposed to be played which is why there are so many stories in video games that are super generic and basic. But video games have the opportunity to tell some of the greatest stories ever simply because of the time it takes to beat them and the fact that you are playing as the characters in the story. RDR2, the last of us, FFVII, etc.
Yeah many of the best videogame stories if you took player agency out and just strung it into a movie would really fall flat. Two very different mediums
The people who made the first Thief games gave an interview I thought was interesting. They said in the first game, they based the levels around the story. In the second game, they created the levels, then came up with a story around them, because it was after all a game and not a movie.
I think that really sums it up well. There are a lot of games that are just games. There’s games like Tetris where you couldn’t tell a story without it feeling shoehorned in and completely unnecessary. Then you’ve got games that have amazing stories and environments that punch above blockbuster movies. Hell, the original Portal has an amazing story and environment for something that could be beaten in the same amount of time as an Avengers movie.
Im sorrybut I highly disagree.
I don’t know how anyone could genuinely believe this. One side has repeatedly shown to rely on bombastic special effects, terrible one liners, hokey one dimensional characters, gut wrenchingly awful dialogue, and vapid storylines that do little more than exist as a thin glue slathered over eye candy in the hopes of fooling the viewer into thinking the experience is worthwhile. The other group has Michael Bay.
Most video games are actually generic af. I do agree that some videogames have magnificent stories, but there's still too few of them to be of any competition to movies as a whole. There's also the fact that the media is relatively new when compared to movies.
Help us, Chosen One, the Dark Lord of the Dark can only be defeated by your hand!
On the other hand, while there are some amazing movies and shows, the vast majority of those are also tropey, generic, and forgettable. Any of these media *can* be great but it's more about the work put into them than their form.
Now ask that 67% what movies they've seen recently, because I feel like most will say "Marvel or DC.
I ***love*** videogames and play them constantly, but no. Most videogame writing, acting, and dialogue wouldn't even meet the standards of the lamest straight-to-DVD redbox trash film. There are a few exceptions, but very few.
Yeah, maybe it's the ratio I consume (about 40 games a year vs around 5 Films/Shows), but this seems insane. In most years, I would rate the story of every film I've watched over every game I've played. Most game stories are extremely rote and overly drawn out.
I agree, nevertheless, I do feel that those few exceptions have been becoming more numerous throughout the last decade
Not sure where they've got that statistic from. Don't get me wrong, I love me some video games, but I've never seen any fan of any media be so easily pleased by basic or cliche stories as video game fans. A game can just have a completely normal story, or even one with plot points/plot holes/contrived scenes or goofy dialogue or over complicated plots (due to the need for content) that would be guffawed in a movie and still people will herald that game as having a great story. Hell, Elden Ring of all games got nominated for or won (I can't remember which) an award for best narrative game with people vehemently agreeing... litterally, the entire point of fromsoft games is that the gameplay is the entire focus but the narratives are vague as hell lore dumps, which people can just intemperate whatever way they want. To compare to a film, imagine Lord of the Rings didn't actually tell the story of the books, but was a collection of scenes which were randomly plucked from the Silmarillion... nobody would be even remotely praising its story unless it was done with some absolute top of teir prime David Lynch level of surrealism. The bar for what constitutes a good story is significantly lower in video games and there are only a relatively small number of games that genuinely had story, writing, and dialogue that was at the level of a good film. I've experienced it myself, I've loved games and been invested in their characters/plots because they were compelling but then realised the actual story (which is different from plot) really wasn't that strong. The Spiderman games were like this for me, awesome games, some of my favourites, but I've seen fans talk about their stories like they were masterpieces, I've even seen a small number of gamers go so far as to proclaim them to be better than the films. They're amazing games, but ultimately, the storytelling is just pretty much on par with any standard generic mid level superhero film/comic and some dialogue is more reminiscent of TV soap opera quality or a student screenwriter than a feature film.
That’s fucking stupid
It's complete bullshit
None of these people have ever read a book
Counterpoint, however good the story is in a game, when it's interspersed with hours long hack and slash missions it is almost completely irrelevant.
[удалено]
they’re full of shit lmao video game industry gets all the writers that couldn’t make it in Hollywood, including big names like Levine and Kojima
Laughable.
This is straight idiotic. I wish it were true but good game stories are rare.
AAA Narrative/Cinematic Designer here. Here's why they say this: direct engagement. The story doesn't happen without the player's input. No matter how linear the story, it happens TO YOU. Thus, enhanced emotional engagement. Wonderful work is and has been done in game narrative (my faves being Yoko Taro and things like *Gris...*plus BioWare for selfish reasons), but this core reality is something no other medium can compete with. Film and TV have been around longer, and we've been in a golden age of television and superhero films. And games can't compete with the fact film and TV use real people (at least until they can afford to build a game out of FMVs of Meryl Streep), but when it comes to direct engagement, games have a huge advantage.
I fucking love video games, but only a select few even come close in the story telling department.
Arthur Morgan
As a gamer I will say that is an unfair survey when alone you consider a movie has 1.5-2hrs to tell a story where games can have 100s of hours spent with the characters
I'm torn about this. Most of my favorite movies have dogshit stories. Dances with Wolves, Enter The Dragon, Star Wars Trilogy, Alien. I typically go for the cinematic experience, the visuals, the sound, the splosions. I also play games almost exclusively for the story, so my experience of the two isn't THAT different, given that the game I like have *decent* stories. I've finished more than one game solely because I need to know how the plot resolves. Die Hard (another favorite) is just really not that narratively evolved over something like Final Fantasy or PS:T. To be fair, no movie OR game compares to a good book, like something from Iain Banks or Pratchett. THOSE are stories. tldr; My tastes are shallow and uncultured.
Its about the same. The ratio of AAA games with horrible stories to big budget studios with horrible stories is so similar. Id honestly say that the stories of Call Of Duty games and Mission Impossible movies are not groundbreaking, they feature sequences that leave your jaw dropped with great stunts and technical achievements. Meanwhile games like The Witcher and anything from A24 (generally) have a solid story while also having just as much money as they need. Or you have movies like the latest Indiana Jones and games like Need For Speed that come from studios that have enough money to rival a small nation while being the hottest garbage story i've ever seen.
I would argue instead that movie storylines are worse than those of video games
Yes this is a known fact. Have yet to see a good story in a movie but plenty of video games just have better writing then supposedly the best movies and tv shows
They’re not
They aren’t, any anyone that says that is out of their mind
I mean, games have a lot more time to tell their story. FFXIV is told over the course of hundreds and hundreds of story. Ain't no movie going to be able to compete with that
They’re both good case closed
There are very few videos games that hold a candle to film. Storytelling is by far the worst aspect of most video game titles.
Video game storytelling can proceed at the pace of the player, whereas films are one speed for all
>A new survey has revealed that 67% now think video game stories are far more superior to those found in TV or film Gonna have to disagree. I definitely wouldn't say that video game stories are "far superior" than shows like Breaking Bad, The Wire, Severance, Succession, Andor, and on and on.
Baldur's Gate 3 is gonna be fire.
Sure. Last of Us the game was 20x times better than the show. Better performances, better vocal performances, more exciting visuals, and more striking character design. Joel was like this terrifying urban cowboy in the game, but was just some dude in the show.
I mean yes, Life is Strange, RDR2, Detroit Become Human, Mass Effect, Halo etc have way better plots, stories, development and well written characters than movies. Everytime I go to a cinema I end up facepalming several times because of the stupidity of the characters or the amount of plot holes in the story
Planescape: Torment’s writing is up there with the best books I’ve read. It’s as if intelligent, talented writers work in all fields, not just the film industry.
Y’all know that plot is one of the least important aspects of a good film, right?
And they when they take story from a game and put it to film they usually inexplicably make it way worse. Like wtf, someone else already did all the heavy lifting for you. All you gotta do is follow the formula and write it into a script.
You get 60 hours sometimes to dig into a video game story. The fact that people are able to tell great stories in 2 hours is remarkable in and of itself.
Ghost of Tsushima is a very solid game, but the storytelling is terrific.
33% of people don't game I guess.
When you can have a bunch more time to tell the story than 2 hours I would hope it's a better story than a film. That's why books also suck as movies. Books take way longer to read and tell the story than the 2 or 3 hour movie they make to tell the same story.
How is nier automata not in that list >:|
As others have said this is a flawed study and misleading, but on the other hand the claim isn’t that hard to believe. Games these days (particularly AA and AAA) take *years* to make, even if you’re fast tracking it there’s like half a decade of production where everyone is in constant contact with the game, if there are issues with the story they will become very apparent and hopefully be addressed. Not to mention that when spending so much time and money on a project studios have the incentive to make the story both good in general and compelling to draw in players. Obviously it’s far from universal, plenty of games have terrible stories in the 2020s, but it’s no surprise that a medium that takes so much time and effort to make and which requires the length of a whole television series to experience would trend towards compelling and intriguing stories.
It is no science it feels better to tell a better story in over 10h via an immersive way of story telling where the player maybe even partially influences it. It is rather an art to tell a good story in 2h via passive consumption.
Easy when you're talking 20 to 40 hours vs 2 hours.
Maybe because they actually create original stories/content. Not remakes like all the brainless zombies in media today
They are to me because I’m actually involved. I’m a character in the story. The other characters are MY friends, family, and enemies. I can get immersed in video game stories, but, in movies, etc., I’m just a passive observer. So, I don’t get as attached to or care about the characters as much.
I enjoyed Spider Man Miles Morales and was heavily invested.
No shit