Writing in video games is really bad

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Doctorchimp

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#101  Edited By Doctorchimp

@Jay444111: I meant you could have, but you didn't. Which I'm not going to lie, deserves its own merit.

Also I don't understand your love for Joss Whedon. Like you're comparing him to George Lucas who probably never had any real talent and Speilberg? Good job I guess? Even then can you honestly tell me Empire Strikes Back (the one with the least amount of input from George) and Raiders of the Lost Ark are terribly aged and out of touch? Of course you can't. That shit still plays and is still impacting nearly every action and adventure story you experience regardless of medium.

You know Joss didn't even direct cabin in the woods right? Drew Goddard his old buddy did.

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MLeeLunsford

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#102  Edited By MLeeLunsford

@Jay444111: I like Joss Whedon, but you're way off. There are a lot of great directors around, better than Joss. Joss is fun! But he's not the best. Martin Scorsese still makes movies for instance! Clint Eastwood! If you're just looking for dumb fun Quinten Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez (when he's not doing terrible kids movies anyways). That's not all, that's just a few! You can of course, not like these guys movies, that doesn't make them bad at their jobs, that just makes them not your taste.

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FengShuiGod

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#103  Edited By FengShuiGod

This guy crossed the line into troll territory when he started shitting on writers, but his general point that video game writing can be improved is valid. Part of the problem with game writing is that it is subordinate to circumstances within the game. Like with Uncharted, the set pieces are often designed, and then the writers come in. It's easy to see how this can lead to contrivances in story, and how it can turn story into a justification instead of something that functions for and of itself. It's also easy to see that video game writers have to work within incredible constraints. Filmic mediums and novels are told so fundamentally differently from game stories that I think comparing them isn't always a good idea, but, unfortunately, games often invite the comparison as they strive to be "cinematic". Part of the problem is video games continue to deliver story in a filmic way, when they should try to deliver it in a more video-game-y way. Some films feel too much like books, while some succeed on their own terms. Video games must find their grove and their own terms instead of trying to beat other mediums at their own game. When this happens conventional ways of story telling won't need to be shoe horned in via walls of text or contrived dialogue.

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TMBaker

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#104  Edited By TMBaker
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Doctorchimp

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#105  Edited By Doctorchimp
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Jay444111

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#106  Edited By Jay444111

@FengShuiGod said:

This guy crossed the line into troll territory when he started shitting on writers, but his general point that video game writing can be improved is valid. Part of the problem with game writing is that it is subordinate to circumstances within the game. Like with Uncharted, the set pieces are often designed, and then the writers come in. It's easy to see how this can lead to contrivances in story, and how it can turn story into a justification instead of something that functions for and of itself. It's also easy to see that video game writers have to work within incredible constraints. Filmic mediums and novels are told so fundamentally differently from game stories that I think comparing them isn't always a good idea, but, unfortunately, games often invite the comparison as they strive to be "cinematic". Part of the problem is video games continue to deliver story in a filmic way, when they should try to deliver it in a more video-game-y way. Some films feel too much like books, while some succeed on their own terms. Video games must find their grove and their own terms instead of trying to beat other mediums at their own game. When this happens conventional ways of story telling won't need to be shoe horned in via walls of text or contrived dialogue.

You could always say writing should always be improved... In general. As a writer myself. I know for a certain fact that there will never be a perfect story. Never has been, never will be. Nor will there ever be the most well written thing in existence ever happen to any of the mediums.

However, shitting on methods of HOW to tell a story pisses me off. It doesn't matter if uses cutscenes or filmlike ideas. If a story is good and well written than it is good and well written! It shouldn't be shitted on! There are no bad ways to tell a story! only bad stories and bad writing! Ugh... people who say it should be it's own thing just piss me off for so many reasons.

The number one reason I can tell you, is that it completely limits what you can do with a video game and limiting things is bullshit on a monstrous scale. No art form should ever be limited because of dumbass pretentiousness. Ever.

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FengShuiGod

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#107  Edited By FengShuiGod

@Jay444111 said:

@FengShuiGod said:

This guy crossed the line into troll territory when he started shitting on writers, but his general point that video game writing can be improved is valid. Part of the problem with game writing is that it is subordinate to circumstances within the game. Like with Uncharted, the set pieces are often designed, and then the writers come in. It's easy to see how this can lead to contrivances in story, and how it can turn story into a justification instead of something that functions for and of itself. It's also easy to see that video game writers have to work within incredible constraints. Filmic mediums and novels are told so fundamentally differently from game stories that I think comparing them isn't always a good idea, but, unfortunately, games often invite the comparison as they strive to be "cinematic". Part of the problem is video games continue to deliver story in a filmic way, when they should try to deliver it in a more video-game-y way. Some films feel too much like books, while some succeed on their own terms. Video games must find their grove and their own terms instead of trying to beat other mediums at their own game. When this happens conventional ways of story telling won't need to be shoe horned in via walls of text or contrived dialogue.

You could always say writing should always be improved... In general. As a writer myself. I know for a certain fact that there will never be a perfect story. Never has been, never will be. Nor will there ever be the most well written thing in existence ever happen to any of the mediums.

However, shitting on methods of HOW to tell a story pisses me off. It doesn't matter if uses cutscenes or filmlike ideas. If a story is good and well written than it is good and well written! It shouldn't be shitted on! There are no bad ways to tell a story! only bad stories and bad writing! Ugh... people who say it should be it's own thing just piss me off for so many reasons.

The number one reason I can tell you, is that it completely limits what you can do with a video game and limiting things is bullshit on a monstrous scale. No art form should ever be limited because of dumbass pretentiousness. Ever.

No Caption Provided

Then why have different mediums, if the purpose to communicate is not to be done with diversity? It seems to me like art will be limited if you want all the mediums to use the same tropes in the same ways. Try to do The Sound and The Fury on the screen. Try to do 2001 on the page. So it should be with games. I never abrogated the possibility of using cut scenes or adapting film ideas either. Here you are making assumptions. Hell, I think that such things should be adapted to games. Games, however, should not be adapted to them.

And there are bad ways to tell a story. I'm sure you can think of some.

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OllyOxenFree

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#108  Edited By OllyOxenFree
@Jay444111 said:

As a writer myself.

I really want to see some of your written work. I'm curious.
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TheHumanDove

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#109  Edited By TheHumanDove

Classic Jay thread

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AuthenticM

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#110  Edited By AuthenticM

Gotta tell it like it is.

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napalm

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#111  Edited By napalm

Videogames are not movies, nor will they ever be. Mechanics first. Fuck everything else.

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ShaggE

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#112  Edited By ShaggE

@OllyOxenFree said:

@Jay444111 said:

As a writer myself.

I really want to see some of your written work. I'm curious.

Seconded. I want to line my shelves with this guy's bibliography. I really do.

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Jay444111

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#113  Edited By Jay444111

@Napalm said:

Videogames are not movies, nor will they ever be. Mechanics first. Fuck everything else.

This is untrue these days at good developers places. Story and gameplay basically go hand in hand at this point.

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napalm

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#114  Edited By napalm

@Jay444111 said:

@Napalm said:

Videogames are not movies, nor will they ever be. Mechanics first. Fuck everything else.

This is untrue these days at good developers places. Story and gameplay basically go hand in hand at this point.

No.

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Jay444111

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#115  Edited By Jay444111

@Napalm said:

@Jay444111 said:

@Napalm said:

Videogames are not movies, nor will they ever be. Mechanics first. Fuck everything else.

This is untrue these days at good developers places. Story and gameplay basically go hand in hand at this point.

No.

Best rebuttal huh? Well, considering that designers constantly work insanely hard to create a story as the writers work on it, they do just about as much work as the programmers at that point.

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TheFreeMan

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#116  Edited By TheFreeMan

Well, duh-doy. I don't feel this is something limited to videogames. Considering that games are younger than movies and much younger than books, the amount of games with "good" writing is pretty thin, but there's still a great deal of pure garbage churned out every year, regardless of medium. I mean, yeah, sure, you've got stuff coming out like, I dunno, The Grey, but then there's also Transformers 3, and for every Farewell to Arms (or something. i haven't read many new books) you've got five Twilights. There are games that have good writing - Uncharted (maybe not in terms of plot but otherwise cool), or Portal or Bastion or Red Dead Redemption - they're just outnumbered. But the industry is still young. Look at some (really) early movies, they didn't have any (or had barebones) dialogue and had stories that involved shuttles being shot into the face of the moon by a giant gun. I'm not saying that's bad but it's a lot different than The Godfather, or whatever. Things have changed, and game writing will also change and become more sophisticated, provided the industry continues. It might move slower, though, since where movies and books serve primarily to tell a story/deliver a message and entertain, games also have to have some degree of interactivity, which adds another layer and that can put writing on the backburner, a sacrifice that can still allow them to succeed.

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#117  Edited By napalm

@Jay444111 said:

@Napalm said:

@Jay444111 said:

@Napalm said:

Videogames are not movies, nor will they ever be. Mechanics first. Fuck everything else.

This is untrue these days at good developers places. Story and gameplay basically go hand in hand at this point.

No.

Best rebuttal huh? Well, considering that designers constantly work insanely hard to create a story as the writers work on it, they do just about as much work as the programmers at that point.

Well, my rebuttal is you're wrong, and since you are wrong, I don't really know what's to discuss. Sure, some companies do it well, but it mainly comes off at hamfisted or goofy. Hard work =/= solid/good story.

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Ghostiet

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#118  Edited By Ghostiet

A lot is terribly written AND forgiven because it's not the primary focus of a video game. It's gameplay. The story should be functional to gameplay, just like Eric Wolpaw laid it out. We have cases where that line is blurred to the point of erasure - like in Portal, Braid or Nier. It's something a book or a film can rarely do. And they rarely get away with it, because they have much, much less to offer than a video game.

And yes, it's a generalization. There's a ton of terrific writing in video games - Planescape Torment, The Reconstruction, Fallout New Vegas, Nier, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne, Bastion, Braid, Portal, Psychonauts, Alan Wake, Binary Domain, The Witcher, Lone Survivor, Singularity, Mother 3... All written on a moment's notice and I don't even claim to be very knowledgeable about video games.

Besides, browse through a few libraries or book stores. You'll see how they are saddled with awful "historical" books, terrible fantasy and science-fiction. And yet you don't hear anyone talk how 90% of books are pieces of shit, even though the amount of crap really outweighs the shitty writing we have in vidya.

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TwoLines

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#119  Edited By TwoLines

Hmmm... I think Video Games are not books, nor are they movies. We have limited technology at the moment, so we do need writing, but the further we can push gameplay, the more procedualy generated the story should get.

I mean, there always should be a canvas for a story, but I think that to fully utilize the uniquness of the medium, we have to go into mechanics and gameplay more than into scripted story and such.

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#120  Edited By Alkaiser

@Ghostiet said:

A lot is terribly written AND forgiven because it's not the primary focus of a video game. It's gameplay. The story should be functional to gameplay, just like Eric Wolpaw laid it out. We have cases where that line is blurred to the point of erasure - like in Portal, Braid or Nier. It's something a book or a film can rarely do. And they rarely get away with it, because they have much, much less to offer than a video game.

And yes, it's a generalization. There's a ton of terrific writing in video games - Planescape Torment, The Reconstruction, Fallout New Vegas, Nier, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne, Bastion, Braid, Portal, Psychonauts, Alan Wake, Binary Domain, The Witcher, Lone Survivor, Singularity, Mother 3... All written on a moment's notice and I don't even claim to be very knowledgeable about video games.

Besides, browse through a few libraries or book stores. You'll see how they are saddled with awful "historical" books, terrible fantasy and science-fiction. And yet you don't hear anyone talk how 90% of books are pieces of shit, even though the amount of crap really outweighs the shitty writing we have in vidya.

This is probably going to come off terribly so I apologize in advance, but I frowned when you listed Alan Wake as good writing. Same with Braid.

Then again, my negative feelings towards Braid probably have more to do with Jonathan Blow and how he sounds like a tremendous tool.

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Doctorchimp

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#121  Edited By Doctorchimp

@ShaggE said:

@OllyOxenFree said:

@Jay444111 said:

As a writer myself.

I really want to see some of your written work. I'm curious.

Seconded. I want to line my shelves with this guy's bibliography. I really do.

I'd be willing to pay...

I am completely serious.

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Harkat

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#122  Edited By Harkat

"These idiots who make these games"

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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He mentions narrative arc is if the games writer decides what levels go where. That characters do things because the writer decided it.

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Yanngc33

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#124  Edited By Yanngc33

I have to agree. If they were to turn Mass Effect into a movie and keep the same script from the game, it would make for a bad movie, regardless of your prior knowledge of the Mass Effect series

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Tennmuerti

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#125  Edited By Tennmuerti

@Alkaiser said:

@Ghostiet said:

A lot is terribly written AND forgiven because it's not the primary focus of a video game. It's gameplay. The story should be functional to gameplay, just like Eric Wolpaw laid it out. We have cases where that line is blurred to the point of erasure - like in Portal, Braid or Nier. It's something a book or a film can rarely do. And they rarely get away with it, because they have much, much less to offer than a video game.

And yes, it's a generalization. There's a ton of terrific writing in video games - Planescape Torment, The Reconstruction, Fallout New Vegas, Nier, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne, Bastion, Braid, Portal, Psychonauts, Alan Wake, Binary Domain, The Witcher, Lone Survivor, Singularity, Mother 3... All written on a moment's notice and I don't even claim to be very knowledgeable about video games.

Besides, browse through a few libraries or book stores. You'll see how they are saddled with awful "historical" books, terrible fantasy and science-fiction. And yet you don't hear anyone talk how 90% of books are pieces of shit, even though the amount of crap really outweighs the shitty writing we have in vidya.

This is probably going to come off terribly so I apologize in advance, but I frowned when you listed Alan Wake as good writing. Same with Braid.

Then again, my negative feelings towards Braid probably have more to do with Jonathan Blow and how he sounds like a tremendous tool.

And likewise I have to strongly disagree for Binary Domain and Singularity. They are not passable as decent stories to anyone with a background in some of the rudimentary classics of science fiction literature. They both come off as funny at best if you take them in videogame stride, idiotic at worst if you take them seriously. Good writing for a video game? - sure, terrific writing as such? - not by a long shot.

But yeah there are plenty of games with a strong narrative.

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Ghostiet

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#126  Edited By Ghostiet
@Alkaiser said:

@Ghostiet said:

A lot is terribly written AND forgiven because it's not the primary focus of a video game. It's gameplay. The story should be functional to gameplay, just like Eric Wolpaw laid it out. We have cases where that line is blurred to the point of erasure - like in Portal, Braid or Nier. It's something a book or a film can rarely do. And they rarely get away with it, because they have much, much less to offer than a video game.

And yes, it's a generalization. There's a ton of terrific writing in video games - Planescape Torment, The Reconstruction, Fallout New Vegas, Nier, Red Dead Redemption, Max Payne, Bastion, Braid, Portal, Psychonauts, Alan Wake, Binary Domain, The Witcher, Lone Survivor, Singularity, Mother 3... All written on a moment's notice and I don't even claim to be very knowledgeable about video games.

Besides, browse through a few libraries or book stores. You'll see how they are saddled with awful "historical" books, terrible fantasy and science-fiction. And yet you don't hear anyone talk how 90% of books are pieces of shit, even though the amount of crap really outweighs the shitty writing we have in vidya.

This is probably going to come off terribly so I apologize in advance, but I frowned when you listed Alan Wake as good writing. Same with Braid.

Then again, my negative feelings towards Braid probably have more to do with Jonathan Blow and how he sounds like a tremendous tool.

I don't hold that against you, so no need to apologize, though Braid is something I'd defend pretty heavily if we were to have an argument about it.

Alan Wake, I admit, is probably the weakest of everything I listed. That story's biggest problem is that at its core, it's a good story, it's just that it feels like it belongs into a completely different medium (not to mention it kinda wastes its impossible potential). Also, it sometimes get muddled by Lindelof/Carter-like bullshit, especially towards the very end.

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AngelN7

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#127  Edited By AngelN7

I want my videogames to be fun first great storytellers second and usually I don't need a good story to play a good game and that's how it should be, but also I'll say I've enjoyed the atmosphere/setting of "recent" games more than I've enjoyed the story in some movies lately acutally (Inception being the only one who really stood out to me) games will get there maybe not at the same levels as something as books but they'll be able to tell compelling stories, some of them have to a certain degree (Red Dead Redemption).

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bchampnd

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#128  Edited By bchampnd

The writing in video games has been, in general, pretty terrible but I think that's starting to change somewhat as more Western developers have risen to prominence. One thing that needs to be taken into account is that, until fairly recenty, most video games were made in Japan. As a result, there is/was a cultural divide that leads/led many in the West to find the writing in games to be bad. Not just because of the laughably bad translations that plagued games until around the mid-90s or some extreme stilted voice acting which continues to this day in some titles, but because the social context out of which the stories originates is completely foreign to Westerners so it's harder to connect with the stories.

I think Naughty Dog and Bioware have put together some well-told stories (even if you don't like the endings in some of the games), but let's be honest - video games are almost always going to try to be more Michael Bay than [insert your director of choice here] so the story is going to be pushed aside to some extent to make way for the visual flair and gameplay elements except for in games like Heavy Rain and Quantic Dream's new game which are more interactive movie than game.

I think that there is always going to be a trade off between a carefully crafted story and giving the player choice. Games with good writing are going to be more limited in how much choice they can give a player because it would be almost impossible to write enough dialogue and get it to fit well together if a player is given a lot of options. Uncharted's story works because you fail the mission and you will continue failing until you do what Naughty Dog wants you to do to advance the story in a very particular way. In games with more choice, the writers can usually either account for only 2 story arcs - either you're good or bad - and if you play anything in between you're going to get generic story telling that usually leaves people unsatisfied.

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camp7203

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#129  Edited By camp7203

Because Tomb Raider is going to be some kind of epic narrative right? Get with it.

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Tylea002

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#130  Edited By Tylea002

Whilst video game writing needs to improve, calling the writers of many games complete and utter hacks who coast is complete bullshit. I'm sure each and every one of the writers for a call of duty or a halo had dreams of being amazing writers, and still do. They still want to make good stories. But they can only operate within the limits of their product, otherwise they will get fired. If I was one of those guys, I'd feel quite hurt by that, because the vitriol is going in the wrong place.

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artgarcrunkle

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#131  Edited By artgarcrunkle

@Jay444111 said:

@Napalm said:

Videogames are not movies, nor will they ever be. Mechanics first. Fuck everything else.

This is untrue these days at good developers places. Story and gameplay basically go hand in hand at this point.

Hand and hand skipping into the sunset of mediocrity, I guess.

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fattony12000

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deactivated-6281db536cb1d

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I'd say that the frequency of quality story content in video games is nearly equal to the film industry. 80% of it is garbage, generic junk just thrown out there for a quick cash grab. For the most part the arguments here are the same heard about certain genre's of film: "Oh, it doesn't need to have a good story, it's just an (action/Romance/sci-fi/horror) flick."

I'd say the writing is about on par with the film industry.

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Gaff

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#134  Edited By Gaff

Has anyone namechecked Citizen Kane in this thread yet? Namechecked Planescape: Torment, Half-Life? Sturgeon's Law?

Awww... Nothing for me to add then. Yet.

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blackbird415

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#135  Edited By blackbird415

Games dont have great writing for reasons that have little to do with the intelligence of the people working on the games. Programmers and designers arent the best writers? Who would have thought...

At the same time you get experienced authors coming in known for their writing who in the end writing just as shitty of a story (i.e. crysis 2)...

This is the newest fucking medium to date. Try comparing to the history of movies and I'd say we're doing pretty fucking good. Video games are about where movies were in the 30s.

No one really knows how to write for video games. Its such a complex and user oriented system that the sheer amount of content needed is more than any other medium. The size of the GTA 4 script is bigger than any television, movie, hell most books don't match that size. To top with trying to write an engrossing story with all the depth and intrigue people want to expect from stories of other mediums is this level of expectation that unknowingly goes above and beyond what any production studio has been able to bring.

Having the person control what the character does is a serious challenge to figure out in making a story. Companies such as valve are certainly one of the ones excelling how to tell stories and pushing how to tell their story without throttling the control of the player.

No Caption Provided

I think in many ways we can agree video game writing is not at a level that equates ground breaking stories. The ground breaking part is more redefining how a story can be told.

Video game writing is in its serious infancy and will grow over time.

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blackbird415

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#136  Edited By blackbird415

@Napalm: you sure do make some eloquent arguments....

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Quarters

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#137  Edited By Quarters

I like video game stories. I find it to be one of the most fascinating fields of storytelling, due to the challenges and opportunities it represents.

Therefore, I disagree.

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gtg12

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#138  Edited By gtg12

Gotta tell it like it is... But some games really do have good writing.

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jakkblades

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#139  Edited By jakkblades

@Riboflavin said:

I've always been surprised with the lack of attention generally terrible writing gets in video games, since in general, with surprisingly few exceptions, the writing is indeed terrible. In this article by some guy he uses the whole tomb raider thing to make some good points about why game writing is really bad, and I thought it was cool.

http://thegodofgames.tumblr.com/post/25020578964/tomb-raider-on-writing

The vast majority of these idiots who make these games can’t write. They can’t tell stories. They can’t construct proper narrative arcs or realistically flesh out a character. They can’t write meaningful dialogue. They are not writers, but they think they are. The reason why they think they are is that no-one challenges the quality of their work. They are only writing games. They’re allowed to turn out shit and call it a job well done.

Gotta tell it like it is.

I think you answered your own question. The writing's all terrible, so why make a deal out of when it's just fulfilling the norm. That's why if it's getting talked about, it's the good, rare stuff getting talked about.