Well Lord of the rings would look pretty stupid if he(Tolkien) just wrote the first book.

How is this a game only thing? :P

Not the point - the point is that it's not comparable to an airport novel, at least not in a negative light.

Ok so the best video games have to offer comes up to about halfway of the mediocre mark on books and movies. I only say thin because if you get the creme de la ceme of video games I can bring in the same of books and movies. So settle that Video game stories come up to the mediocre mark for books and movies?

I find the bolded highly insulting. I bought The Road by Cormac McCarthy at the airport and to me it was far, far better than any story in a videogame ever.

I will settle on that point only if you acknowledge that it is not the highest point to which they ascend.

Which is to say, "There are videogames at least as good as the mean average quality for books and movies: some, it could be argued, may be higher."

Okay bringing out McCarthy is kind of hitting below the belt.

But I'd still compare Mother 3 to The Road, and no, I am not exaggerating.

Of course I'm going to judge based on my experience, what do you judge based upon, statistical analysis of stories...?

Up until movies and TV started to decline, you would get far far more films and TV shows with much better stories than those in games. The quality for a typical TV show story was higher than that for a typical game, and the higher end was much better than the higher end in games. Even now in decline TV and film have better stories generally.

It's my opinion that game stories in games do generally suck. Of course that's also true for movies, books and television, but it's even worse for games. That should be expected, though. In fact, it's ok, it's not something that needs urgent improving which is why it's been allowed to happen. By and large the values we expect from games are different to the values we expect from those other mediums, most of the most popular games have little to no story at all(Tetris, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Mario Kart Wii), and are the better for it, because it's not what people are seeking. On the other hand for far more FBT(films, books, TV), story is a central value, along with writing, acting, characters, depending on the type. FBT live or die by story, very often.

With games story isn't even a value people seek most of the time. Even when it is, it's a value that goes along with a wider group of values than in movies. Consider the values one might expect from an action film and action game, for the film there's story, action, writing, humor, special effects, characters, acting and cinematics. The game will likely need all those values bar cinematics, though conventionally they include it. It also needs the values of gameplay, controls (intuitiveness and power), graphics*, learning curve, difficulty curve, more optional values like physics, and design values like "pick up and play", play-freedom, etc. As part of a game project 'story' is one of more values, all values have costs in resources or hinder other values, so story often takes a back seat. It's only because it's not a big priority for most consumers that this has happened. The games that focus more on 'story' as a value are often more niche, even the better selling adventure games, often with the better stories, don't exactly light the charts on fire.

I believe that of those games that are widely** regarded as having a good story, a good chunk are due to not focussing on things like cinematics and plot. This allows them to have an engaging 'story', and enables them to focus on game values like freedom and control in ways they couldn't otherwise. Half Life is a good example of this, if you think about it, it didn't have a very good plot, but it's very engaging. Stuff happens around you rather than in cutscenes, you never get the "I wouldn't do that" feeling. And in my opinion the problem with games that try to have a good story but fail, are the ones that cling on to the "cinematic" value, when it's a hindrence to a good game for most people since it diminishes other values (Dead Space Extraction).

So anyway, game stories suck, but it's only because they're not as important as games enthusiasts might want them to be.

*films are usually live action and have this much more easily

**widely as in the general gaming populace, not just the enthusiast core

@Demotruk:

I think the definition of "story" you use is too narrow; I am not here referring to plot and narrative alone, because those are primarily passive storytelling methods. There are methods of engagement that have to be considered in video games which make them considerably different, and subject to very different schools of criticism.

....

...And the line you quoted was me going "rar rar rar rar grrrr" over people syaing Japanese games had inherently better storytelling than Western games.

Yes I will settle on that gladly. Twilight made vampires into pussies that I can probably bitch slap left and right, I wish that had never existed.

However video games are an entirely different medium, it's not liek the rest of the media where the person is passively engaged by the story, they actively participate in it. As such linear story telling or story telling with cut-scenes ad things is REALLY ineffective on video games. That's why I brought up HL and Witcher. One has ridiculous amount os choices the other has no cut-scenes in any way.

 - "Games are not limited by gameplay. They create stories that fit within that framework." See how flawed that logic is?

 - Gravitation? But no, I think any game can express itself through gameplay. One way to do so is through a method related to the 'show, don't tell' principle - or in this case, 'experience, don't tell'. A simple example: In Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, a player knows early on that the Dominus glyph is evil and will eventually lead to the main characters death for one simple reason; using it drains your HP. That is, an important aspect of the story is told not through exposition, but through gameplay.

 Similar techniques are used in games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Majora's Mask though they are much more refined.

 - Games can't tell dramatic storylines? Adventure games new and old seem to disagree. Also, even if games are limited in such a way, does that mean they lack the means to tell great stories within that genre? By denying this you are essentially attacking all genres and archetypes in general - not just those employed by games.