Story or Gameplay?

Post Reply New Topic

For me 80% story and 20% game play . If the game doesn't have a plot great enough to hold my interest , then I will quit at some point .

Gameplay is important to me , but I can live with subpar mechanics . I am all about the story more than gameplay .

Good stories are necessary for books, movies and other media that aren't interactive. They aren't necessary for video games.
Even more if you're playing a sandbox game, because you're the one creating a good part of the story, and it's a special power you have between your hands. And these are my personal favorites.
Or a completely different category, let's time travel... There isn't any real story behind the oldest video games. Catch stuff, escape or shoot enemies. Even gameplay itself is extremely simplistic. But it's still so good ! (to me anyway) No need to have a story. It's totally useless. Do you want a story behind Space Invaders ? What for ? And no need to have complex gameplay either. It can be awesome stuff. But it's gameplay that needs to be well thought, as simple as it can be, to make an awesome game.
If on the contrary, the story is extraordinary and well developed, but you can't do much, the gameplay sucks, you feel stuck and don't even have any choices to make, where does it reach the point where it isn't a video game anymore ? Where is the limit between a video game and an immersive movie ?

I think gameplay and story can be subjective . In a role playing game, story is relative because you're playing a character that has a background , with goals , and attributes etc etc . Also without a good plot line , playing the character can seem redundant and pointless .

It also depends on game genre . Their are some video games that don't require a story like sports games , action and adventure and even scifi .

Game mechanics are also important . Again though , it does depend on the genre . I have played and enjoyed many games purely for the gameplay aspect and stuff .

With the exception of fighting and sports games, story is very important. Without a good story, there's no reason to play. Really good gameplay can often make up for weaker story elements, such as the recent DOOM. It's story is fairly weak, but the gameplay is a lot of fun. Some games are the opposite and have great stories but slightly shallow gameplay. There needs to be a good mix. I probably wouldn't be interested in playing a game without a story. That's one of the main reasons I don't play multiplayer games. Running around, killing random people for no reason just isn't very fun/interesting.

Yep.

And honestly the oldest games, and the popularity they had, are great examples of the fact that, no, games DONT need to have a story focus, or even have a story at all. In fact *all* of the games that really got the industry as a whole going (stuff like Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-man) have zero story. Nobody knows why you're in an asteroid field, nobody knows where those invaders are from, and (in the main Pac-man series at least) nobody knows why Blinky is such a jerk. All anyone ever needed to know was how to play, and the legendary gameplay of games like those absolutely spoke for themselves. If games *had* to have a story to get anywhere, the industry would have collapsed before it ever got anywhere.

And alot of devs recently seem to be realizing that, putting either no story in, or just an extremely basic outline of one so that the game can be said to have one. The big guys of course do the opposite, but... their games also tend to be bloody boring/shallow, at least to me.

And really, that last question you bring up there is a very good point: At what point is it too much, when it comes to story stuff? The fact that some games are more movie than game is a huge part of what got me thinking along these lines to begin with: Because I always found that cutscene-filled games tended to be entirely ABOUT the cutscenes. The gameplay "wasnt important".... it just got you from one cutscene to the next.

I dont even like movies, but if I did, and I wanted to watch one... I would just go freaking watch one. When I play a game, I expect to PLAY the blasted game... not watch it.

It really bothers me that some of the views/opinion Regarding gameplay and story have come off as a bit extreme .

I have noticed a few that can come across as if their opinion is more valid and the opinion of another is less valid .

We all have different reasons for why we value somethings over another because we are all different .

In this case , some value story plot over game play and vice versa , but it doesn't make one person's opinion and reasons more right and more valid than the other just like how the opinions and views of the other are more right and more valid than the other .

Feh, many of us always sound like that... best get used to it on this forum in general. Which makes sense, alot of us tend to be very passionate about special interests and not exactly very good at social stuff, and that combination can result in alot of very fiery debates. And debate in general tends to also sound like that. Some topics on this forum as a whole (not just the gaming section) can actually get pretty unpleasant, though nobody does that on purpose.

In my case, I tend not to really care if people agree with me or not. IRL, none of my friends do, and spend most of their time A: playing Dark Souls over and over, or B: playing Generic Easy JRPG Of The Month, so I'm frankly used to it (and lately I just stay away from them). Dont get me wrong, I'll bloody well rant about it anyway, but nobody HAS to agree.

That being said, for my own ranting, I dont say stuff that I just pull out of thin air: again, I've done actual development, and seen how different types of focus cause different effects on the resulting game , and also been told of a large variety of things directly by various devs that I've dealt with over the years. Things like the fact of developers having to divide up resources, because they dont have infinite money, isnt even close to debatable. It's simply how things work. Alot of developers struggle with decisions about that type of thing and it can be very frustrating (not just related to "gameplay VS story"... there's soooooo much more to it than just that).

Of course, some people will like stuff like story-games anyway, and that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, even if it does twist the AAA side of the industry into trends that focus on that (I can just avoid those, after all... unless friends force me to play them, ugh, more reason for me to keep to myself in recent months). People can like whatever the heck they like. They could absolutely adore Pac-man on the 2600, for all I care. I figure, nobody MUST agree, and they dont have to read what I write if they dont want to either. That bit isnt my problem.

And in the end, there are other, bigger issues the industry is facing right now than any of this... but that's a topic for another day.

There, I got that out of my system. Feh, tend to rant more when I've had too much caffeine.

There may be a bit of frustration mixed in it.
Anyway, frustration did influence the tone of my post, I must admit. Because lately, stories have become more and more invasive to the point where gameplay, interactivity and freedom are more and more limited and neglected. Games want to show off with complex stories and beautiful graphics, but they have less and less elements that characterize a true game, as they're progressively merged with more traditional media such as movies and TV shows. It has the potential to have a huge negative impact on the player's experience. And I can witness it as a game modder. Now that stories take more and more place, the source code of newer games is getting simpler and simpler, smaller and smaller, for the last few years, sometimes to a point where it's so ridiculous you wouldn't even imagine if you haven't explored it by yourself. And without necessarily implying causation, because I also think that the increasingly proportion of casual gamers is one of the main reasons for neglecting gameplay (I have nothing against them at all, but they're often used as an easy excuse to oversimplify many new games and sell more), I've noticed what seems to be a negative correlation between complexity of story and complexity of gameplay. And I'm getting increasingly worried about that. More and more pretty wallpapers that hide thinner and thinner plaster walls.

Aye, that's a very good way of putting it. The lessened source code doesnt surprise me either. All of this stuff is why I simply said "screw AAA games" and pretty much just play indie stuff now, as that major trend doesnt exist there... indie devs tend to just go "I want to make this game here and it's going to be freaking brutal, so I'm bloody well doing so", which is also my own design style. I can think of so many games that follow this idea now, but nearly all of them are on PC; it's much harder to publish a game on consoles (and costs WAY more) so 95% of indie devs do not bother.

Though the big problem for the AAA guys is now they're actually STUCK in the mode they're in. They cant back out now. The costs of making those games has skyrocketed to outright ridiculous levels, and they dont DARE do anything to alienate their customers. So their games MUST remain accessible and easy, to the point where something like Dark Souls... which by my standards ISNT hard... is considered to be stupidly difficult. And that game is the exception, not the rule... so many AAA games just play themselves almost. Regenerating health, infinite lives, no checkpoints, enemies that are slow and dumber than stumps, and hyper-simplified mechanics. For those that need/want an actual challenge, this side of the industry does not provide it... because they CANT. They're trapped in the box they've constructed for themselves. Which is also why many people theorize that a crash is incoming, because the huge expensive ones have gotten really, really stale at this point. The good part is that multiplayer games specifically can still retain their challenge, as the challenge comes from your opponent, since an actual person playing the part of the enemy can add great difficulty to even very simple games. But if you're not into multiplayer, well... yeah, you're not getting much there.

Not to mention that being trapped in that box of theirs also stops creativity from happening (deviate from your formula too much, and you risk a hyper-expensive game totally bombing). Honestly, it's really a shame to see that this side of the industry has come to this. Some of course wont care, and that's totally fine. But the number of those that are more than a bit fed up grows ever further, and they become more and more vocal (and angry).


It is a fascinating subject though. Well, fascinating to me anyway. I may not like what that side of the industry does lately but I do find it very interesting to follow it all.

Story.

I find any game without a decent story to be pointless.