This is an accurate but ironic backlash to the widely-covered interweaving of CRPG elements into almost every genre there is.

I don't believe that this movement in any way invalidates the place of the traditional JRPG or the game where the story truly is the main attraction, however, the artifice with which most games have incorporated narrative has now been exposed and will be dealt with through a thousand me-too Portal clones, as is the way of the world.

Tell Ben that it's called game conceits in order for the game to be fun.

Think about it a little deeper than the average couch designer, on a hueristic level imagine all the rules that you would have to create in order to keep say Niko off the grass, stash his weapons before going on a date, getting harassed by the police all the time, the list goes on and on. Who the hell would play that game?

More importantly, you have to communicate all these rules to the player! You'd probaly end up with a tutorial the size of the game.

And again "shaping events with our choices", we don't need another lofty-meta-high- level- idea- article, instead talk to us about implementation and rules. What type of systems and mechanics would you design? Can you show us some tables? For example, show us a morality table v story elements in the world AND most importantly how would you break this down over the course of say 8-10 game? Say the art changes, how does the art change, what do the artists need to know to make your story/interactive idea work.

There are succesful ways to show exposition that will "safely" keep your production going and keep vital components in a modular fashion. The last thing you want to happen is have Niko's cutscenes have gameplay or require gameplay mechanics and systems. At that point its not a cutscene, and those of us that play games have been in this situation before; an NPC is giving you vital info and your running around while the NPC is trying to head track you. After a while it breaks the feeling that it's anything important, so why did the production team even spend time making them?

In GTA you know your going to get narrative and your not going to get shot, so its a nice breather and helps contextualize what your about to do. Its done very cleanly and establishes a relationship with the Player, in other words, we won't (devs) F you while your watching these.
Taking control away from the player for exposition reasons is a bad idea, however limiting the control in a contextualized manner like "we crashed your legs are broken" has proven to be succesful CO4.

Last much can be said about the art in a game contextualizing a scene. A great level design and layout can tell a 3d narrative. "The player enters a ransacked room, there's blood stains on the wall," what the hell happened here, the player will think. The narrative is filled in by the player's own mind, therefore capturing the player's imagination and making him/her a part of the game, and finally you begin to invest them emotionally.

This is one of the most powerful attributes games have over Movies; we live inside the world.

(I know this was another high level article meant to inspire and wave the flag, but some of us would like to see some low level implementation articles, in other words how would an engineer whose shipped games tackle this issue)

I have to question your desire that 'we need to believe our actions have consequences within the virtual universe...' I agree with it, but I think within reason we do, in the games that we play. This is also a technical consideration as well as just a philosophical one.

Sure, GTAIV could be more realistic, your dates could freak out if you whip out your rocket launcher, (hot coffee anyone?) You could get a cop chasing whenever you if you drive on the wrong side of the road, or run a red light. But I have to ask: Why would that be fun?

I also have to wonder if you had the same experiences I did during the endless backseat and phone conversations in GTAIV that were going on 'during' gameplay. Yes, the game was filled with cutscenes but there was plenty of exposition during the game. I was immediately sucked into the world with those backseat chats.

This issue you speak of is getting picked apart by academia, narrativology vs. ludology. Are games driven by story or by gameplay? I personally would debate that it's both, and that there will never be a 'right answer.' Every game will have it's own mix. I do agree that the envelope needs pushing, but it doen't mean we're trapped.

The second paragraph in your last section is really where the crux of this argument lies. To be brief, better story IS the answer. But despite what many developers and publishers think, the Venn diagram of "better story" and "high-end screenwriter" has very little overlap.

To dismiss "better story" so glibly as something to strive for is not productive. We all know that games have not yet advanced to the point where their worlds can be TRULY reactive to whatever we do.

I hear your argument a lot, so forgive me if I'm a bit strident about it. But just because games traditionally HAVEN'T showcased brilliant stories doesn't mean that they CAN'T.

Personaly I always liked stories with branching paths that were important story points. Command and Conquer did this well with often giving you multiple places to attack, with side missions gaining you bonuses towards the next storyline mission.

Cohesive narratives in sandbox games generally make them better, regardless of conflicts brought about by their freeform nature. Crackdown is a perfect example of a title that had solid gameplay but lacked a strong story, and it suffered because of it.

Contrary to the views of the author, I'm one of those people who does appreciate a good story in a game provided it makes the experience better. If GTA IV lacked believable dialogue it would have made those crucial life-or-death choices meaningless, as the player wouldn't give a damn about those characters in the first place.

Gameplay AND story both matter, but it's a delicate balancing act.

Aaron Casillas: "Think about it a little deeper than the average couch designer, on a hueristic level imagine all the rules that you would have to create in order to keep say Niko off the grass, stash his weapons before going on a date, getting harassed by the police all the time, the list goes on and on. Who the hell would play that game?

More importantly, you have to communicate all these rules to the player! You'd probaly end up with a tutorial the size of the game. "

Well, I would play the game. That said, I think you underestimate the rules in play - alot of the rules you listed are common sense rules that anyone goes through when trying to impress a date. You clean up yourself and your home, dress nicer, hide your stash of porn, whatever.

Skirting the game mechanics for the moment, translating that into an in-game lesson need not be complicated either. A simple cutscene where Character A (say, Roman) stops Niko on his way out for a date and says something along the lines of, "What? What is wrong with you?! Going out looking like a bum? Clean yourself up so you don't embarass yourself. And hey! Don't shoot anyone, okay? She doesn't like that sort of thing."

Simple, to the point, and both tells the player that the rules are there while remaining within the context of the story. GTA does this already with other game mechanics. There's no point in having Roman be drunk and making Niko drive to the apartment in the beginning of the game other than to teach the player how to drive and navigate with the map (Well, there is and that's for the chatter as they drive and the cutscenes which set the tone for their characters) and get use to the city.

In terms of game mechanics, much of what could be used to 'judge' a date already exists in the game in the form of Wanted Levels. Pretty much anything you could do that would earn you a wanted level is the same as anything socially unacceptable on a date - except that when you're on a date, you are basically always being watched. With a few additional considerations to fit the situation (losing sight of your date is bad, blood on clothing also bad, jumping into water might be funny, etc), the mechanics would otherwise be the same and the game could then react in much the same way on a smaller scale.

This has probably been the most accurate representation of my own thoughts on story in games I've ever come across. I've always said that games shouldn't HAVE stories, but rather BE stories themselves. In other words, just as you said, a story shouldn't be carelessly tacked onto a set of rules, but instead should be "non-disposable;" not merely SERVING the game, but BEING the game in tandem with its gameplay.

I, personally, am already growing tired of the aforementioned 'ludology vs. narratology' debate. Games, I think quite obviously are not driven by one or the other. Depending on the game, one side might have some presence over the other, but it seems some try to make them mutually exclusive in terms of importance. The Final Fantasy series, for instance, boasts many engaging stories that, to me, make the games worth playing, and the gameplay worth wading through. Civilization has quite elegantly designed rules, but I don't remember a story that even approached "Oscar-worthy".

This is all fine. Games can do that, and still be vastly impressive. GTAIV, though I've yet to play it, I'm certain has a great story and great gameplay; I'm sure its a great experience.

But how much more unique, eloquent, and intellectually stimulating was Portal? Ico? Shadow of the Colossus? All of these plots and gameplay schemes were strikingly simple, so how did they achieve such emotional impact? Because in Ico, having to rescue a girl from a castle becomes a burden trying to navigate her through so many puzzles. In Bioshock, the "twist" halfway through has so much more impact when you realize you've willingly been fooled the entire game up to that point. The gameplay makes the story, and visa versa.

GTAIV, I expect, is a series of gun-and-run and sandbox-esque “wow-look-at-what-that-did!” mechanics that are interesting in their own right, but are merely a means to “unlocking” the narrative. It doesn’t tap into the actual MEANING an action in a game can achieve within the plot, linear or not. Remember, what the author is advocating here is not the "balancing" of the two sides, but the INTERGRATION of them. GTAIV has balanced story and gameplay, but integrates the two on a trivial level.

So maybe GTAIV shouldn't be so complex that merely brandishing a weapon at the side of a date or running a red light would have grave consequences, because GTAIV is a very complex game already (or perhaps our audience just isn't ready for that kind of realism: rules that are common sense, rather than listed in the manual). GTAIV is, assuredly from the critical success it has had, a great game, with amazing effects, an engrossing world, and an excellent script. But what our author is saying is merely that the strides it takes to raise our medium to its highest potential are minimal.

This recalls to my mind the writing adage of "Show, don't tell". Perhaps a parallel in games would be "Do, don't show".

Whether you agree with the particular examples used in this article or not, I think it raises some very valid points which I have to agree with. If you want to read more about this sort of theory, I recommend Lee Sheldon's book Character Development And Storytelling For Games.

This is one of the better articles on narrative vs. gameplay I've read. At least, there is a well expressed opinion here.

In general, I think this is good advice:
"We need to stop thinking about story as a device to make us care about the gameplay (it doesn't), and start thinking about the gameplay as the narrative itself (thus, making us care)"

Still this article goes to far, claiming how stories should be told, how the industry should change, and how we (game designers) are doing it wrong.

Every genre, perhaps every game must make a unique decision on how it tells a story, or whether it needs to tell any story at all.

I find statements like this pretty bogus:
"We need to believe our actions have consequences within the virtual universe and that the experiences we are living are wholly unique, even if they aren't."

This is ok advice for "a game", but not for "all games" or "the industry". At best, it applies to a subsection of games where story is a core aspect. But I wouldn't even go that far. Sometimes a game has a linear story to tell, and I think many players are ok with playing a game "on rails" to discover that story.

Not every game has to be a universe in a box.

I'm going to agree with Mr. Casillas and Mr. Mannino. Through my own explorations of games I've found that the best titles will sometimes forgo what we perceive as "reality" in lieu of maintaining all the things that make a game enjoyable. Specifically I recall being incredibly frustrated while playing GTA: Vice City, and every time I blew a red light, nicked a lamp post, or went even slightly over the speed limit all of a sudden I had a 2-star chase going. I was very much relieved to find this aspect of reality was sacrificed so I could speed down the streets of Algonquin and have not a care in the world.

I understand what you're saying about how games have the ability to be more realistic, but one fact we need to face about games is that we play them to, as you put it "inhabit another world." The fact about reality we must concede is that it is boring and many times not conducive to being able to "inhabit another world" as you say.

I don't play and enjoy GTAIV because I want to exist in an alternate reality where my virtual gf leaves me because I accidentally flash my rocket launcher at her, or where I get arrested every time I drive through a red light on the wrong side of the road at 50mph right in front of a cop car. I play it because it's fun.

The story elements (plot, dates, whatever) in GTAIV adds to my enjoyment, therefore it is a worthwhile component of the game. And that's all it is. That's all story will ever be. Physics, sound, graphics, story - they're all just components. Any one of them can eleveate or bog-down a game.

Games are not physics simulations; they are not graphical demos; they are not musical showcases; and they are not F'ING STORIES; they are GAMES. Note to writers: GET OVER YOURSELVES. That is all.

I know, we could have a game where every action you make is taken into account by the game AI and subtly influences the narrative of the story. A completely open ended game where you can do what you want but each action has a specific consequence. A game where story and action are completely integrated into one constant flowing state.
We could call it "real life 2"
or we could just go outside.
Portal is not just amazing because of its streamlined story telling and engrossing game-play (and the marriage of the two). It introduces and interrupts a smooth gradient very effectively, it veils itself in mystery while remaining, in key ways, very transparent, and it's downright hilarious.

"We could call it "real life 2"
or we could just go outside"

LOL, my thoughts exactly. We play games for many reasons, but one major reason is that we get to do things that we cant in real life.

"I say stop writing high-minded stories. Start writing games. And let the stories grow from them."

Superficially a seemingly simple statement, but what Justin calls for here is something I've been protesting about for sometime. The fundamental models of game production need to restructured to create the environment for the development of these higher dramatic forms of games, or interactive narratives.

Read more of my rant @:
http://www.narrativedesign.org/2008/06/is-story-still-a-misnomer-in-g.html

thanks for the muse...

i think my initial reaction to this article was due to its criticism of gta4. i can see it as an example of your point, but it's a generally poor choice. no where does gta4 indicate that the friends of Niko should react adversely to any of his behavior, nor would it bring any new life to the game. i for one love the dialog and plot - all of it - and feel it as part of my impetus to continue playing (that and the fact that the game is superbly fun).
but i like the problem posed in this article: how can a game convincingly tell a story? i wonder if this has generally been overlooked by developers since there have been so many other envelopes to push. now that we've arrived at this place, i'm excited to see what comes down the pike - how artificial intelligence and user influence might one day allow the player to truly create their own story within the world of the game.
fallout 3 looks promising in this regard.
i would like to see a retreatment of the Ocarina of Time format, where a player can play through a time period in a world again and again, but with to option to change history, or, through leveling up, engage a different part of game history - go through once as a soldier, again as a general, again as a king; or a requirement to play through as multiple characters from different factions in a shifting world, so that the story itself is the object of the game, to mold the story until it has a favorable outcome, and then, possibly, to transcend the story.

"Games are not physics simulations; they are not graphical demos; they are not musical showcases; and they are not F'ING STORIES; they are GAMES. Note to writers: GET OVER YOURSELVES. That is all."

Many games use narrative as one of their largest components: The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, and even Half-Life 2 are centered around linear narratives that drive the action. I don't believe anyone here is suggesting that a cohesive story is more important than good gameplay, but it's fair to argue that a good story can make an average game better because it connects the player to his or her actions.

A fetch quest in an RPG is simply getting from point A to point B, retrieving an item, and shuttling it back to an NPC. Give a player a good reason for completing this task and it enhances the act even if the mechanics don't change. "Bring me this medicine or I will die." "Get this shipment of stolen weapons and I'll be your ally." And so on. If these small bits of narrative are woven into a larger story, it gives weight to these actions.

Stories don't belong in all games, but when integrated properly in ways that make sense they can certainly heighten the overall experience and sense of immersion.

Mr. Ford brings up a good point. GTA4 is an awesome game. What I'm seeing here, especially with Mr. Stein adding to the mix, is maybe a deeper rift than previously realized?

Those players that see "action" as meaningful, and life created by proactive causality, seek story to sell a game experience. It helps a player to bring about a proactive will in the obtainment of an ascribed object of desire. Those that see life a little less meaningless might find various levels of pleasure in exercising empty mechanics. Not to say we all don't sometimes... Maybe that's the balance?

Regardless, as the market continues to diversify the world will need a new name for the kinds of games that tell more engrossing dramatic stories. Digital RPGs are pretty good at it, but reassured there is something new coming [insert sparkles].

Far be it from anyone here to argue with the incomparable wisdom of the typist of the He-Man, Voltron, and Streetfighter movies, but in my opinion, Justin Marks goes about making his case very poorly.

"The problem here is not the quality of the story, but the manner in which it is incorporated into the gameplay. After skipping over countless cut scenes so I could get to the action, I slowly began to regard plot in GTA IV as being something akin to the Clinton marriage: why do they bother with the charade? Is there anyone in this country who honestly thinks these two people still sleep in the same bed?"

In one paragraph he calls the story bogus...while simultaneously admitting that he didn't actually experience it. Whatever. Some people don't want context to their gaming. Some people do. I say give him a game where you do all the tasks you do in GTA4--only you do it without story or names or dialog. Just a list of objectives. Have fun!

Oh, wait, they made that game, it was called Crackdown. Lots of fun... until you realized that there was no REASON to be doing anything that you were doing. Then it just became about 100%-ing the game, which is a lousy stimulator for any game.

I'll give Justin Marks high points for one thing in his essay (though, if you blink, you miss the one clever bit that he's putting forward):

"But for the most part, we as an industry are stuck in the same trap that GTA exemplifies. We value narratives in games, we understand their purpose and their necessity, and yet we have no idea how to parse them effectively into the game's interactive structure. As technology gets better, the weaknesses of poor story integration are more exposed."

And he's correct. Narrative is important, but because writers are brought onto the process so late in the development process (for the most part), we're stuck in the cutscenes-to-get-context phase of game development.

Right now we're doing games like old time broadway musicals: the book takes the characters through a change and then they sing about it. We need to do things more like your average Sondheim musical--the book takes the characters from one change to another, then the change happens during the music. Obviously that doesn't work in every situation, but because design is almost completely severed from story in most games right now, we're forced into having too many of the story points driven by exposition, not action.

Stop dreaming of the Matrix people, we're not there yet.

The problem with this big debate right now is that both sides are taking an all-or-nothing approach to the topic, but not every game needs a strong story and not every game needs no story.

I say that the effectiveness of story is directly linked to a game's ability (or desire) to present a thinking protagonist.

First person games like Bioshock are a SHITTY medium for protagonists. There's no analog for them in prose (first person prose is NOT the same) and it's only been done for novelty effect in comics and film. With no avatar on screen, all the other characters must relate DIRECTLY TO ME with no filter. I play ME. That means that the canned answers and actions provided by the developers would be inherently false. How do the developers know what I would say or do? Trying to tell a true story in that environment is probably a waste of time. You're relegated to playing a mute or constantly calling attention to the fact that you're strait-jacketing your players.

Bioshock has a great solution to the problem, but it is NOT A STORY (certainly not one where I play the main character)--it's a game where I uncover a HISTORY in the course of running around and shooting people. And I have no problem with that--so long as people don't confuse that with some inability of the entire medium of games to tell stories, or with this myth that the audience doesn't want a story. They don't want a cut-scene-driven story in their first-person games because they don't WORK there, just like I don't want a steak when I'm on a rollercoaster. But that doesn't mean I don't like steak. When I go to a steak house, they'd better have some god damned steak for me. And, sadly, most game publishers are not offering steak in most of their steak houses--they're offering hot dogs and charging us for steak.

These are truly gray scale matters, not black-and-white. One day someone is going to chart this stuff on a graph like Scott McCloud did in "Understanding Comics" so we can stop talking about story&game absolutes and start talking about where each game falls on the spectrum and what type of story/enviroment is best for it.

Interesting piece. I agree to alot of the points.

However, he doesn't suggest HOW to start "writing games." How exactly do someone "write a game" instead of a story?

And to have story generated by player's action, doesn't that imply we need to have a very believable AI that can respond intelligently, or more importantly, wisely?

The closes thing to this is Facade that not many seems to care about. It was as if you were placed right into someone's living room, chatting and arguing with two AIs. Depending on what you say or do, the ending of that evening changes. I find this extremely interesting, and consider it the future of video games.

I wonder if the author of this essay knows about that game. (or is it a simulator....?)