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It's frequently said and widely accepted that the writing in videogames is not as good as that found in a book, or even a film. This is weird, because writing has been a part of the medium since not long after its inception. The original text adventure - Colossal Cave Adventure - was designed in 1976, and is nothing but writing. Even non-text games of that era show elements of writing, even if that writing is limited to the premise - the Space Invaders are invading! (Spoilers: we lose). So, if the writing in videogames has had the same forty years to improve as the rest of the medium, what's the deal? Why does it still suck? Does it still suck? Can it be as good as a book, or a film? Is it fair to compare these media and say that one is better or worse than the other? There's a lot of room for discussion and opinion here, but in-depth discussions of game writing traditionally don't happen much in the gaming community outside of some specific genres, even though story is an essential component of a huge majority of single-player games. There is, for example, no SA thread specifically dedicated to writing in videogames. What's that? This is one of those? Boy, that's meta. This thread is for discussion of all issues related to game writing. This is a spectacularly wide-ranging topic, so there should be plenty to talk about. However, it's important to note that everyone has a different depth of knowledge about writing, so with this OP I'll try to provide a bit of a primer so that we're all starting on the same springboard. What is videogame writing? This might sound like a stupid question, but it's not. When you hear the word "writing", your mind most likely jumps to one of several concepts. Let's use films as an example. Here are three films notable for good writing: Seven, Inglourious Basterds, and Shaun Of The Dead. All three of these films show evidence of great writing, but it's different in each case. Seven, for example, has an excellent, tightly-written plot which keeps you watching right up until the phenomenal payoff, which sticks with you for a while after the credits have rolled - but the dialogue is often a little stilted. Inglourious Basterds is driven purely by situation, tension and dialogue. It's a slow burn, and the plot actually doesn't really matter all that much, but it's a riveting watch. Shaun Of The Dead's plot and situation are both standard, boring zombie movie fare, but it excels in clever homage, satire, wordplay and witticism. The point I'm coming around to is that writing isn't narrowly defined. In a story-based videogame, nearly everything you come across has been written and designed. Take the original Tomb Raider. There's plot, and there's dialogue... and then there's that bit where you first slide down the side of the Sphinx and the camera suddenly draws way back and shows you just how tiny you are in comparison to the level. That wasn't a camera glitch, somebody wrote it with the intent of producing that effect. So, broadest definition: videogame writing is anything that attempts to convey an idea to the player. It's not just the plot of a game, or the dialogue, or the text logs you find - it's all three and more. Alright, but surely videogame writing is never going to be in the league of, say, a good book, or a movie, or a Japanese comic about sexy witch schoolgirls. This misconception is older than Grandma's toaster and we need to stop saying it, or it might come true. The fact is that we've been saying this about every new form of media since the Egyptians decided to try staining words onto paper instead of hammering them into the wall. When films came onto the scene, people lamented that they were intrinsically less worthwhile than books. For years people thought television was the idiot's opiate, and some still do. People thought that comic books were vulgar and couldn't be used to tell a story worth reading. We've been wrong every time and we're wrong this time. Comparing games to films is like comparing films to books. It's a fool's game. Both films and books can have fantastic writing, but you can't compare them with each other directly because they're a different medium and must use different methods to convey their stories. You've probably heard the phrase "the language of cinema" - the way in which films are shot to convey atmospheres and emotions that wouldn't be possible in, for example, a stage play, or even a book. This language has been developed and improved continuously throughout the history of cinema, and we're still discovering new techniques and storytelling methods. Nowadays, claiming a film couldn't ever be as good as a book would strike many people as a silly comparison - film is a totally different art form. Videogames are the same. They have their own language, which is still being developed. There is stuff that they can do that films and books can't (provide you with a choice! Ask for your opinion! Judge you by your actions!), and there is stuff that films and books can do that videogames usually can't (control pacing! Dictate the opinions of the protagonist! Be the subject of an interesting conversation with your dad!). Writers are still learning how to do things in this medium, and it's only lately that the audience for games with real, worthwhile story is starting to emerge. Now, with the advent of Steam and the indie game, more and more experimentation is being done in this art form. We've already seen major improvements in game storytelling in the past three years. In the next ten, we're going to see this improvement continue, just like it has with every other form of media. And one day we'll get our 2001: A Space Odyssey, our Watchmen, or our Breaking Bad. We're on our way already. OK, I'm convinced by your totally bulletproof argument. But I buy all the most popular videogames, and the stories all suck! Well, yeah, to an extent that's true. At the moment (and this is changing, if slowly), the big games that you've seen advertised on TV are mostly about spectacle, not story (and it's worthwhile to remember that spectacle isn't a bad thing). But recently, good writing has become much more important to media consumers in general - witness the success of True Detective, House Of Cards, and Fargo. This is already starting to bleed over into mainstream videogames, even if for now it's just casting Kevin Spacey in the new CoD. But yeah, at the moment, if you want good stories in games, more often than not you'll have to go looking for them. So, what should I look out for if I want to see some different ways in which games can have good writing? (This section is painfully incomplete because I am but a man. I will add good suggestions to this list as they are suggested and discussed in the thread.) Gone Home - If nothing else, this game certainly provokes a lot of debate. In Gone Home, you explore an empty house which is packed with detail - most everything can be picked up and examined, and further informs the story that you're being told. I like Gone Home, because it's a great example of a storytelling method that only videogames are capable of. Spec Ops: The Line - Another divisive game. Spec Ops starts off like any mediocre shooty war game, and then yanks the rug out from under you a couple of hours in and forces you to rethink things. The Stanley Parable - I'm just gonna stop saying that games are divisive because it seems like every game with a focus on writing splits people right down the middle. The Stanley Parable can be described as a collection of surreal comedic vignettes which explore and send up the mechanics and idiosyncracies of videogames. There's a lot to discover and think about, and behind the jokes the points being made are often pretty clever, even if the vignettes can be a little hit-and-miss. The Last Of Us - A good example of a well-written triple-A game. The Last Of Us is a solid enough action game, but the real draw is the development of the interpersonal relationship between Joel and Ellie, which is continually well-explored and has a powerful payoff. Mass Effect Trilogy - Whether Mass Effect is well-written is very debatable, but it's worth playing because the sheer amount of writing over the course of the three games is impressive, and keeping it reactive and influencable by the player (to whatever extent) is an impressive technical achievement. Alpha Protocol - The plot is your standard Hollywood spy thriller, but anyone who's played Alpha Protocol can tell you just how good the writing is. The whole game is massively reactive and Mike's decisions and attitudes can dramatically affect the outcome of the game. Every major character is well-realised with full backstories that you can discover, read up on, and even exploit. The Walking Dead - Some of the best videogame storytelling ever produced, Telltale's five-part Walking Dead series is the perfect zombie game - one with no shooting at all (well, almost none). Instead, the focus is on survival, decision-making and human relationships. The second season is in progress, and I haven't played it, but the first is almost universally critically acclaimed. Warning: this game will make you feel like poo poo and break your heart. Anything else I can check out? If you'd like to listen to videogame designers talk about writing, you could do worse than to listen to Idle Thumbs. The podcast is focused on general game design rather than specifically writing, but the cast members have worked on games such as The Walking Dead and Gone Home. It's also just a really good podcast about videogames in general. Seems a bit late to abandon this Q&A conceit now. Could you wrap up the OP somehow? Alright, I'm just about done, so now I hand over to everyone else. This thread is for discussion of writing in games, and games with good or bad writing. Basically if you can take the words "games" and "writing" and mash 'em together in a fun-sounding sentence, you can discuss that. That said, this is a topic that tends to incite lovely argument so there need to be a couple of ground rules. Don't just poo poo all over games you don't like - if you call something bad, justify it properly. We can call this the "Gone Home" rule. It's fine to criticise a game, but you need to qualify it with a good reason. What, specifically, didn't you like about it? What parts didn't work for you? If a game is divisive, that means some people really like it, so don't come in and say it sucks without qualifying, or you're just going to wind people up and cause a lovely argument. Don't fakepost - People have all sorts of weird, lovely opinions about videogames, so don't assume that you can post something incredibly dumb on purpose, and people will understand it and laugh. Someone will take you seriously and there will be an lovely argument. Don't get angry - you're a grown-up for christ's sake. Crazy Catch-All: Don't start lovely arguments - Just... don't. You know how not to do that, right? Before you post anything, ask yourself the question "Am I starting a lovely argument?" and if you are don't post. Remember your ABC. Always Be Checking-whether-you-are-starting-a-lovely-argument-and-not-posting-if-you-are. I'll add more to this OP as needed and suggested. Please suggest good links if you know em, or anything important you feel I've missed, or disagree with anything I've written. Otherwise, discuss away!
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Apr 9, 2015 18:13
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Apr 9, 2015 18:22
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It's important to note that video games having a worthwhile plot at all is a relatively recent development, and what's possible within the medium is still being expanded on. The storytelling tools are still being played with and established. The games industry may move at a high speed, but games themselves are still a very new field of creative endeavor, and it's too early to say what is and isn't possible within them, and what qualifies as a mistake. I do think that one of the larger problems is the games-writing vicious cycle. Early on, a lot of games developers didn't have anyone on the crew with actual writing chops besides the occasional frustrated/aspiring SF nerd. Therefore, they'd put together boilerplate nonsense to explain why you were beating up orcs and taking their stuff, or what-have-you. That set a tone where the earliest games with plots had plots that were kind of stupid, but it didn't slow anything down, so not many people tried harder than that. That set up an expectation that video game plots would suck, so nobody tried to make them better, because video game plots suck, and even now when it's less universally applicable than it's ever been, a lot of fans internalized that. (I'd imagine this thread will incur a GBS/FYAD incursion any second now that will illustrate the point.) Another issue, I think, is that games are of necessity locked into "genre": action, sf, fantasy, horror. There's an expectation that in a game, you will do immediate and visceral things, because it's what games are arguably best at. In the Western critical canon, genre is often considered some kind of bastard stepchild (witness, for example, this reductive-rear end bullshit), and so a lot of critics come pre-loaded to disregard games' content as valid even if they should consciously know better.
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Apr 9, 2015 18:38
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Apr 9, 2015 19:24
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I want videogames to have more or less the same plot as John Wick
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Apr 9, 2015 19:26
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GTA has some great writing San Andreas for instance: CJ: Nigga, you ugly or GTA 5 Franklin: Nigga, you trippin
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Apr 9, 2015 19:46
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good poo poo op
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Apr 9, 2015 19:46
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i feel like this thread has happened before
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Apr 9, 2015 19:47
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I felt Deus Ex had good writing when I played it: not from the story exactly, because it brought up a lot of interesting things in it, some of which were pretty prophetic.
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Apr 9, 2015 19:59
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Justin_Brett posted:I felt Deus Ex had good writing when I played it: not from the story exactly, because it brought up a lot of interesting things in it, some of which were pretty prophetic. I think it might be relevant to distinguish good writing from good ideas. Or not, I dunno.
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Apr 9, 2015 20:01
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CharlestonJew posted:I want videogames to have more or less the same plot as John Wick
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Apr 9, 2015 20:09
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Wanderer posted:games themselves are still a very new field of creative endeavor, and it's too early to say what is and isn't possible within them, and what qualifies as a mistake. Nah not really. Earthbound came out 21 years ago dude. The technology to make games artistically worthwhile has been there since the late 80s/early 90s Wanderer posted:and so a lot of critics come pre-loaded to disregard games' content as valid even if they should consciously know better. Go take a look at video games as a medium and then come back and tell me they're wrong icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Apr 9, 2015 |
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Apr 9, 2015 20:14
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Apparently the makers of John Wick actually sat down and thoroughly discussed how many people you were justified in killing in revenge for the death of a puppy. They eventually came to the conclusion that it was 90. I assume some murders were cut because only like 75 people die in the film.
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Apr 9, 2015 20:24
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Wanderer posted:It's important to note that video games having a worthwhile plot at all is a relatively recent development, and what's possible within the medium is still being expanded on. The storytelling tools are still being played with and established. The games industry may move at a high speed, but games themselves are still a very new field of creative endeavor, and it's too early to say what is and isn't possible within them, and what qualifies as a mistake.
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Apr 9, 2015 21:11
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icantfindaname posted:Nah not really. Earthbound came out 21 years ago dude. The technology to make games artistically worthwhile has been there since the late 80s/early 90s In film terms, we're still in the silent era. 21 years isn't a very long time when you're discussing a medium's history. It's advanced quickly in potential due to the technology bell curve, but people are still evolving the technical vocabulary and tools to use in games' storytelling. For example, the concept of the "ludonarrative" only dates back to 2007 and BioShock. icantfindaname posted:Go take a look at video games as a medium and then come back and tell me they're wrong You're arguing with the wrong point. It's not that games writing sucks; it's that there are multiple self-reinforcing pressures that work to prevent it from improving at the same rate as every other facet of game design. Western criticism has a bizarre habit of relegating fantasy/sf/action/horror to "genre" and then ignoring it unless an individual work achieves some larger critical impact, such as the Lord of the Rings movies. A lot of those works don't deserve/reward serious critical inquiry, of course, for the same reason food critics shouldn't review movie theater popcorn. By the same token, however, it's a big stupid blind spot in the Western critical canon; it's an attempt at cultural gatekeeping, and serves no real purpose. Every time someone says a work "transcends its genre," somebody should show up specifically to hit them with a squeaky toy hammer. Thus, since games' scripts will always predominantly be in that "genre" category, the larger critical canon discourages itself from dealing with them. It's part of the same vicious cycle as before, since it shuts down one of the primary methods of improving a creative endeavor. Nobody expects it to be better, and if it is, people will try to argue that it isn't because it's a game script/"genre." It actively prevents evolution in this specific field of game design, except in the few rare cases where somebody's small enough or big enough to do their own thing independent of market forces. Wanderer fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 9, 2015 |
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Apr 9, 2015 21:52
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Apr 9, 2015 21:52
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Wanderer posted:In film terms, we're still in the silent era. 21 years isn't a very long time when you're discussing a medium's history. It's advanced quickly in potential due to the technology bell curve, but people are still evolving the technical vocabulary and tools to use in games' storytelling. For example, the concept of the "ludonarrative" only dates back to 2007 and BioShock. Who's the Melies of gaming?
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Apr 9, 2015 21:54
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Looper posted:Who's the Melies of gaming? Thinking about it, almost certainly Robyn and Rand Miller. Film history and game history aren't going to map onto each other one-to-one, of course, but parallels exist. They're often playing in each other's toolboxes, as it were. Wanderer fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Apr 9, 2015 |
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Apr 9, 2015 21:56
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The biggest barriers to advancing writing in videogames are technical. Games are infinitely more complex in terms of modeling and scripting than they were even a decade ago, and it's not like writing a novel where you can re-write a chapter until you like it or a movie where you can re-shoot a scene until it works. Scenes and setpieces in games have to be planned out months in advanced, budgeted for art and sound assets, coded, polished, and tested. If you do all that and it doesn't work right in the narrative, too bad because the team just spent a thousand man-hours to make it and they're not about to cut it because it does nothing for the story. Movie scripts can be re-written on the fly, but game scripts have to be locked in before any of the actual work begins, and early drafts are almost always crap. And that's assuming that the studio takes the writing aspect seriously at all. Good gameplay is always going to trump good story, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. What do you look for in a board game, good mechanics or a compelling story? But a good story can make a good game great, and while a lot of developers realize that now, a lot haven't, and a lot more just don't have the money to put towards what is traditionally an afterthought. A lot of what you read even in AAA games was jotted down by a producer or even a programmer in lieu of paying a writer for professional work. The technical complexities feed the other problems, which makes truly well-written games far more of a rarity than they should be.
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Apr 9, 2015 22:19
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Yeah, back when Lollipop Chainsaw was new, I saw James Gunn talking about the "script" for the game on his Formspring, and I've seen a couple of similar game scripts. It's not a linear process at all; it's usually a big Excel spreadsheet full of "if X, then Y" dialogue and interactions. It bears no resemblance to any other format for creative writing, which explains why you don't see more writers working crossover between film/comics/TV and games.
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Apr 9, 2015 22:24
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Are there any games based on books that are good? or games based on books that have good writing atleast.
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Apr 9, 2015 22:27
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Apr 9, 2015 22:58
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I'd like to thank Black Baby Goku for curating this important discussion.
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Apr 9, 2015 23:14
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Bloodborne has pretty great game writing.
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Apr 9, 2015 23:22
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i like inception... someone should write a game like inception
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Apr 9, 2015 23:25
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DolphinCop posted:i like inception... someone should write a game like inception Bloodborne is like Inception
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Apr 9, 2015 23:31
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WetSpink posted:Are there any games based on books that are good? or games based on books that have good writing atleast. chaos legion is alright
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Apr 9, 2015 23:32
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same op
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Apr 9, 2015 23:33
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WetSpink posted:Are there any games based on books that are good? or games based on books that have good writing atleast. The old DOS game based on William Gibson's Neuromancer was hard as hell, but was a very faithful reproduction of the book's feel and general aesthetic. There's also I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, of course, which was written with Harlan Ellison's full cooperation. Ellison even voices the game's villain.
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Apr 10, 2015 02:52
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I like games that are about quad damage and not feelings
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Apr 10, 2015 03:02
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Zombie Samurai posted:The biggest barriers to advancing writing in videogames are technical. Games are infinitely more complex in terms of modeling and scripting than they were even a decade ago, and it's not like writing a novel where you can re-write a chapter until you like it or a movie where you can re-shoot a scene until it works. Scenes and setpieces in games have to be planned out months in advanced, budgeted for art and sound assets, coded, polished, and tested. If you do all that and it doesn't work right in the narrative, too bad because the team just spent a thousand man-hours to make it and they're not about to cut it because it does nothing for the story. Movie scripts can be re-written on the fly, but game scripts have to be locked in before any of the actual work begins, and early drafts are almost always crap. Problems like this make me genuinely surprised when games with writing as good as NieR come out. NieR especially because the studio that developed it wasn't exactly known for anything spectacular.
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Apr 10, 2015 03:11
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WetSpink posted:Are there any games based on books that are good? or games based on books that have good writing atleast. Well I mean there's Darksiders.
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Apr 10, 2015 06:14
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The Witcher books (I've only read the first one) have been pretty solid.
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Apr 10, 2015 06:17
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Parasite Eve was originally a book but I heard its poo poo. The game's fun though.
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Apr 10, 2015 06:18
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Metro 2033 is based on a Russian sf novel.
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Apr 10, 2015 06:28
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Video games are for children.
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Apr 10, 2015 06:38
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the original megami tensei books are good if you like seven separate instances of loki raping women
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Apr 10, 2015 06:39
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Endorph posted:the original megami tensei books are good if you like seven separate instances of loki raping women Change the god to Zeus and you've got some real literature right there.
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Apr 10, 2015 06:46
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WetSpink posted:Are there any games based on books that are good? or games based on books that have good writing atleast. The Discworld adventure games are loosely based on the books (mostly just in that they feature recurring characters). I wouldn't call the first two good, but Discworld Noir is - at least mostly. And all three have at least some decent dialogue.
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Apr 10, 2015 11:34
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Apr 10, 2015 11:40
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