Are video games better without stories? (Gaming)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, April 26, 2017, 16:24 (2555 days ago) @ Claude Errera
edited by Cody Miller, Wednesday, April 26, 2017, 16:30

Worse yet, the very concept of a Holodeck-aspirational interactive story implies that the player should be able to exert agency upon the dramatic arc of the plot. The one serious effort to do this was an ambitious 2005 interactive drama called Façade, a one-act play with roughly the plot of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. It worked remarkably well—for a video game. But it was still easily undermined. One player, for example, pretended to be a zombie, saying nothing but “brains” until the game’s simulated couple threw him out.

This is stupid. This is like saying "Stories in novels are easily undermined - one reader chose to read every 3rd page, in reverse, starting at the end of the book."

he actually may be on to something. It's not a problem now, because the actions we can do in games is quite limited. But as they expand, it would feel very strange if the game and narrative didn't respond to you choices.

It's an uncanny valley issue.

But even in the holodeck, there is a 'story'. It's the reason things are the way they are when you turn it on. When a dame walks in and wants to hire Picard as a private eye, that's story. So even on that level his article title is false.