“I’m not sure why there’s this constant desire to keep rooting around in Hollywood’s action-movie scrapheap.”
With those words to That VideoGame Blog Rhianna Pratchett perfectly summed up what I see wrong with a massive chunk of gaming, but unlike me, she actually backs it up with experience and intelligent comment instead of mad and angry raving. That quote was lead into by Pratchett, who is the award winning writer for the Overlord series and Mirror’s Edge amongst others, speaking about writers in the gaming industry.
“Writers and narrative designers are still relatively new positions on development teams.” she said. “This means there’s still a level of uncertainty about how best to use and integrate them. I know from talking to lots of fine people in my field that the writing process can often be done too late, without proper access to the team and under extreme pressure. Thankfully, things are starting to get a little better and more writers are being contacted in the first few months of a project’s lifespan, rather than the last few months … A little more variation in concept and content would be nice, as well, which is something writers and narrative designers can help with.”
What do you think? Are we just rooting around in the action movie doldrums, or is there more behind the dulcet grays of Gears of War.
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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Contest:
10:00 AM on 06.27.2009
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Cut-scenes and lengthy dialogue sequences can really break the flow of a videogame, especially if you're the type who couldn't care any less for the games characters or story. Lost Planet is a good example of this, I couldn't give any less of a crap about the games story, thankfully I was able to skip the entire thing. Half-Life on the other hand has a good story and it's well integrated into the gameplay, thats what makes it work, but most other games are just eager to pull out into some fancy cutscene showing awesome things you wish you could do in-game but cant.
Stories are fine, but it's very uncommon for me to go buy a brand new videogame because of "THE AWESOME STORY OMG".
GAMES ARE NOT MOVIES FFS
I dream of games that have an actual, deep storyline. Games which present itself consistently with its own style. Games which DON'T SUCK.
Very few games have hit me in the right way with its story. MGS and Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines being the best of them. Why is it nowadays, only a couple games come out a year which actually seem to put effort into making a completely original and decent storyline? Oh yeah. Halo.
Games are games.
I know you enjoy the film industry, Razak, but I won't be disappointed if games never catch up to the artistic integrity of film. Luckily, I'm also a films enthusiast, and I can just catch a good flick if I'm hungry for solid writing.
READ A BOOK
READ A MOTHERFUCKING BOOK.
She should play Final Fantasy Tactics.
So, if I were to make a game catered to Dad (story's all in the manual, and maybe a 15-second ending sequence like games before CUTSCENE POWER came around), people would probably bitch and decry the game...sigh.
Actually I meant for the tag under the photo to be Overlord and this has breasts to be a secondary side joke if you looked at the categories. As it stands I agree it's pretty offensive to talented writer so it's gone.
I would encourage you to write that but I think your wife may not enjoy it as much as we do XD
@Eliza Gauger
I (and probably some other people) didn't even notice that until you went all crazy on it. If you want to make a complaint on a blog try not to be rude, double post and then afterwards make a coment that was possibly even more offensive that what you were complaining about. Or you know you could just tell him privately and not be a jackass about it =(
I thought the proper title was, "Stupid bitches with big titties and tight pussys that need a good pounding", with the follow-up article, "Now make me a sandwich".
Maybe I've been mis-informed.
NOT A MAGAZINE
BUT A BOOK NIQQUAH, A FUCKING BOOK NIQQUAH.
Oh, we're arguing about bitches with titties now.
I don't get what the bid deal is.
So I don't see games catching up anytime soon. Maybe one day....
Yeah, she should definitely play Final Fantasy Tactics.
I do believe that in general game narrative is pretty bankrupt, especially in the shooter genre. It's generally either space marines, or its WWII cliche fests. I know there are exceptions, but not enough.
My own favourite is actually God of War simply because it's a kick ass game which feels epic. It doesn't matter that it boils down to killing one bad guy after another because it feels like so much more.
Attracting quality writers like Ms. Pratchett is one aspect of this, but the means of integrating said story into the game by the devs is key. The quality of the story is moot if new approaches to it's implementation aren't sought, and it's only getting harder to be innovative as budgets balloon and more corporate fingers, with their antiquated method of focus tested mediocrity, are stuck into the pie. So, there are a lot of roadblocks on the path to the next evolution of strong game storytelling, but I'm optimistic that creative, forward-thinking people will eventually get us there, despite the odds against them.
Also, topic aside, for those who haven't, read a Terry Prattchet book. I can't think of a writer who has better integrated humour, social satire and intelligence into novel form and his works are immensely enjoyable to read. He is a brilliant and vastly underappreciated man.
...and Eliza, get some sense and keep the word "n*gg*r" out of our Destructoid please.
Last time I checked, this was the internet and people can say whatever the fuck they want. We had to endure your self-absorbed wall of text, I think you can endure a few seven letter words.
That's like getting paid to show up to work and take a nap.
I'm honestly surprised (and shocked) at the statement regarding writers being brought in near the end of the dev process to hammer something out that fits the framework put in place by the devs. Is this something that actually goes on or an exaggeration?
Good writing doesn't sell to the mass market, but in the internet age is does make for a disproportionately loud rabid fanbase who then fuel the countless billions of pointless blogs we all read. Meh.
Congratulations on completely missing the point of Eliza's comment. She was saying that such a caption would be offensive and is in the same offensiveness ballpark (I think that's where the Mets play) as the "this has breasts" tag. Also, lighten up: Don't be afraid of a word. There's nothing wrong with saying it, only using it against other people. Okay, moving on...
re: Pratchett
I agree. Most of you are being a bit reactionary to her statements. She's 100% correct. She doesn't say that gaming has no good writers, and she doesn't say that writing is always an afterthought. She's not just spouting off bullshit -- she has the experience and she knows people who also have experience. And 90-95% of games' stories are either action-movie bullshit or fluffy, cliche wankery. The BioShocks and Portals are few and far between.
re: Eliza
I agree. I love tits and joking around about sex as much as the next guy, but sometimes it's okay to NOT make a tit joke. When I look at Ms. Pratchett, I don't think "dur hur hur, tits, she's a woman and that's why she's being talked about." I actually see someone who's accomplished and whose opinion I would respect and be interested in hearing. ("Oh, the director just put that in there to get laid.") Destructoid and (especially) its community tend to be of the mindset, "If it's female, you MUST make a sexual reference." It's very small-minded and frustrating, and it's really no surprise that gamer culture is looked down upon by the general public.
Actually, I was fully aware of the context in which Eliza used the word and "congratulations" on not noticing that I didn't disagree with the sentiment, merely the word used to express it. Believe me, I'm no reactionary prude by any definition, but I think that their point could have been made without using a word with such a vile history.
If you think that the word "faggot" or "jokes" such as "go make me a sandwich woman" etc. has anywhere near the history of violence, social oppression and disrespect for humanitarian ideals as "n*gg*r", then I don't know what tell you.
And my "rant" was directed at Davram who claimed that, to paraphrase, "I kin say whateva I want cuz dis are teh internets", which is not true, hence my reference to the rules. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear in that I wasn't implying her statement was meant to be racist, but I simply don't believe that that word has any place in civilized discourse. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Even in jest, the n word is obviously socially taboo. "Faggot" and other such derogatory terms have successfully melded their way into normal word choice, and tend to mean something less than "liking men".
She should have used a "*" in the n word: plain and simple, guys. The full spelling wasn't necessary.
As I said earlier, I don't mind a story as long as I can gloss over it, but that by no means means that I want to see everything under the sun with a meaningful story. If I play Peggle 2 and there are cutscenes, I'm gonna kill someone.
Do I think games need good narratives and storylines and characters we can actually care about? Oh yes. Books, movies, and everything else are meant to give us a form of entertainment and I haven't exactly seen music give us a storyline (discounting operas and the like, of course). But I don't think that it's necessary for every game. So-labeled casual games are a hit and they have nothing more than a paragraph at best for a story, and yet they're pretty popular. It's not distillation of a medium in my eyes, but some people (like me) just want to have fun.
I think there are two methods of storytelling I like. The first is the model used in Half-Life 2 (and maybe the first one, dunno) where you're immersed constantly and there are no cutscenes, just people talking and whatnot--pretty engrossing as a first-person game. The second is story-in-the-woodwork, like the Metroid Prime games. One reason why I love the Scan Visor in the series is because it allows you to learn so much about not only the wildlife and your enemies, but what's going on, what people are doing, etc. The story isn't spoodfed to you at all. And it's completely optional for the most part.
That's not to say that I hate really story-heavy RPGs or other games, but there are roles that need to be fulfilled, you know? I wouldn't expect an action flick to have a really gripping story ala...uhm...hell, let's go with Titanic as much as it pains me to mention it. Likewise, you wouldn't expect a chick flick to be light on the characters either. Come on, when was the last time you played a Mario game where the mission wasn't "Save the princess! ...again" and there was anything you could tell your friends outside of the stages?
I mean, I know there's some optional story in Galaxy (which I'm working through), but besides that. And SMRPG, that doesn't count. :3
Imagine if a SWG strike came along again? A huge amount of games would be stuck in limbo, not something piublishers would relish losing money over, after recent film industry problems.
If there was a way to get writers at cut price, that might help but I doubt it'll happen. However its all about the gameplay and a game being fun, which must be first. Kudos to those devs that manage best to mix story in well with gameplay, without it being intrusive. Indeed, I'd hold Bioshock up there as one of the best, and God of War. The age of story heavy game was back on the PC, but the rise of DS adventure games like Hotel Dusk is bringing chances for writers back.
If Ms Pratchett, were to lend her writing to an rpg or something more story driven, I recon she'd be admired more. Its early days for her after Mirror's Edge, but I admire her getting involved in games at all, when many still see fit to frown upon them. Let's hope positive change comes in time.
She should just ask her dad to write a game. THAT is something I would like to see.