Why games fail at storytelling

[Riachu]

noname2200 said:

zexen_lowe said:

noname2200 said:

Godot said:

Of course it would be neat, but you have to realize that would be nearly impossible to do, at most you would be able to do it once (like Radiata Stories, where at the middle of the game you choose which path you take, and the story changes dramatically), or twice, you can't feature 30 entirely different stories in one game without either compromising seriously the quality of each one or having a ten-year-in-development game

 

I know you're quite right, hence the last clause in my post. I also have to apologize; looking back at my post, I quickly drifted from the article, and began inserting words into the author's mouth by substituting my own ideas and examples.

I was going to further extremes than the author was to best illustrate the optimum method of storytelling. The author himself limits his comments to "please don't do anything to shatter the illusion, because I want to pretend to be the character. When the character does something I wouldn't, the man behind the curtain gets revealed." Still, he does so because he recognizes that games and traditional media are different, so what works in one will not necessarily work in the other.

There was an editorial on Gamasutra which made a similar point, albeit more persuasively than this author managed. The example the author used was of the first two Prince of Persia games. In the second one, you're almost expected to feel like you're the badass Prince, and it doesn't work so well because the Prince is not only an unlikeable character, but because his situation is so different from ours that it's hard to relate.

By contrast, the first Prince of Persia had the Prince narrating the story, and in such a way that you felt that he was telling you, the player, what had happened to him, the Prince, in the past. In short, it created the illusion not that you were the Prince, but that you were his audience. In doing so, it became easier to passively accept the narrative; you know you're not the Prince, you're not expected to feel like you're the Prince, so when he does something you definitely wouldn't you're not jarred back into reality.

The problem is that most games follow the second game's model, with the same results. It is that pitfall that the author of this article wants developers to avoid in the future. I think it's a fair point, but I also don't see the way traditional games are doing things as always being fatal either. As I said, I'm about 50/50 with the guy.

 

 

In other words, the developers should avoid using unlikable characters and should have the main character narrating the story.  Is that what you are getting at?