This thread is sad. I will save the insults for people that are smart enough to understand them. Video games plots are retarded. At least no one mentioned how awesome FF7 plot is. There may still be hope ...

Let me try a different approach to help some of you guys. Reading:

The Republic - Plato
will help you walk using only your legs

The Prince - Machiavelli
will teach you how to wipe your ass

Art of War - Sun Tzu
will help you understand the importance of opposable thumbs

Second Treatise of Government - John Locke
will teach you to get your own food instead of eating other wild animals leftovers

The Old Regime and the Revolution - Alexis de Tocqueville
fire is your friend and round obejects may help you overcome the apes

Candide: or, Optimism - Voltaire
time to use words intead of grunts

The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoyevsky
You may finally understand why you are a failure as a human being

...ItsaMii

You named an awful lot of non-fiction just now, given that this thread is about stories.

Did you read half your list, or did you happen to imagine that The Prince had a narrative? Or the Art of War? Or the Second Treatise?

This is painful.

I don't think itsamii knows what a plot is.

My two cents (sorry, for my English, it's early morning here and I'm not sure I'm awake already).

The problem isn't about crappy game stories (there're no such thing like a 'quality story' after all), but about modern theory of game design (well, there's no such thing technically since it's too young, but there're some common elements you may found in any textbook) and game development practice that both contradicts storytelling (or narration, it's a better term) as form of expression in art.

The game stories script writers usually underestimate the power of gaming medium, treating it like movies or books (that happened to movies back in the beginning of 20th century, when theatre directors treated new form of media not benefiting from it's advantages, new forms of expression capabilities that couldn't be made at the stage).

Aarseth, game theorist, call games 'ergodic literature' or ' cybertext', referring to the word of 'ergodic' as a completely new form of story perception that's not 'reading' (printed media) or 'watching' (films), but he's just a theorist. There're people in game industry such as David Cage who's asking the right question, i.e. 'what are relations between game and story-telling?', but I'm not sure if he's got the right answer. Anyway a nicely defined task is a half of it's solution.


At this point game stories, in addition to being constructed around wrong ideas as stated above, are pretty shallow by standards of other kinds of medium. They haven't got diversity and complexity of literature and cinema, the cause I believe in target audience. It's not a secret that games are mostly being driven by teenage males (though there new people of different sex and ages are becoming gamers recently but their activity is nothing compared to old guard buying games at faster pace).

Not really a problem, since all entertainment media are driven by teenagers to some extent by numerous reasons I'm not gonna to discuss here, but e.g. cinema potential audience is so huge and diverse, that makes this kind of phenomena universal around the globe, among different kind of people, sexes, ages and culture - so every person able to find something relevant for him\her in the art of cinema. That's not the case with gaming, at least for now.

//On sidenote. Jeez, games even haven't got practically no private (not epic, but private) stories, about, well... love, maybe? The last time I checked that was Mass Effect story I believe. Overall, good game but... nah, pretty standard masculine and immature representation of human relations (well, alien-human, too, but since all aliens in Mass Effect were so two-dimensional and human, ther're completely no difference... hello, to Lem's masterpiece btw). So basically it was a Star Trek\Wars made into a game. Please, get me right, I liked them at the age of 14, they got me interested into more serious sci-fi (not being sci-fi themselves), but I'd like to experience something new.

Ah, I won't continue... it's so saddening. Medium with such a great potential treated like a regular TV series for teenagers in it's storytelling. The sun is rising, I need to get to work.

Lufia 2 for the SNES.

Mother 3 for the GBA.

Edit: But I liked your post otherwise, mai, it was a good post.

And that proves my point. Let`s go back to what I said:

This thread is sad. I will save the insults for people that are smart enough to understand them. Video games plots are retarded. At least no one mentioned how awesome FF7 plot is. There may still be hope ...

Let me try a different approach to help some of you guys. Reading:

Bold 1 - I mention how much I love game plots
Bold 2 - I said something about different, approach and help

Premise 1 - There was no explicit or implicit limit set on this thread about what could be discussed or not. Even if there was, no one gives a shit in a message board.
Premise 2 - Not all games have a plot. There are different genres of games as there are different genres of movies and books. Some of them have no plot.
Premise 3 - Other people mentioned these other medias and their opinions on it.
Premise 4 - No one considered the arguments invalid because they were talking about games, movies or books without plot

Conclusion - The quoted posts are either ignorant or internet sophism

To make it even more clear: when I said different approach I mean it. Note there is no "that is how a real plot should be" or "books plot pwn VG plot". The purpose of reading these books is to get smarter, develop a critical view and understand basic concepts of human nature. They will make up for all the IQ points you lost watching crappy anime or reading Rousseau on college.

I will even help you guys, considering you would have to use wikipedia to even know which ones have a plot. The Republic is simple to read, it might as well be a informal conversation in a bar. The Prince is kinda like a letter giving advices, very easy to read and even easier to misunderstand. Art of War may will teach all you need to know about strategy and how to deal with simple minded people (99% of them including you 2). You may avoid Lockes Treatise, it would be like feeding the pigs with the best food I have. Tocqueville may be too much also. Voltaire book is a satire, unless you know a little about the author backgroung you may not understand why it is so awesome. The Brothers Karamazov is the best book ever written. Spoiling anything would be a sin.

Just for fun I will throw you guys a bone and recommend some books with a plot.

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Why? Making plot twists in VG irrelevant since 1886.

O Mulato - Aluisio de Azevedo
Why? It shows how much it sucks to develop a plot just to prove a point (even if it is the truth)

Crime and Punishment - guess who?
Why? It will show how crappy VG plots are when all of a sudden you realize that Polina Mikhailovna Marmeladova (one of the minor characters that talks 2 or 3 times) has more personality than all the VG characters ever made. Really, I can understand her feelings much better than Solid Snake (who has a face and 50 hours of spoken dialog advantage).

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho (no excuses it was translated in more than 60 languages)
Why? It sucks. Just to prove that crap can be a commercial succes on all media forms. Kinda like Metal Gear Solid 2, Persona 3 and FF 7 it is a retarded plot highly praised by people that dont know any better.

Games without plots were mentioned only in a context to explain their relationship to games with plot; that is how those posts stayed on topic, while yours didn't.

You made an inappropriate post; that's cool. Everybody does it from time to time. But talking down to other members (one of them a literature major, a literature student) and attempting to make this a point of contention for no apparent reason...? I'm not sure what you're trying to do.

And no, I would not recommend those particular works as the first way to improve a person. I would start with something more contemporary and more relevant, such as "How to See Yourself as You Really Are" by the Dalai Lama. Title of a self-help book, content of a great philosopher, so on and so forth.

Please, though, in the future, try to make your point without resorting to condescension. You will do better!

Actually, I seem to remember that being one of the point in The Prince. Ironic.

Crime and Punishment kicks so much ass. But does it kick as much ass as Super Mario Bros.? I... I just don't know. I've probably written tons of essays about both.

Both deal with very complex issues:

Trying to overcome all moral and ethical limits society imposes - is it ok to kill all those goombas and koopas to save a single princess?

Contradictions that you can`t explain - How can you walk on the ceiling if you are underground?

A poor and opressive lifestyle can lead you to extreme actions - mushroom addiction

In the end you will realize that there is still hope - your princess is in another castle