Video Game Writing

I may be spilling some bait here, but it might as well be discussed. What do you think about writing in video games? Some people think it devolved, while others think it's just fine. So what are your thoughts?

Aside from a couple gems like Planescape Torment, I honestly can't think of any videogame writing worth mentioning. I wouldn't say it's deterioriated, but I don't think it's ever been much of a focus. The medium has its narrative strengths, but writing isn't one of them yet.

What about games where the writing basically IS the game?

Like, I liked the writing in Hotel Dusk. The characters just felt... I dunno, real to me. Like, I could see their conversations actually happening.

While I can't say I hate video game writing entirely, I don't like how its become the emphasis, to the point where they cut down on all the fun things in favor of the story. Remember in Doom how you could trick the monsters into getting into huge melees with each other? in Half-Life there's only one time where that happens and its scripted—you can never make it happen. Don't get me wrong, Half-Life is fun for what it is—what really pisses me off is how every FPS afterwards is basically trying to imitate it.

Moreover though, the thing about video game writing is that it reminds me too much about what I hate about comic books. A stupidiotic emphasis on being "dark" and "edgy," with many game heroes suffering from Testosterone Poisoning or else being an Emo Teen (or just plain emo—remember, True Art Is Angsty!), and women in video games seeming to exist only for sex appeal and have adapted the Hollywood mentality of "all women characters must be cold and only show affection for children or love interests." Granted, you could argue that this was always the case, but games of the 16-Bit generation and thereabouts had a sort of pulp "you don't believe this? That's okay—we don't either!" mentality about them, whereas modern games come off to me like they're convinced they're serious art, so it makes the flaws that much more apparent.

All games having to be padded to last over 100 hours does not help.

Laconic version: Game writing has gotten pretentious and games themselves have suffered for it.

edited 5th Oct '10 3:09:12 PM by Edmond_Dantes

I'd more or less agree with Edmond in this case, although I'm probably drawing on a rather different example pool.

More video games these days try to be mature, partly in the sense of being darker and edgier, but also in the sense of having deep and complex plots. Unfortunately, deep and complex plots are more difficult to write than simple and straightforward ones, and most of the writers in the business don't have what it takes. They confuse complicated for sophisticated, and melodramatic for epic. There are no points for trying; failing because you attempted something beyond your ability creates nothing better than not attempting enough.

There's also a certain schizophrenia that comes from trying to be deep without letting go of the "kill-everything-that-moves" style of gameplay. Take Garrus's loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2—choosing to let the informant live feels a lot less meaningful when you killed a dozen mercenaries to get to him.

It depends heavily on the game. The only game in recent memory where I got really involved in the plot was The World Ends With You, to the point where I was rushing to the next plot event even though Take Your Time was in full effect, just because I felt like I was letting Neku and his friends down.

And I feel like video game plots need a certain balance. Too much plot does not make a fun game, and too little makes your actions feel like they have no purpose. A well written game plot can be funny, witty, dramatic, it doesn't matter. It mainly needs to justify the gameplay.

edited 5th Oct '10 6:25:05 PM by Deathonabun

I don't think I have high standards for the writing in video games unlike I have in real literature. I liked Mass Effect 2's storyline despite the plot holes and things that didn't make sense, I love Metal Gear Solid albeit a lot of its writing is Narm Charm and I don't have a problem with the one JRPG plot that gets recycled in anything but the Mega Ten series.

But I agree with Edmond in one point: video game developers are not writers and they should stop pretending that they are. Get some real writers instead if you really want a deep plot and all that. But on the other hand, I'd love to see the return of more goofy premises like we had in the 8 and 16 bit eras. But I guess that would be too "gay and kiddy, brah" for the current oh so cerebral generation.

There's also a certain schizophrenia that comes from trying to be deep without letting go of the "kill-everything-that-moves" style of gameplay. Take Garrus's loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2—choosing to let the informant live feels a lot less meaningful when you killed a dozen mercenaries to get to him.

Which is one of the reasons I like Iji. I like the writing in that game, and you don't have to kill everything.

Agree strongly with TWEWY and Iji; also offering Paper Mario TTYD for best comedic writing and Persona3 for generally good script.

I don't think the problem is so much that there are no examples of good writing so much as that so many games have atrocious scripts.

Yeah the writing can get in the way of the game if not handled well.

edited 5th Oct '10 7:28:51 PM by Marioguy128

And this is why I get annoyed at the praise of stories for games such as Heavy Rain, as they fall into so many Bad Writing traps. It's clear too many game developers are trying to be storytellers, but don't really have the skill or practice.

There are some exceptions. Nippon Ichi is one I find has good writing. It's not really great, but also doesn't try to be. This is why even their dramatic games can work.

As long as the script is entertaining (pretty much any game with a good localization), I couldn't care less about the writing.

I think it's a work in progress. I would say it's improved from when I was but a lad, if only because games when I was a lad all had ExcusePlots because that's the most you could get out of the medium, RP Gs excepted. And half the time, those were made up entirely by the localization team and had nothing to do with the actual game. Stupid NES manuals....

They're trying. They're not always successful, but you never get anywhere by not trying. It's true that trying and failing gets you nowhere better than if you'd never tried at all, but if you never try at all, you can never succeed.

Wait, what exactly do we mean by writing? Are we using it to refer to text in games, of their plots, or of the entire narrative experience in a game?

I'd say the first is almost always unremarkable, the second is usually boring, but the latter as a whole is often interesting.

Confusion between these aspects is why I get annoyed by criticism of Heavy Rain based entirely on its plot, without considering its broader narrative aspects. The plot wasn't particularly interesting, but the important part was how its interface provided so much immersion into the storyline itself.

^Plot/the game script, things like that.

I'm just going to thread hop and respond to Marioguy.

What's a game about exactly? If the game is truly about a story, then it should have good writing. Like Myst. Your mileage will vary on how well it was written, but in games like that, its necessary to have a good sense of story telling.

If the game is about exploration, turnbased strategy battles and management of inventory, then who cares about how its written from a developer's stand point or a players? If you can make it good, then good for you but if your story is hurt for the sake of giving players different places to explore, different things to put in their inventory and different ways to fight, the option to avoid battle through stealth or negotiation? Well then so be it, in that case making a deep game makes up for a shallow narrative.

If the point of the game is blowing things up, making good use of your surroundings and out thinking the enemy? Then the story can be lax. If its about unloading as many magazines into the enemy as possible and simply having better aim and reflexes? The story can be lax. If its about stacking boxes? A game about farming pigs? A game simulating football? A game that satires football by taking it up to eleven? Then you can go lax on the plot.

Tetris proved that video games never have, and never will need a story of any kind so long as the game works. Unless its something like Ace Attorney, where paying attention to the plot is necessary for actually playing, the plot is optional. And if, and only if, the plot is something absolutely essential to playing the game, should the writing then be focused on. This is not an excuse for a game to have a bad narrative, its an explanation on why most shouldn't worry about having narrative the first place. If you can't write a good one then don't bother, just have sensible controls and awesome levels, it will be enough. Less you try to justify why Snake needs to sneak around manage to fail biology, math, military tactics and economics all in one go. All you ever needed to say is Snake is sneaking because, are you a bad enough dude to make it to level 40?

If for whatever reason a game about driving monster trucks ever needed a plot of any kind then follow WWE Crush Hour's example. Briefly forget about the flaws, it got the story just right.

I think that Cider puts it well enough, and I'm totally on the same page as Edmond when he says that video game writing has gotten pretentious.
The presentation has gotten better but the scripts have not, which makes the bad writing all the more noticeable.

I think Warren Spector put it best:

The key to game stories is to recognize the place of story in games. It's not about the author telling the story to a reader, it's not about a director conveying information to a passive audience that just interprets it. It's about providing situations, problems that are personally significant to players that they then get to decide how to interact with. If story is about significance and making player choices significant you have to have something more than just "beat the bad guy". It's not just about the plot, it's about the experience that the player has and the choices they make in the game. The story is what really ties it together.

Video game writing: Needs more love.

And talent.

Gamers seem to fetishize plot at the other elements' expense. I never understood it. Games, by their nature, stand in for plot—and considering how much shape you can give a game by balancing bosses and mooks and crafting levels with care, you'd wonder if Mario games ever even needed the Princess. But sharp dialogue and characters and themes add something the gameplay can't. Focus on these, gamers!

Part of why Final Fantasy VI works is it doesn't lean on the plot. It lets you play—every plot point draws you in with some interaction. It's not always the most elegant or even "gamey" stuff—choosing your lines and clunkily "dancing" in the opera-house scene—but it gives what's frankly a flimsy plot some weight.

Fire Emblem's a game whose plot is wholly pedestrian but which offers great characters and dialogue. They don't need to journey through an interesting plot because they already grow and develop gamewise.

edited 6th Oct '10 8:46:35 AM by Longfellow

What I'm getting from listening to this conversation is that people are not opposed to plot and storytelling in games; they're opposed to cutscenes, sitting there while the game tells them the plot, as opposed to acting the plot out.

The difference between reading a play and performing in one. Am I right?

Sort of. Cutscenes can work, but designers have to know they're painting with a redundant palette when they write cutscenes into a video game.

^^There's that, yes.

There's wisdom in the old cliche "If I wanted to just sit back and watch, I wouldn't be playing a video game."

edited 6th Oct '10 8:54:44 AM by Edmond_Dantes

I find that the writing is generally just a supplement to the game, it gives me an excuse to be doing all this shit. Fighting some random army for no reason isn't as fun as when you're fighting an army drafted by your brother to secure ultimate power. The gameplay is the primary focus, but the story just needs to support it, and it doesn't need to be as good as a book because the book is all about the plot. Different priorities and all that.