Games Need To Stop Jumping Around

One pet peeve of mine in gaming is when you start a game and play for 10-20 minutes and start to really get into the story when all of a sudden "THREE YEARS EARLIER" appears. Just let me uncover the story as it goes. Put the damn game in chronological order. You can always have something jump around in a cut scene or a quick flashback. Sometimes I don't even want to continue playing the game if he jumps around two, three, sometimes four times. AAAHHH.

One pet peeve of mine in gaming is when you start a game and play for 10-20 minutes and start to really get into the story when all of a sudden "THREE YEARS EARLIER" appears. Just let me uncover the story as it goes. Put the damn game in chronological order. You can always have something jump around in a cut scene or a quick flashback. Sometimes I don't even want to continue playing the game if he jumps around two, three, sometimes four times. AAAHHH.

Can you give an example of a particular game that does this? Also, welcome to the forums!

I don't believe there are that many games that have time skips like that.

That's more of a dig against an established writing technique as a whole. Personally I'm always a fan of late title cards and in media res.

I'd like to see you watch Baccano or Pulp Fiction.
"Wait, didn't guy get shot 30 minutes ago?"

I just watched Looper and it did that a couple of times.

Or did it...?!

This is the most bizarre complaint I have seen about games recently. Films/TV have always done it. I think it was inevitable that the more cinematic games got the more they'd mimic what movies do. I am playing Max Payne 3 at the minute and I adore when it jumps back in time.

Y'all ain't thinkin. Plenty of games due this. Playing AC3 right now and, like most ACs, it's a constant barrage of six months later, two years later, random date inserted, six months later.

Ok so I can't think of too many other series that do this but it's pretty ridiculous in this one.

I can see what you're getting at.

@DarthOrange: One title that sticks out if Killzone 3.

I imagine you're talking about Assassin's Creed. Playing AC3 at the moment and the constant jumping around time (without sensible transitions) is getting a bit silly, but it's been a problem with all of them since AC2. That franchise really needs to take a break and regain some focus.

I can't think of any other franchise that does it as haphazardly.

I take it you hate LOST?

I really like stories that don't take place in chronological order. Pulp Fiction and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya would completely suck if presented that way because the character development happens outside of the "main plotline."

I could see an outcry if it were "happening too much," but I don't feel that way myself.

That doesn't bug me that much what bugs is when a game starts that way then jumps back and when you get to that point its not the same. Killzone 3 and uncharted 2 both did that, there is also another i just played recently that did that and escapes my mind.

You make it sound like a huge amount of games do this.

Maybe there's a reason why they don't tell the story in chronological order? Characterization or plotline reasons?

Has anybody made a House of Pain reference yet or am I the first?

I thought the opening to Max Payne 3 was brilliant for all the reasons OP dislikes it.

I thought this would be a thread about how so many games have a jump button.

@Rainbowkisses said:

I thought this would be a thread about how so many games have a jump button.

This. I expected 'For games as a medium to evolve, jumping has to be eradicated!' or something like that.

Also, no it doesn't bother me. If the story is good, it's usually done well. If its not, I don't care much.

I can't quite see where the issue is here. If you're okay with games making flashbacks, then why not flashbacks with gameplay in them? It seems a natural part of games using non-linear storytelling to me. Welcome to the forums though dude.

I disagree. If everything was chronological it would be boring. The purpose to writing the story in such a manner is that it adds some dynamic.

It's a pretty common cinematic and literary technique. This sounds like criticizing games for having a decently complex narrative.

i agree, i hate when games, movies, tv shows, do that. one thing i hate is when it does it too much.

Story = The things that happen in chronological order.

Plot = The way the story it is presented, how actions are linked between each other (cause-effect), etc.

Just thought it was a good idea to make those concepts clear. And I don't have any problem with games doing what the TC claims they do. In fact, I quite like it.

@Benmo316 said:

@DarthOrange: One title that sticks out if Killzone 3.

i don't recall KZ3 having any flash backs........well there's the opening tutorial but its not that bad.....

this thread is about Final Fantasy Tactics

@Gamer_152: I don't mind flashbacks when they're just a small segment of a level. I prefer a chronological story. When playing a game for a couple hours and then you go '3 Months Later' I feel like the story I had been playing stops. I'm sure there are examples of games that can do this very well, I just haven't played them.

@Hizang: I never watched LOST.

@triviaman09 said:

It's a pretty common cinematic and literary technique. This sounds like criticizing games for having a decently complex narrative.

I'm told it is considered good literary technique to not be confusing

Memento must be your most hated movie of all time.

This isn't a complaint about games, but about a writing technique that appears in all storytelling mediums.

@Benmo316 said:

@Gamer_152: I don't mind flashbacks when they're just a small segment of a level. I prefer a chronological story. When playing a game for a couple hours and then you go '3 Months Later' I feel like the story I had been playing stops. I'm sure there are examples of games that can do this very well, I just haven't played them.

Okay, I see what you are saying, but I'm afraid I can't agree with you. For me, if all stories in games were simply told in chronological order it would be much more boring, and I think non-linear storytelling is as valid a tool in video games as it is in any other medium.

@believer258 said:

I'd like to see you watch Baccano or Pulp Fiction. "Wait, didn't guy get shot 30 minutes ago?"

Or even 21 Grams.. I love Baccano! and Pulp Fiction for the way they tell there story, but 21 Grams just felt all over the place..

@Benmo316 said:

One pet peeve of mine in gaming is when you start a game and play for 10-20 minutes and start to really get into the story when all of a sudden "THREE YEARS EARLIER" appears. Just let me uncover the story as it goes. Put the damn game in chronological order. You can always have something jump around in a cut scene or a quick flashback. Sometimes I don't even want to continue playing the game if he jumps around two, three, sometimes four times. AAAHHH.

I agree one hundred percent.

GAMES ARE NOT MOVIES.

The whole point of games is interactivity, which is to say that your actions dictate what happens in the game space. It's impossible for your actions 3 years earlier, to have any effect on what you just played taking place 3 years later.

If the "director" wants to jump around and tell stories from tons of different perspectives, just make a bloody movie. That's why they exist.

@triviaman09 said:

It's a pretty common cinematic and literary technique. This sounds like criticizing games for having a decently complex narrative.

I don't think so, I think he's criticizing games for behaving like movies and tv shows when they are a different medium entirely.

I want to say that's a pretty common storytelling trope in TV, movies and even litterature. But like most other things that games borrows from other media, it often doesn't end up quite as good. And if you're planning to jump around in the timeline you better do it damn well and not just because you can in hopes of making the story feel more "smart" (which is often the case). So I get why you don't like it.

You didn't like Memento, did you.

@Christoffer said:

I want to say that's a pretty common storytelling trope in TV, movies and even litterature. But like most other things that games borrows from other media, it often doesn't end up quite as good. And if you're planning to jump around in the timeline you better do it damn well and not just because you can in hopes of making the story feel more "smart" (which is often the case). So I get why you don't like it.

Yeah, exactly, that's entirely my problem.

Story in videogames, in the past 5 years it seems, has become something that exists for gamers to feel like their hobby is "intellectual".

I think games CAN be VERY intellectual, and trying to crib from TV and Movies isn't how it happens.

By their very nature, when video games place you in the role of a character, you are trying to achieve something. your objectives ally with your characters objectives.

Jumping around in time and/or switching perspective frequently takes the goal of meeting the objectives away from the player.

I think my biggest problem with jumping perspective comes from Quantic Dream's Fahrenheit, where you play as a murderer who has to cover up his crime before the investigators get there. It's actually a really fantastic gameplay bit that's a great deal of fun, right up until the investigators arrive and you switch perspectives to their point of view. now you're trying to catch yourself and undo all the work you just put into the game. And, hey, as the detectives, you find out you're pretty good at deducing crime scenes because you're the person who did the coverup in the first place.

It's just awful game design disguised as "intelligent writing".

It's even more frustrating that a great deal of modern game designers turned to games after never really liking them because they went to film school and just wound up in the games industry.

The filmschool cliche is to "show, don't tell". The video game rule of thumb should be "interact, don't show." If you're showing that gamer a character doing something, why isn't the GAMER the person making that decision, shooting that guy, driving that car, etc.

@JazGalaxy said:

@triviaman09 said:

It's a pretty common cinematic and literary technique. This sounds like criticizing games for having a decently complex narrative.

I don't think so, I think he's criticizing games for behaving like movies and tv shows when they are a different medium entirely.

The way they tell stories doesn't necessarily need to be different though.

@egg said:

@triviaman09 said:

It's a pretty common cinematic and literary technique. This sounds like criticizing games for having a decently complex narrative.

I'm told it is considered good literary technique to not be confusing

Your mileage may vary. What is "confusing" for you may not be for other people, but you can't expect a writer to pander only to your taste or your ability to comprehend a non-linear plot.

@JazGalaxy said:

The filmschool cliche is to "show, don't tell". The video game rule of thumb should be "interact, don't show." If you're showing that gamer a character doing something, why isn't the GAMER the person making that decision, shooting that guy, driving that car, etc.

Pacing. You need higher and lower points. Imagine playing a 90+ hour game, like Persona 4, in which you need to do every single action your character does. From selecting the next line of dialogue (even if there's only one line to pick) to moving along an NPC who is moving and talking to you at the same time. It would be a drag. Besides, not every single aspect of the game has to be about gameplay, either. If there's a story moving the game forward, there has to be some exposition from time to time.

I really don't understand why some people are so adamantly opposed to games having anything that vaguely resembles story crafting. I take that you don't read much, because you keep pinning storytelling to TV and movies and not novels, but whether you like it or not, video games are developing as a complex and hybrid medium. There's room for game which focus solely on the gameplay aspect, and there's room for games deeply invested in telling a story above all. I don't want to sound clichéd, but the old golden rule applies: if you don't like it, don't play. But stop trying to impose what you think games should be onto others.

@JoeyRavn said:

@egg said:

@triviaman09 said:

It's a pretty common cinematic and literary technique. This sounds like criticizing games for having a decently complex narrative.

I'm told it is considered good literary technique to not be confusing

Your mileage may vary. What is "confusing" for you may not be for other people, but you can't expect a writer to pander only to your taste and your taste or your ability to comprehend a non-linear plot.

@JazGalaxy said:

The filmschool cliche is to "show, don't tell". The video game rule of thumb should be "interact, don't show." If you're showing that gamer a character doing something, why isn't the GAMER the person making that decision, shooting that guy, driving that car, etc.

Pacing. You need higher and lower points. Imagine playing a 90+ hour game, like Persona 4, in which you need to do every single action your character does. From selecting the next line of dialogue (even if there's only one line to pick) to moving along an NPC who is moving and talking to you at the same time. It would be a drag. Besides, not every single aspect of the game has to be about gameplay, either. If there's a story moving the game forward, there has to be some exposition from time to time.

I really don't understand why some people are so adamantly opposed to games having anything that vaguely resembles story crafting. I take that you don't read much, because you keep pinning storytelling to TV and movies and not novels, but whether you like it or not, video games are developing as a complex and hybrid medium. There's room for game which focus solely on the gameplay aspect, and there's room for games deeply invested in telling a story above all. I don't want to sound clichéd, but the old golden rule applies: if you don't like it, don't play. But stop trying to impose what you think games should be onto others.

I do read. I read a ridiculous amount. Books, comic books, plays, stort stories, and anything else I can get my hands on. I've also written a play and am working on a novel.

That's why terrible videogame stories and bad game design don't get very far with me.

And, if one happens to read a lot of material in a lot of different media, one comes to understand that different media have different constraints for communication.

The way stories are told in gaming these days is just TERRIBLE. It's terrible because it's frequently redundant, schizofrenic, and self aggrandizing. I can't tell you how many games feature the protagonist unloading 15 rockets into a badguys face only to cut to a cutscene where the badguy wipes a little bit of blood off his lip, knocks a pistol out of the heroes hand and then escapes by jumping out a window or something.

I spend a lot of wasted mental energy bemoaning the fallen state of game design because games are very much in danger of going the route of comic books. In the early days of comic books, you could find comic books about almost anything. They had spy books, westerns, romance books, super hero books, millitary books, on and on. There were books for older people and younger people. Books for girls and books for boys. But as the industry "matured" for good and for bad, comic books began to be about nothing but super heroes until that's 90% of what was available to buy. Not only that, nearly all the books were about brooding, violent men and the baloon chested women they hung out with. By the time the 90's rolled around, comic books were less about the medium of sequential art and more about the fact that, in all the world of entertainment, the one place you got ultraviolence and softcore fantasy porn was in the comic book store.

Videogames are VERY much going in that direction. They're becoming movies for people who want their movies longer, with more gratutious violence and more sex. Kids who grow up never owning a C64, NES, SNES, N64 or Playstation will never know that gaming, at one point, was about actual gameplay and game design. They'll just think games are where you get first person movies and they get to watch ultraviolence and softcore porn without their parents realizing it.

I don't have a problem with the narrative device, but I think _a lot_ of games do it very sloppily. Mostly because games have this intense need to show the most amazing part of the game within the first hour, because 20% of people who play any game quit within 60 minutes. Most games don't have the luxury to start slow... but most of them that do are better for it.

@JoeyRavn said:

Besides, not every single aspect of the game has to be about gameplay, either..

Also, this is by definition, bad design.

If a game is about gameplay, for good design to happen, everything has to be about the gameplay. If a story is about the story, then by design, everything has to be about the story. Any design book in the world will tell you that, and yet somehow it hasn't sunk in with game designers yet.

Trying to split between the two masters is why you get crap scenes like the "running from something as crap blows up!" scenes in Halo where they try to let you play it, because otherwise you're just watching a cutscene, but anytime you make a mistake, the pacing grinds to halt, all the tension is lost and everybody feels awkward as the game resets and you try to get back into it again.

Or quicktime events like those in Force Unleashed, where you're forced to hit buttons during cut scenes so they can call it "gameplay" which means you're not looking at the animations (which are the whole point of the concept existing) because you're trying to look for the button presses and hit them at the right time, lest you have to do the whole thing over again.

I could go on and on. No game has ever benefitted by trying to be a servant of two masters.

@JazGalaxy said:

@JoeyRavn said:

@egg said:

@triviaman09 said:

It's a pretty common cinematic and literary technique. This sounds like criticizing games for having a decently complex narrative.

I'm told it is considered good literary technique to not be confusing

Your mileage may vary. What is "confusing" for you may not be for other people, but you can't expect a writer to pander only to your taste and your taste or your ability to comprehend a non-linear plot.

@JazGalaxy said:

The filmschool cliche is to "show, don't tell". The video game rule of thumb should be "interact, don't show." If you're showing that gamer a character doing something, why isn't the GAMER the person making that decision, shooting that guy, driving that car, etc.

Pacing. You need higher and lower points. Imagine playing a 90+ hour game, like Persona 4, in which you need to do every single action your character does. From selecting the next line of dialogue (even if there's only one line to pick) to moving along an NPC who is moving and talking to you at the same time. It would be a drag. Besides, not every single aspect of the game has to be about gameplay, either. If there's a story moving the game forward, there has to be some exposition from time to time.

I really don't understand why some people are so adamantly opposed to games having anything that vaguely resembles story crafting. I take that you don't read much, because you keep pinning storytelling to TV and movies and not novels, but whether you like it or not, video games are developing as a complex and hybrid medium. There's room for game which focus solely on the gameplay aspect, and there's room for games deeply invested in telling a story above all. I don't want to sound clichéd, but the old golden rule applies: if you don't like it, don't play. But stop trying to impose what you think games should be onto others.

I do read. I read a ridiculous amount. Books, comic books, plays, stort stories, and anything else I can get my hands on. I've also written a play and am working on a novel.

That's why terrible videogame stories and bad game design don't get very far with me.

And, if one happens to read a lot of material in a lot of different media, one comes to understand that different media have different constraints for communication.

The way stories are told in gaming these days is just TERRIBLE. It's terrible because it's frequently redundant, schizofrenic, and self aggrandizing. I can't tell you how many games feature the protagonist unloading 15 rockets into a badguys face only to cut to a cutscene where the badguy wipes a little bit of blood off his lip, knocks a pistol out of the heroes hand and then escapes by jumping out a window or something.

I spend a lot of wasted mental energy bemoaning the fallen state of game design because games are very much in danger of going the route of comic books. In the early days of comic books, you could find comic books about almost anything. They had spy books, westerns, romance books, super hero books, millitary books, on and on. There were books for older people and younger people. Books for girls and books for boys. But as the industry "matured" for good and for bad, comic books began to be about nothing but super heroes until that's 90% of what was available to buy. Not only that, nearly all the books were about brooding, violent men and the baloon chested women they hung out with. By the time the 90's rolled around, comic books were less about the medium of sequential art and more about the fact that, in all the world of entertainment, the one place you got ultraviolence and softcore fantasy porn was in the comic book store.

Videogames are VERY much going in that direction. They're becoming movies for people who want their movies longer, with more gratutious violence and more sex. Kids who grow up never owning a C64, NES, SNES, N64 or Playstation will never know that gaming, at one point, was about actual gameplay and game design. They'll just think games are where you get first person movies and they get to watch ultraviolence and softcore porn without their parents realizing it.

Most stories in most mediums are garbage. Games have their gems in terms of story, just like movies, just like literature. I don't really think your view of where games are going is reflective of the industry as a whole right now. Journey, for example, doesn't fit into your narrative. I would agree that the safest way to make a game right now is to make the gameplay violent, and at a certain point that limits the kinds of stories you can tell. I hope that changes though.

@mlarrabee said:

I just watched Looper and it did that a couple of times.

Or did it...?!

BAM

Haven't seen it yet, actually. Great coincidence that I had planned to do so tonight :)

@JoeyRavn said:

@JazGalaxy said:

The filmschool cliche is to "show, don't tell". The video game rule of thumb should be "interact, don't show." If you're showing that gamer a character doing something, why isn't the GAMER the person making that decision, shooting that guy, driving that car, etc.

Pacing. You need higher and lower points. Imagine playing a 90+ hour game, like Persona 4, in which you need to do every single action your character does. From selecting the next line of dialogue (even if there's only one line to pick) to moving along an NPC who is moving and talking to you at the same time. It would be a drag. Besides, not every single aspect of the game has to be about gameplay, either. If there's a story moving the game forward, there has to be some exposition from time to time.

I really don't understand why some people are so adamantly opposed to games having anything that vaguely resembles story crafting. I take that you don't read much, because you keep pinning storytelling to TV and movies and not novels, but whether you like it or not, video games are developing as a complex and hybrid medium. There's room for game which focus solely on the gameplay aspect, and there's room for games deeply invested in telling a story above all. I don't want to sound clichéd, but the old golden rule applies: if you don't like it, don't play. But stop trying to impose what you think games should be onto others.

I think both philosophies are appropriate, actually. A big thing to note is that part of the "gameplay" of Persona 4 is actually attaching yourself to the characters and attempting to figure out which character is the murderer. The Social Link system, the decisions you make in conversations, those are definitely "gameplay" in that series, and that's what makes the ridiculous amount of text in that game so palatable. You're not just advancing character development or story with most scenes, you're also acquiring information and leveling up your Social Links.

That's why Persona 4 is so damned effective, and will hopefully become the definitive model for game design created in the last ten years. It's practically a miracle of gameplay v. story integration, and even if you think the gameplay or story in that game are kind of terrible (which, yeah, I'm an anime fan and a JRPG fan, so I love them) said model could be applied in a million more places. Just awesome. It's something that Heavy Rain could've done a whole lot better to understand. Its gameplay isn't mashing the "X" button to keep Agent Jayden alive, it's trying to gather information and figure out the killer's identity.

I agree that storytelling is often a very engaging part of games, and often can be the reason I play through a game. But I really do think the best stories feature in games like Persona 4, or Mass Effect, or Red Dead Redemption, or Deadly Premonition, where the gameplay and the story combine as a cohesive whole.

@JazGalaxy said:

The way stories are told in gaming these days is just TERRIBLE. It's terrible because it's frequently redundant, schizofrenic, and self aggrandizing. I can't tell you how many games feature the protagonist unloading 15 rockets into a badguys face only to cut to a cutscene where the badguy wipes a little bit of blood off his lip, knocks a pistol out of the heroes hand and then escapes by jumping out a window or something.

I spend a lot of wasted mental energy bemoaning the fallen state of game design because games are very much in danger of going the route of comic books. In the early days of comic books, you could find comic books about almost anything. They had spy books, westerns, romance books, super hero books, millitary books, on and on. There were books for older people and younger people. Books for girls and books for boys. But as the industry "matured" for good and for bad, comic books began to be about nothing but super heroes until that's 90% of what was available to buy. Not only that, nearly all the books were about brooding, violent men and the baloon chested women they hung out with. By the time the 90's rolled around, comic books were less about the medium of sequential art and more about the fact that, in all the world of entertainment, the one place you got ultraviolence and softcore fantasy porn was in the comic book store.

Videogames are VERY much going in that direction. They're becoming movies for people who want their movies longer, with more gratutious violence and more sex. Kids who grow up never owning a C64, NES, SNES, N64 or Playstation will never know that gaming, at one point, was about actual gameplay and game design. They'll just think games are where you get first person movies and they get to watch ultraviolence and softcore porn without their parents realizing it.

This is a fantastic complaint as well. I don't really know if we are headed down that route, myself. I get what you mean, and I've seen it a million times. But we're in a world where Catherine sold 500,000 copies (in the U.S. alone, right?), and there are at least 6.7 million people playing Tiny Wings (supported by the Game Center number being that high; let alone the number of people who've purchased the game and never created a Game Center account.) The Walking Dead sold 8.5 million episodes, indicating an install base of at least a million users who played every episode. Journey seems to have sold gangbusters as well, being marked as the "fastest-selling PSN game ever," whatever that's worth. And let's not even start on Minecraft.

The indie scene, the iOS scene, the weird off-kilter developers like Atlus and Telltale, they're still making games "for everybody." It's...frustrating to see that shooters and action games often refuse to deal with these problems and grow up a bit, and it's frustrating to watch them sell better than those other games.

But the indie renaissance is happening, and it's actually catching the attention of the mainstream press, too. Passionate people are starting to try to convince our parents that The Walking Dead and Journey are "good things," regardless of medium. NPR, The New York Times, they're still talking about them. Maybe that'll be what protects us. I'm not sure.

Best we can do is support quality game design (and storytelling) when it comes about.

@JazGalaxy said:

And, if one happens to read a lot of material in a lot of different media, one comes to understand that different media have different constraints for communication.

But you're saying that narrative in video games is bad because it's not as good as in movies or TV shows. It's you who is comparing different media and, by your standards, unfairly.

@JazGalaxy said:

The way stories are told in gaming these days is just TERRIBLE. It's terrible because it's frequently redundant, schizofrenic, and self aggrandizing. I can't tell you how many games feature the protagonist unloading 15 rockets into a badguys face only to cut to a cutscene where the badguy wipes a little bit of blood off his lip, knocks a pistol out of the heroes hand and then escapes by jumping out a window or something.

So, if you could just kill the villain by shooting him once... would that make it good storytelling? What you're talking about here is not storytelling: it's realism. There has to be a necessary amount of disconnection between realism and fiction in video games, especially when it comes to gameplay. The suspension of disbelief doesn't work like that. You can't selectively turn it on or off, depending on what aspects of the game you want to pick at. If you're fine with the fact that the protagonist doesn't die in one hit, then why is it so disconcerting that the bad guy has a health bar and that you can't kill him by simply shooting him? The same happens in every other single medium. Watch an action movie and be amazed at how unrealistic everything is.

But, again, that's not a problem of good or bad storytelling. It's your personal problem with the degree of realism that the video game (or movie, in that case) has and how much deviation you are willing to accept.

@JazGalaxy said:

I spend a lot of wasted mental energy bemoaning the fallen state of game design because games are very much in danger of going the route of comic books. In the early days of comic books, you could find comic books about almost anything. They had spy books, westerns, romance books, super hero books, millitary books, on and on. There were books for older people and younger people. Books for girls and books for boys. But as the industry "matured" for good and for bad, comic books began to be about nothing but super heroes until that's 90% of what was available to buy. Not only that, nearly all the books were about brooding, violent men and the baloon chested women they hung out with. By the time the 90's rolled around, comic books were less about the medium of sequential art and more about the fact that, in all the world of entertainment, the one place you got ultraviolence and softcore fantasy porn was in the comic book store.

I know a thing or two about comic books. I'm not writing my PhD dissertation on them just for shits and giggles, you know. I think you should, first, broaden your horizons and realize that the industry is much more than just Marvel and DC. Then, revise your comic book history and ask yourself why the state of the comic book industry is as it is today. Go back to the 1950s and learned what happend then. It'll teach you a thing or two about comics.

Apart from that, there's little point in discussing this uncalled-for attack on comic books. There has never been as much variety in the world of video games as there is today. If you want to limit yourself to Call of Duty, sure, everything is a modern military shooter. But that's just you fooling yourself into believing what you want to believe.

@JazGalaxy said:

Videogames are VERY much going in that direction. They're becoming movies for people who want their movies longer, with more gratutious violence and more sex. Kids who grow up never owning a C64, NES, SNES, N64 or Playstation will never know that gaming, at one point, was about actual gameplay and game design. They'll just think games are where you get first person movies and they get to watch ultraviolence and softcore porn without their parents realizing it.

I'm not going to entertain this "get out of my lawn".... argument?

@JazGalaxy said:

Also, this is by definition, bad design.

When you say "by definition" you have to provide the definition you are using to, well, define something. Just saying.

@JazGalaxy said:

If a game is about gameplay, for good design to happen, everything has to be about the gameplay. If a story is about the story, then by design, everything has to be about the story. Any design book in the world will tell you that, and yet somehow it hasn't sunk in with game designers yet.

Or, you know, developers could try to make a game with a good story and good gameplay. Since you're so behemently citing movies as an example of good narrative, would you say that there's no movie in which the visual presentation (special effects, character design, photography, etc.) and the story where on par with each other? So, no Godfather? No Alien? No Die Hard? No Saving Private Ryan? In each of those movies both aspects intertwined so perfectly that they created some of the best examples of each of their respective genres. Why is trying to achieve the same so impossible... no, so fundamentally wrong for video games?

@JazGalaxy said:

I could go on and on. No game has ever benefitted by trying to be a servant of two masters.

Half-Life 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Psychonauts, Journey, 999/Virtue's Last Reward, Braid, Final Fantasy Tactics, Grim Fandango, Gears of War, Deus Ex, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, Bioshock, Shadow of the Colossus, Portal... And the list goes on. Sure, not every single game has the best and most revolutionary gameplay/story ever, but all of these games feature solid gameplay and solid stories. At least, on a general level.

So, yeah. Holy shit, wall of text.

Edit: BTW, no hard feelings. I'm just defending my position. Nothing personal against you.

@Little_Socrates: Yeah, I just picked Persona 4 because it was the first long-ass game that came to my mind. I wasn't specifically referring to is Social Link mechanics, just to its length.

Unless a trope is gameplay-related, which is generally exclusive to video games, I feel like everything frustrating (and conversely, everything that has been done well) that has ever been done in a video game has been done frustratingly (or well) in other media before, at least in terms of visual and writing tropes. And "[X amount of time] earlier/later" can be done really well or really poorly. I think it's really poor if it's not thought out well ahead of time, like a prequel wasn't initially planned and then they decide to do one, and important plot points are suddenly retconned for no good reason.