Hopefully, because I'm working from home today, I'll be doing so in a couple of hours for a... ahem, break.

Though I usually barely tolerate Jaffe, I kinda agree with him on this "context" thing. The good example to illustrate a bare minimum of context are WarioWare games. Here's a good review of the very first WarioWare game by Chaim  Gingold (remember Spore game?) that specifically talks about "fiction" in that game. Quite educative text, it's easier to comprehend such things on WarioWare simple examples.

QFT, though even by videogame standards I could name a few more deep and original sci-fi stories than Mass Effect space opera (e.g. look for games made by Steve Meretzky of Infocom).

Jaffe's point of view is so intelligent. I recommend watching the whole vid'. This guy doesn't do things light-headedly. It's very interesting. In the midst of internet internet hype, he stops and thinks with great insight, which I think can only be admired.

lol bioshock and mass effect?.

shadow of the colossus xO

You want good stories in games? How about hiring professional storytellers instead of letting the developers write stories themselves?

SotC story? You can describe the whole story in 2 sentences... SotC is about mood, setting and emotions (and gameplay). The idea is quiete original and not mainstream, which is appriciated. But it is not a complex story with lots of twists etc etc. Also he is talking about the way the story is told, player immersion and more. I sincerely recommend everyone to watch that episode of GT, no Pachter and a great lineup of industry experts.

In my editorial, I argued that ME2 actually had great storytelling, just not in the conventional sense of the word. Its strength came through the squad members and how you treated each of them, whether you helped them out with a loyalty mission, and how you treated them onboard the ship.

The overall story, though? Yeah, still pretty weak. Where interaction can replace stagnant stories is through manipulating the environment, not the overall story. As others have said, games with one ending are often the strongest because so much effort was made in creating a cohesive environment from beginning to end. The more interaction involved, the "weaker" that cohesive story becomes.

What can games do to combat this? Take the BioWare approach, IMO. Let players really commit to their choices and let the surrounding characters mold their experience for them, even at the expense of overall story (did anyone REALLY care about the Illusive Man more than Miranda or Mordin in ME2?).

Anyway, back on topic. Jaffe has valid points here. There is still a detachment from selecting "slap that bitch" and watching it happen versus watching a slap happen in real time. Through using different parts of the brain to control the order and being revealed the action's choice before it happens, it slightly removes the player from the experience.

Mass Effect's storyline is nothing spectacular. It's basically some ancient evil is looking to destroy everything and only one hero can prevent the imminent armageddon.

Storytelling has been properly cracked for at least 20 years, and possibly longer. Games have been telling effective and powerful stories for at least that long.

The only difference nowadays is that game makers don't want to do that. They want to sell games based on pretty pictures -it is, after all, the easiest way to sell games- and so they ignore the effective storytelling methods that have been well-understood for many years in an attempt to do what they brand as "more" while actually being less.

quoting myself so future readers get the fact that the title and blog post are incorrectly stating jaffe's comments.