I've now typed 3 long responses and deleted them. It's just easier to say..

Yes. Video games are better without stories.

Admin note: This got caught in the spam filter. Maybe try adding some, you know, conversation with your link next time. ;-)

Is this a joke? Literally every post I make gets caught in the spam filter. It's been happening for at least a year.

Patrick Klepek doesnt think so. Neither does Austin Walker.

I'm inclined to agree with them. I care less and less about challenging, unique gameplay and more and more about just having a good experience in a game world. I love The Witcher 3 for its story. There are tons of more mechanically interesting RPGs out there, but I don't like them as much. Mass Effect Andromeda is a deeply flawed game, but I really enjoy that universe and the story it tells. I'll always enjoy experiencing a good video game story more than watching a good movie.

The Last of Us certainly tells a better story than middling novels and movies. It wouldn't be better without a story. Games are allowed to borrow from other mediums and also be something unique. It's when you try to compete between or compare different mediums that you get into trouble.

I think it's a mistake to believe that there's a universal answer for all games.

Something like Mass Effect (campaign/story mode, ignoring ME3's multiplayer here) would absolutely be a lesser experience without the story. The memories I have of those games are almost entirely composed of story elements. I'll never forget that conversation with Sovereign on Virmire.

On the other hand, there are games that are best as just pure moment-to-moment mechanics. I spend a lot of my time in driving sims. Driving games DO get worse when you try to add a story, at least in my experience. But in my opinion, that has less to do with the story element specifically, and more to do with losing focus on what makes those games fun. What I mean to say is, adding story isn't the only way to ruin them - anything you add that takes focus away from what makes them fun will also ruin them. Need for Speed games try to add a narrative, and they just end up making things less interesting to me than something like Forza or Dirt Rally. But adding something else that isn't driving would also ruin them. Putting a Pipe Dream style minigame in the middle of a Dirt Rally stage would make it worse.

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."

Can I say it? This author comes across as a pretentious ass and, frankly, seems to be ignorant of the concept of "fun."

He's cherry-picking example games to illustrate his thesis that the narrative of a video game is not as compelling as the masterpieces of literature. He's sticking to smaller, indie games such as Gone Home as "groundbreaking" but ignoring the fact that a smaller games present the player with less time to weave a complicated narrative worthy of his praise. Gone home is completable in a matter of minutes (though a typical first run will take about 2 hours). Precious few books of note are readable, in their entirety, in that timetable. Furthermore, these are actually, I feel, poor examples of the value of video games as an immersive experience. The Last of Us is a much stronger entry. While the gameplay is decent to good, the narrative is excellent and both makes you feel as if you have a hand in the fate of the characters and allows you to step outside of them to judge and understand their actions from your own, somewhat omniscient perspective.

It seems, from the bloviating in this article, that the author is incapable of experiencing a sense of immersion while playing, and has never developed an emotional bond with the characters he plays. I have loved me some books, to be sure, but I have never enjoyed a book as much as I have enjoyed strangling Makarov at the end of Modern Warfare 3. I have been scared while watching a movie, but i have never stopped watching a scary movie out of fear in the same way that I said "oh HELL NO" during Silent Hill 2, thrown the controller across the room, powered off the console without saving, and taken a long, comforting shower. Reading this article made me wonder, in all sincerity, if the author suffers from some sort of undiagnosed spectrum disorder, because his inability to connect with the characters in gaming was evident in every utterance.

He says Gone Home is a teen novel at best, and - as a result - video games are incapable of compelling narrative. That's like saying Twilight is a teen novel, literally, and - as a result - books are incapable of compelling narrative. It's absurd and illogical. The comparisons made are, frankly, terrible and uneven. Video games display a level of exploration and wonder than books and films are incapable of. Morrowind, for example, can we wandered around for hours, simply observing the characters, examining their books and items, and marveling in the completeness of the environment. Books and movies are incapable of letting the player interact in this way, and yet that fact, under no circumstances, means that books and movies are less capable of compelling narrative or story-telling worth. They are different mediums, and should be examined as such and on their own merits. Not every story in one form will translate well to another. But the strength of literally putting the player in the shoes of the character, thinking the player's own thoughts and making the player's own decisions throughout the story... This is unique to video games and is rooted, fundamentally, in the narrative elements of those games, not the gameplay.

The author here has missed the boat completely. I dare say he has spent all of the time writing that entire essay where he could simply have said "I don't understand video games."

The answer is emphatically no.

The author uses the example of the bioshock audio logs, and argues they don't affect the action. But they do. They provide context for the action. It makes the action meaningful within the game world.

Imagine everything about the last of us being he same, except the story was stripped. Literally every level the same, but no story. Imagining it? Then ask the question the author did. And you'll see it's obviously a worse experience.

Mostly how it confirms that The Last of Us plays poorly.

;)

Are video games better without stories?

---------------??????------------------
---------------more fun----------------
---------------easier to play----------
---------------prettier----------------
---------------less expensive----------

Would SUPER.HOT.SUPER.HOT.SUPER.HOT... or Fruit Ninja or Candy Crush be ?better? with a story? Conversely would a game series like Half Life 1, 2, or

Error HL3_gaben_simulink.c: 2222  Division by zero 
Error HL3_gaben_simulink.c: 2224  Division by zero 
Error HL3_gaben_simulink.c: 2999  Division by zero 

be better with out the story? How 'bout Bioshock, or Dues Ex, or...shoot, even Halo, be better with out a story?

Then... lets really flip this question on its head! Pong. THE STORY! YEA! Because... that's needed.

Know what I think? I think this topic is bullshit. It's veiled clickbait, or at least it really feels that way to me.

The article wants stories that could only be told as games. That's a great criterion! Let's check 'em out

SMAC (your reactions to the game's pervasive fiction and semiscripted story drive your decisions about how humanity evolves)

Deus Ex (the player's ability to explore and alter the environment also alters the presentation of the story and its themes)

FreeSpace 2 (the player's narrative position deprivileges their role in the story, forcing them to view the story from 'below', like a bug)

Homeworld (the player's omniscient viewpoint positions them as God charged with the survival of the exiles, complicit in every death)

CODBLOPS2 (the story branches in reaction to your performance without actively signposting key branchpoints: reaction is naturalistic)

Alpha Protocol (as above but less polished but wayyy more ambitious)

Spec Ops: The Line (the player's 'coerced complicity' requires them to be a player, not a reader: the game forces them to make a terrible choice because they are present in a terrible situation, and the situation overrides personal agency: the only Right act is to never enter the situation)

I dunno, that's off the top of my head: none of these games would be better without stories.

Hang on a second I've got one more

Halo (the linear, scripted narrative works with the game's levels, art design, music, animation, and AI to create a unified context for the core gameplay, adding motive and resonance to basic beats like shooting an Elite or landing on Halo)