You make excellent points here. I have to beg to differ somewhat as a person who actually plays games for the story.
I have tripped my way through much clunky gameplay to get through a storyline. I forced myself to “git gud” at platforming to get through Jedi: Fallen Order because I’m that much of a Star Wars nerd. That game has a big problem with Ludonarrative dissonance (thank you for this term btw I will be using it 🤓). I mean, we’re running from the Empire but planet-hopping is no big deal, and how old is this list of Force-sensitive children? (Are they adults now?)
GOW: Ragnarok disappointed me in story as well as gameplay. It starts out great, the parts about Atreus and ticked-off Freya are so cool; but the story goes nowhere and the ending is like a a sad fart in the wind.
Thank you; I'm glad you enjoyed the post even though you don't agree. If you're looking for more games with a good story, I can recommend Planescape: Torment, Persona 5, and Enderal (that's a total conversion mod for Skyrim).
Slightly disagree with the replayability of cyberpunk 2077. For starters replay value is derived from build diversity (a stealth quick hack run is very different from a melee run that emphasizes fast movement), but there’s also a change in what developers understand as replay value.
I, genuinely, don’t think devs expect players to play large open-world games like CP2077 or RDR2 multiple times. The expectation is that there’s enough content for the player to be satisfied with one very long, very recurring playthrough. Whether that’s better or worse is a matter of taste, but the value proposition of a modern AAA game is less about how many times you can relay it and more about how many hours you can sink in a single playthrough
I agree that replayability is no longer a big concern, especially for games like RDR2. I think CP2077 is a bit of an outlier as CPPR emphasived player choice a lot in the marketing. My impression is that they wanted to make it much more replayable but didn't quite get it done.
The big problem with making games replayable on purpose is that it leads to a lot of exclusive content that many players don't see. Colony Ship is a modern example of this. In my first playthrough I missed 20% of the content as I didn't play an optimal build. That's quite frustrating, and many players probably won't have the patience to try again. However, Colony Ship is a short game, with about 12-20 hours per playthrough.
In the context of this article, my main concern is whether the gameplay is fun enough to motivate another playthrough (maybe a couple of years down the road) even if you already know the story. For me, that's not the case in many narrative games. Enderal is a good example for this. I enjoyed my one playthrough because of the story but I'd never play it again.
I agree with most of your points, especially the idea that many big-budget games have gradually sidelined gameplay in favor of delivering a heavily scripted “interactive movie” experience.
To me, this feels less like a creative choice and more like risk avoidance from large publishers: cinematic storytelling is safer, easier to market, and more predictable than investing in genuinely innovative mechanics. That’s also why we keep seeing indie games take the lead when it comes to gameplay experimentation and bold design decisions.
The one place where I slightly disagree is MGS4. It’s undeniably closer to a movie than a traditional game, but I think it’s a rare case where that coexistence works: beneath the long cutscenes, the stealth systems are still deep, expressive, and creatively designed. It’s one of the few examples where a strong cinematic ambition didn’t come at the expense of excellent gameplay.
Thanks for your comment. I completely agree that risk avoidance is a big factor, especially in Sony's case. It seems to me that they are stuck at repeating the Uncharted formula ad nauseam. Their numerous remasters of "The Last of Us" also show the same mindset.
I used MGS4 as an example because it's such an extreme case in terms of cutscene length. I agree that the gameplay itself isn't compromised. Nevertheless, I think that the game would've been much better if Kojima had shown some restraint.
I fully agree that gameplay absolutely, 100% has to come before anything else in a game. Otherwise what’s the point of making it a game? That said, I do think that there are some genres where the story is more essential. A turn-based RPG, completely stripped of story and other “flavor” elements, would just be the player interfacing with a bunch of numbers. It’d get boring after a while. But wrap a good story around those numbers, and you get a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. Thus the story and the gameplay reinforce each other. Elden Ring is also an example of phenomenal gameplay and excellent storytelling that’s thankfully short on cutscenes (and it’s a big budget AAA title, to boot).
But overall I agree that a balance is ideal. And if it must be tilted in favor of one or the other, it should always be in favor of gameplay.
In some ways I agree with you. When I played the Uncharted Collection, I then chose to watch Uncharted 4 as a playthrough on YouTube; I found the experience of watching it much the same as playing it. Games should be able to mix multiple elements together to make a complete package - which includes interactivity, visuals, music, story. The best examples would include a balance of all parts, and some games definitely lean too far in one direction at the expense of another.
I do happen to disagree with you on one point though, which is that you believe games require some level of intensity to engage us. I don't think that's strictly true. Games require a fun way to drive us forward, and intensity, like action games, is a common way of achieving that. But when I played Fez, I felt no intensity at all - it was a very relaxing game actually. What drove me forward was discovery of the game world, an interest in seeing more. To prove that it's not just recent games, SimCity or Theme Park were also games which had different drivers for fun engagement.
Games can be fun in many varied ways. I will say that games acting like movies does tend to be the on-ramp that the general public seem to understand, able to compare with something else they understand.
Thanks for the comment. I can related to your decision to watch Uncharted 4 on YouTube as I had a similar experience with Call of Duty: Black Ops. I started playing the game, but switched to watching a longplay instead after a couple of hours simply because the gameplay was so annoying and the game itself so rail-roaded. Watching the game on YouTube was actually more fun.
Regarding intensity: my point was that games mustn't play themselves. City builders like SimCity still require us to make decisions to see everything the game has to offer. We can still fail in these kind of games, even though they are very benign in general. Compare that to idle games where failing is close to impossible or to games that are much too easy for us. Maybe "intensity" isn't the right term for what I'm trying to describe. I need to think about this more.
Ok, I follow what you're saying now. I think you're correct, "intensity" is probably the wrong term. "Intensity" suggests action, and in something like a puzzle game that wouldn't make much sense, unless there was a timer or something forcing you to complete the puzzle.
"Drive" i think might fit, something that drives you to want to continue. You would also need success and fail states, though they don't have to be obvious. In my last example with Fez, a very calm game, I would "fail" simply by not progressing forward in the game. I would "succeed" when I've uncovered a new mystery. I'm "driven" to want to uncover all the mysteries of the game. I can see what you're saying though, a good point.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. You gave me something to reflect on.
Since getting back into gaming, I’ve definitely noticed the rise of more cinematic gaming experiences compared to when I was a kid. I find myself split on whether I like them or not. Sometimes I enjoy the spectacle and story, and other times I just want to play.
For me, indie games offer the most authentic pick up and play moments today, which I really appreciate. The big AAA cinematic titles still have their place in my library, but they are few and likely titles that belong to a series that I grew up playing like Final Fantasy or Resident Evil. When it comes to pure interactivity though, I tend to lean indie.
You're very welcome. I agree that indie games are more in tune with the nature of gaming and also more innovative. There's a reason why the last AAA title I played was Cyberpunk 2077. The spectacle of such games can be fun, but it rarely leaves a lasting impact.
Respectfully, I think you are wrong on this one. Games are narrative machines. They are a way players can configure space, time, and agency into meaningful experiences.
“Movie games” are not betraying the essence of gaming by focusing on narrative. They are prioritizing what Jenkins called the “embedded” narrative over the “emergent” narrative. Narrative is there either way.
I don’t think you can chalk their praise up to disconnected developers and journalists, either. Players love these games.
Uncharted did not get three sequels and a spinoff because the people hated it. Sony kept making more because players loved how cinematic they were. I loved Uncharted 2 precisely because it was like playing a movie.
And, let’s face it, cinema has been developers’ aspirations for a long time. Hideo Kojima famously wanted to make movies. Square Enix always envisioned Final Fantasy 7 being something more like FF7 Remake. We even have an Oscars-style award show for games.
Games aren’t movies, but they are closely related. They are both narrative experiences.
I strongly disagree with the premise that video games are narrative machines. I think that it's completely unhistoric given that video games evolved from mechanical games like pinball machines that had no narrative element whatsoever.
Video games were always interactive, and their point was simply to be fun. Sure, some games put more emphasis on narration, but for the vast majority of games, gameplay was key. For example, think of Tetris. It's one of the most successful and influential games of all time, and it has no story, no narrative elements, and not even a setting. There is no "embedded" narrative in something like Tetris; there simply is no narrative.
Also, it's a gross simplification to state that cinema has been developers’ aspiration for a long time. To quote Warren Spector: "Games are not about being told things. If you want to tell people things, write a book or make a movie. Games are dialogues—and dialogue requires both parties to take the floor once in a while."
The dialogue Spector describes here is precisely the lack of interaction I bemoan in movie games. As stated in the blog post, I think that making a movie game is like making a CYOA book and considering it the best piece of literature of all time.
First of all, it isn’t true that pinball machines did not have any narrative elements. Pinball machines sometimes had images painted on that might function as a framing story.
Second of all, the very first video game—Space Wars—had an emergent narrative. It was about ships fighting each other in space.
Third, games like Tetris do have a narrative. Tetris tells a story of blocks fitting together. It’s not a grandiose narrative, but it does exist. And versions like Tetris Effect push this element to the forefront.
Fourth, the Warren Spector quote is about using games to monologue, not necessarily a condemnation of games-as-narratives. This is the same guy who made Deus Ex. He believes in narrative.
Fifth, CYOA books are cool. Lots of people like them, just like lots of people love narrative-heavy games. They might not be to your taste but they are not necessarily bad.
I think the stumbling block in your argument is that you assume narratives must be non-interactive. I think this is a fallacy. You’re not alone in your opinion—the early ludologists agree with you. But I think there is ample evidence that games tell stories.
To chime in re: pinball machines, stories absolutely were ingrained in the experience. Driving a shallow-but-present narrative was what often dictated bonuses and events.
Arcade games also wouldn't benefit from a long, complex narrative. The point was to create experiences that siphon money out of people. That's not so much the case for many games today. Developers have the freedom to build the expansive narratives that were simply implausible in the early days of gaming.
But that also doesn't mean narratives were wholly absent from gaming. Final Fantasy has always had some form of solid storytelling. Metal Gear was certainly not lacking a story. And without either early versions of these franchises, we wouldn't have what many peg as the best (albeit narrative-heavy) games of their generation.
Kojima and David Cage aren't also great examples to build this discussion off of. They produce very specific experiences, and have so few of them, compared to other developers/development teams out there. MGS IV is also a poor example to partially hinge the argument on. It rated highly in its fanbase. Casual players are not as forgiving. Kojima just happens to have a significantly large number of dedicated fans, and it wasn't even a game he wanted to make, so I feel he made the movie he has always wanted and sprinkled in the required gameplay.
Modern video games are an elaborate medium that can excel in story, gameplay, or both. But because one may out story over gameplay doesn't make it *less* of a video game or less worthy of praise.
I don’t know this seems like a vector of taste. I fundamentally think like an action movie where you shoot the bad guys or drive tbe getaway car is pretty compelling. Much more so than maximally compelling interaction with the game.
We’ve been having this discussion since at least the fmv games of the mid 90s. It seems like it’s time to stop preaching an either or gospel.
I understand what you mean, but I think you miss out on games that DO feature great story and gameplay. The seminal Deus Ex comes to mind, or for a very recent example look to Clair Obscure. Both have amazing stories and stellar gameplay.
I'm confused. The point of my post is that games need great gameplay and the just telling a great story isn't enough. However, that doesn't mean that it's forbidden to tell a great story, just the opposite. See this part of the post "Of course, games are free to also tell a story in addition to the gameplay, but the focus needs to be on the gameplay. "
Games with great gameplay and great story are the ideal. Deus Ex is famous for it's great gameplay with varied solutions to many quests. It's clearly not a movie game, and hence not the subject of this post.
I simply meant that I felt your article would have been more balanced if you provided some examples of games that do it "right." It's just feedback, feel free to ignore it.
I don’t share your opinion. As a player who enjoys every kind of genre (I know I’m an exception), I think it’s very hard to compare an online shooter with a story-driven experience like the recent Dispatch. I enjoy both.
Is Dispatch worse than every series or movie out there? No, not at all. In fact, if I take the full list of everything I’ve watched this year and added Dispatch to it… it would rank very high.
To put it simply… games are not movies, but some games can resemble them a lot, and there’s nothing wrong with that if it’s well executed.
The best thing about video games as a medium is that they’re the most complex form of art that exists.
I haven't played Dispatch, so I can't comment on that game specificly. However, I've never argued that movie games are worse than every series or movie out there. I've also never talked about online shooters in the context of the post, so I'm a bit confused on why you'd bring that up.
My point is that removing interactivity and adding guided narration makes games worse. It undermines the strength of the medium and replaces it with something foreign. This doesn't make the games more complex or more interesting. On the contrary, games have become less innovative, complex, and interesting since that trend was born.
Let me draw an example in a different medium to make this more clear. Choose your own adventure (CYOA) books add interactivity to the medium. However, this makes it much more difficult to craft a strong narrative and interesting character arcs. These are the core strength of the book medium.
So, CYOA books sacrifice a core strength for the sake of gaining something unrelated to books. I strongly doubt that anyone would argue that CYOA books are the perfect from of books or that it has made the medium more complex. Yet, people do the same for video games. To me, that makes no sense at all.
I simply don’t agree with your statement: “My point is that removing interactivity and adding guided narration makes games worse.” I can accept that this happens in some cases, but for me it’s not a rule. It’s only a rule for a certain type of player who’s always looking for the “skip” button in any game.
Very well put! Regarding the last paragraph: I think that in the last decade movie games have crowded out games with innovative gameplay. Game developers invested their resources in more spectacle rather than in great gameplay, to the detriment of the medium.
I'm not sure what exactly you're disagreeing with. The whole point of this blog post is that gameplay needs to come first and that the story should be layered on top to create a harmonic experience. That's clearly not the case for most movie games, and hence I consider them compromised games.
But I'm curious: What's the non-verbally communicated story for Tetris? And what movie games have merged story and interactivity to form great narrative design and also have great gameplay?
I loved that you pointed this out because sometimes the over-reliance on cinematics takes me out of the experience of actually playing
You make excellent points here. I have to beg to differ somewhat as a person who actually plays games for the story.
I have tripped my way through much clunky gameplay to get through a storyline. I forced myself to “git gud” at platforming to get through Jedi: Fallen Order because I’m that much of a Star Wars nerd. That game has a big problem with Ludonarrative dissonance (thank you for this term btw I will be using it 🤓). I mean, we’re running from the Empire but planet-hopping is no big deal, and how old is this list of Force-sensitive children? (Are they adults now?)
GOW: Ragnarok disappointed me in story as well as gameplay. It starts out great, the parts about Atreus and ticked-off Freya are so cool; but the story goes nowhere and the ending is like a a sad fart in the wind.
Thank you; I'm glad you enjoyed the post even though you don't agree. If you're looking for more games with a good story, I can recommend Planescape: Torment, Persona 5, and Enderal (that's a total conversion mod for Skyrim).
Slightly disagree with the replayability of cyberpunk 2077. For starters replay value is derived from build diversity (a stealth quick hack run is very different from a melee run that emphasizes fast movement), but there’s also a change in what developers understand as replay value.
I, genuinely, don’t think devs expect players to play large open-world games like CP2077 or RDR2 multiple times. The expectation is that there’s enough content for the player to be satisfied with one very long, very recurring playthrough. Whether that’s better or worse is a matter of taste, but the value proposition of a modern AAA game is less about how many times you can relay it and more about how many hours you can sink in a single playthrough
I agree that replayability is no longer a big concern, especially for games like RDR2. I think CP2077 is a bit of an outlier as CPPR emphasived player choice a lot in the marketing. My impression is that they wanted to make it much more replayable but didn't quite get it done.
The big problem with making games replayable on purpose is that it leads to a lot of exclusive content that many players don't see. Colony Ship is a modern example of this. In my first playthrough I missed 20% of the content as I didn't play an optimal build. That's quite frustrating, and many players probably won't have the patience to try again. However, Colony Ship is a short game, with about 12-20 hours per playthrough.
In the context of this article, my main concern is whether the gameplay is fun enough to motivate another playthrough (maybe a couple of years down the road) even if you already know the story. For me, that's not the case in many narrative games. Enderal is a good example for this. I enjoyed my one playthrough because of the story but I'd never play it again.
I agree with most of your points, especially the idea that many big-budget games have gradually sidelined gameplay in favor of delivering a heavily scripted “interactive movie” experience.
To me, this feels less like a creative choice and more like risk avoidance from large publishers: cinematic storytelling is safer, easier to market, and more predictable than investing in genuinely innovative mechanics. That’s also why we keep seeing indie games take the lead when it comes to gameplay experimentation and bold design decisions.
The one place where I slightly disagree is MGS4. It’s undeniably closer to a movie than a traditional game, but I think it’s a rare case where that coexistence works: beneath the long cutscenes, the stealth systems are still deep, expressive, and creatively designed. It’s one of the few examples where a strong cinematic ambition didn’t come at the expense of excellent gameplay.
Thanks for your comment. I completely agree that risk avoidance is a big factor, especially in Sony's case. It seems to me that they are stuck at repeating the Uncharted formula ad nauseam. Their numerous remasters of "The Last of Us" also show the same mindset.
I used MGS4 as an example because it's such an extreme case in terms of cutscene length. I agree that the gameplay itself isn't compromised. Nevertheless, I think that the game would've been much better if Kojima had shown some restraint.
I fully agree that gameplay absolutely, 100% has to come before anything else in a game. Otherwise what’s the point of making it a game? That said, I do think that there are some genres where the story is more essential. A turn-based RPG, completely stripped of story and other “flavor” elements, would just be the player interfacing with a bunch of numbers. It’d get boring after a while. But wrap a good story around those numbers, and you get a Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. Thus the story and the gameplay reinforce each other. Elden Ring is also an example of phenomenal gameplay and excellent storytelling that’s thankfully short on cutscenes (and it’s a big budget AAA title, to boot).
But overall I agree that a balance is ideal. And if it must be tilted in favor of one or the other, it should always be in favor of gameplay.
In some ways I agree with you. When I played the Uncharted Collection, I then chose to watch Uncharted 4 as a playthrough on YouTube; I found the experience of watching it much the same as playing it. Games should be able to mix multiple elements together to make a complete package - which includes interactivity, visuals, music, story. The best examples would include a balance of all parts, and some games definitely lean too far in one direction at the expense of another.
I do happen to disagree with you on one point though, which is that you believe games require some level of intensity to engage us. I don't think that's strictly true. Games require a fun way to drive us forward, and intensity, like action games, is a common way of achieving that. But when I played Fez, I felt no intensity at all - it was a very relaxing game actually. What drove me forward was discovery of the game world, an interest in seeing more. To prove that it's not just recent games, SimCity or Theme Park were also games which had different drivers for fun engagement.
Games can be fun in many varied ways. I will say that games acting like movies does tend to be the on-ramp that the general public seem to understand, able to compare with something else they understand.
Thanks for the comment. I can related to your decision to watch Uncharted 4 on YouTube as I had a similar experience with Call of Duty: Black Ops. I started playing the game, but switched to watching a longplay instead after a couple of hours simply because the gameplay was so annoying and the game itself so rail-roaded. Watching the game on YouTube was actually more fun.
Regarding intensity: my point was that games mustn't play themselves. City builders like SimCity still require us to make decisions to see everything the game has to offer. We can still fail in these kind of games, even though they are very benign in general. Compare that to idle games where failing is close to impossible or to games that are much too easy for us. Maybe "intensity" isn't the right term for what I'm trying to describe. I need to think about this more.
Ok, I follow what you're saying now. I think you're correct, "intensity" is probably the wrong term. "Intensity" suggests action, and in something like a puzzle game that wouldn't make much sense, unless there was a timer or something forcing you to complete the puzzle.
"Drive" i think might fit, something that drives you to want to continue. You would also need success and fail states, though they don't have to be obvious. In my last example with Fez, a very calm game, I would "fail" simply by not progressing forward in the game. I would "succeed" when I've uncovered a new mystery. I'm "driven" to want to uncover all the mysteries of the game. I can see what you're saying though, a good point.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. You gave me something to reflect on.
Since getting back into gaming, I’ve definitely noticed the rise of more cinematic gaming experiences compared to when I was a kid. I find myself split on whether I like them or not. Sometimes I enjoy the spectacle and story, and other times I just want to play.
For me, indie games offer the most authentic pick up and play moments today, which I really appreciate. The big AAA cinematic titles still have their place in my library, but they are few and likely titles that belong to a series that I grew up playing like Final Fantasy or Resident Evil. When it comes to pure interactivity though, I tend to lean indie.
You're very welcome. I agree that indie games are more in tune with the nature of gaming and also more innovative. There's a reason why the last AAA title I played was Cyberpunk 2077. The spectacle of such games can be fun, but it rarely leaves a lasting impact.
I think Watch_Dogs is the perfect balance of story and ganeplay. The third game has neither.
Respectfully, I think you are wrong on this one. Games are narrative machines. They are a way players can configure space, time, and agency into meaningful experiences.
“Movie games” are not betraying the essence of gaming by focusing on narrative. They are prioritizing what Jenkins called the “embedded” narrative over the “emergent” narrative. Narrative is there either way.
I don’t think you can chalk their praise up to disconnected developers and journalists, either. Players love these games.
Uncharted did not get three sequels and a spinoff because the people hated it. Sony kept making more because players loved how cinematic they were. I loved Uncharted 2 precisely because it was like playing a movie.
And, let’s face it, cinema has been developers’ aspirations for a long time. Hideo Kojima famously wanted to make movies. Square Enix always envisioned Final Fantasy 7 being something more like FF7 Remake. We even have an Oscars-style award show for games.
Games aren’t movies, but they are closely related. They are both narrative experiences.
I strongly disagree with the premise that video games are narrative machines. I think that it's completely unhistoric given that video games evolved from mechanical games like pinball machines that had no narrative element whatsoever.
Video games were always interactive, and their point was simply to be fun. Sure, some games put more emphasis on narration, but for the vast majority of games, gameplay was key. For example, think of Tetris. It's one of the most successful and influential games of all time, and it has no story, no narrative elements, and not even a setting. There is no "embedded" narrative in something like Tetris; there simply is no narrative.
Also, it's a gross simplification to state that cinema has been developers’ aspiration for a long time. To quote Warren Spector: "Games are not about being told things. If you want to tell people things, write a book or make a movie. Games are dialogues—and dialogue requires both parties to take the floor once in a while."
The dialogue Spector describes here is precisely the lack of interaction I bemoan in movie games. As stated in the blog post, I think that making a movie game is like making a CYOA book and considering it the best piece of literature of all time.
First of all, it isn’t true that pinball machines did not have any narrative elements. Pinball machines sometimes had images painted on that might function as a framing story.
Second of all, the very first video game—Space Wars—had an emergent narrative. It was about ships fighting each other in space.
Third, games like Tetris do have a narrative. Tetris tells a story of blocks fitting together. It’s not a grandiose narrative, but it does exist. And versions like Tetris Effect push this element to the forefront.
Fourth, the Warren Spector quote is about using games to monologue, not necessarily a condemnation of games-as-narratives. This is the same guy who made Deus Ex. He believes in narrative.
Fifth, CYOA books are cool. Lots of people like them, just like lots of people love narrative-heavy games. They might not be to your taste but they are not necessarily bad.
I think the stumbling block in your argument is that you assume narratives must be non-interactive. I think this is a fallacy. You’re not alone in your opinion—the early ludologists agree with you. But I think there is ample evidence that games tell stories.
To chime in re: pinball machines, stories absolutely were ingrained in the experience. Driving a shallow-but-present narrative was what often dictated bonuses and events.
Arcade games also wouldn't benefit from a long, complex narrative. The point was to create experiences that siphon money out of people. That's not so much the case for many games today. Developers have the freedom to build the expansive narratives that were simply implausible in the early days of gaming.
But that also doesn't mean narratives were wholly absent from gaming. Final Fantasy has always had some form of solid storytelling. Metal Gear was certainly not lacking a story. And without either early versions of these franchises, we wouldn't have what many peg as the best (albeit narrative-heavy) games of their generation.
Kojima and David Cage aren't also great examples to build this discussion off of. They produce very specific experiences, and have so few of them, compared to other developers/development teams out there. MGS IV is also a poor example to partially hinge the argument on. It rated highly in its fanbase. Casual players are not as forgiving. Kojima just happens to have a significantly large number of dedicated fans, and it wasn't even a game he wanted to make, so I feel he made the movie he has always wanted and sprinkled in the required gameplay.
Modern video games are an elaborate medium that can excel in story, gameplay, or both. But because one may out story over gameplay doesn't make it *less* of a video game or less worthy of praise.
I don’t know this seems like a vector of taste. I fundamentally think like an action movie where you shoot the bad guys or drive tbe getaway car is pretty compelling. Much more so than maximally compelling interaction with the game.
We’ve been having this discussion since at least the fmv games of the mid 90s. It seems like it’s time to stop preaching an either or gospel.
I understand what you mean, but I think you miss out on games that DO feature great story and gameplay. The seminal Deus Ex comes to mind, or for a very recent example look to Clair Obscure. Both have amazing stories and stellar gameplay.
I'm confused. The point of my post is that games need great gameplay and the just telling a great story isn't enough. However, that doesn't mean that it's forbidden to tell a great story, just the opposite. See this part of the post "Of course, games are free to also tell a story in addition to the gameplay, but the focus needs to be on the gameplay. "
Games with great gameplay and great story are the ideal. Deus Ex is famous for it's great gameplay with varied solutions to many quests. It's clearly not a movie game, and hence not the subject of this post.
I simply meant that I felt your article would have been more balanced if you provided some examples of games that do it "right." It's just feedback, feel free to ignore it.
OK, I got it now. Thanks for the clarification and the feedback.
I don’t share your opinion. As a player who enjoys every kind of genre (I know I’m an exception), I think it’s very hard to compare an online shooter with a story-driven experience like the recent Dispatch. I enjoy both.
Is Dispatch worse than every series or movie out there? No, not at all. In fact, if I take the full list of everything I’ve watched this year and added Dispatch to it… it would rank very high.
To put it simply… games are not movies, but some games can resemble them a lot, and there’s nothing wrong with that if it’s well executed.
The best thing about video games as a medium is that they’re the most complex form of art that exists.
I haven't played Dispatch, so I can't comment on that game specificly. However, I've never argued that movie games are worse than every series or movie out there. I've also never talked about online shooters in the context of the post, so I'm a bit confused on why you'd bring that up.
My point is that removing interactivity and adding guided narration makes games worse. It undermines the strength of the medium and replaces it with something foreign. This doesn't make the games more complex or more interesting. On the contrary, games have become less innovative, complex, and interesting since that trend was born.
Let me draw an example in a different medium to make this more clear. Choose your own adventure (CYOA) books add interactivity to the medium. However, this makes it much more difficult to craft a strong narrative and interesting character arcs. These are the core strength of the book medium.
So, CYOA books sacrifice a core strength for the sake of gaining something unrelated to books. I strongly doubt that anyone would argue that CYOA books are the perfect from of books or that it has made the medium more complex. Yet, people do the same for video games. To me, that makes no sense at all.
I simply don’t agree with your statement: “My point is that removing interactivity and adding guided narration makes games worse.” I can accept that this happens in some cases, but for me it’s not a rule. It’s only a rule for a certain type of player who’s always looking for the “skip” button in any game.
Very well put! Regarding the last paragraph: I think that in the last decade movie games have crowded out games with innovative gameplay. Game developers invested their resources in more spectacle rather than in great gameplay, to the detriment of the medium.
I'm not sure what exactly you're disagreeing with. The whole point of this blog post is that gameplay needs to come first and that the story should be layered on top to create a harmonic experience. That's clearly not the case for most movie games, and hence I consider them compromised games.
But I'm curious: What's the non-verbally communicated story for Tetris? And what movie games have merged story and interactivity to form great narrative design and also have great gameplay?