Jaffe Ditches Games With Stories

1up reports on David Jaffe's latest post to his blog, where he rails against games with stories, claiming that moving forward he'll be all about play for the sake of play. From the article: "Jaffe goes onto explain his thesis, believing many modern cinematic games don't properly play upon the raw 'real' emotions videogames can elicit: tension and release, fear and anxiety, triumph and defeat, and confusion and joy over challenges. We're wondering how Jaffe intends to make us cry without playing up the story elements, but we're interested in seeing him try. Maybe Project HL will simply feature an extended Path of Hades sequence ripped from God of War. I simply loved climbing those spiked poles for over an hour."

no story? Baloney

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

Good luck. I normally lose interest and never finish games if they have no story.

EA will rejoice

[Opportunist]

After all, without a story you can do "sequels" (read: Count up the release year and sell it as a new game) more easily.

Games with a harebrained story are a thing of the 80s. Where you could come up with some lame excuse for a story that's not even thin enough for a B-movie and have the player pretend that his block is some kind of soldier shooting some other blocks that represent enemies with smaller blocks pretending to be bullets to free a block that's supposedly the prince... whoops, sorry Mario.

But seriously. What do you want to sell a game with if not story? Graphics? We're already past super realistic 100% accurate graphics. If anything, story is a seller. A good story that keeps you on your toes, making you demand to see what's next, even hard enough that you overcome the most annoying obstacle just to see how it will continue, who that stranger was, who fired that shot in the dark, who is Luke's father...

You can't even sell a beat-em-up anymore without a decent story. Simply because all the rest is, essentially, the same as every other game. What's the huge difference between Half Life and Doom if not the story?

I dunno, he's got a point

[voice_of_all_reason]

My favorite types of games lately are dungeon crawlers (Grandia Xtreme, Diablo 2, Dynasty Warriors sorta). I've tried Oblivion but the payoffs are simply too few and far between -- I can only finish maybe one quest a sitting for a grand total of like 43 gold and some rat meat.

For me, FF7 was a good blend of story and action (I've read several references to it being the first "boss rush" game). If only they'd let you skip cutscenes entirely (not just fast-read through 5 or 10 minutes worth) I'd be a happy camper.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AKAImBatman]

I normally lose interest and never finish games if they have no story.

Really? So you must not have been a fan of Street Fighter II, Wolf3D, Galaga, Quake, S.T.U.N. Runner, Killer Instinct, San Francisco Rush, After Burner, Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, Starfox, Contra, Lemmings, etc., etc., etc.

How sad. :(

More likely, you've just forgotten that games can be fun without being a cinematic, first-person shooter.

Umm...

[CSZeus]

Wouldn't a better response to the situation be "People aren't doing a good job with cinematic style games, so I'm going to write good ones?" It seems kind of non-intuitive to say "You guys suck at this type of game, so I'm going to focus on making the kind of game that you get right."

Narrative could use a break

[MrNash]

Personally, I don't think I would miss narrative being removed from games, as much of the time the stories in games just aren't very good. Maybe it's simply that I'm getting older (dangerously close to 30), but I have much greater expectations from the sorts of stories that games present now. However, much of what is released comes across as something intended for a gamer in their late teens or early 20s. That's all well and good, and if gamers in that age bracket are enjoying these narratives, kudos to them.

Nonetheless, with all of this talk about "graying gamers" I have to wonder how much of it is just lip service from publishers' spin doctors. If we're such an integral part of the future plans of the industry, as some pundits claim, why aren't there more stories that older gamers can get into? It seems that for every Planescape Torment that is released, there are a dozen games that feature banal, emo tales revolving around angsty teeny boppers.

Considering the state of most stories in games, I for one wouldn't necessarily miss them if they went away, as I have little faith that we're going to see a noticeable shift to better crafted stories in the foreseeable future. Sex and violence does not a mature story make, and I really wish people would abandon this 15-year-old, high school kid mentality on the matter.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AKAImBatman]

If a game has mediocre game play (the vast majority of them do) then the story is what saves the game and makes it worth while.

I hate to be cliche, but go read a book. Life is too short to play lousy games just to "experiece" a thoroughly rehashed story.

No such thing as end-all-be-all?

[MrSquirrel]

I'm not sure I'm understanding him clearly... it sounds to me like he's not just making one game without a story, but sticking to an ideal that he's going to be different by making no games with stories. The way I see it, stories CAN be an integral part to a game -- it depends on the type of game though. Let's say you're playing DDR... it's not the type of game that would go well with a story ("Okay... uhm... street-toughs took your girl and you have to dance to free her!"). Now, take that same "story = bad" mentality and apply it to a game like Half-Life ("I have a gun... uh... I guess I'll go shoot some people. ...'nah, I'll just sit here at my desk and sip coffee -- a resonance cascade is only theoretical anyways"). Story can make or break a game, but it whole-heartedly falls on the game type.

I personally enjoy story games, particularly open-ended or multi-pathed ones where there is a good base story but your character doesn't stick to a script.

Stories in games are like stories in movies -- if the cinematography is a certain type, it's fine to not have a story... but it is not possible to apply a blanket policy of story/no story to every piece of film.

Re:EA will rejoice

[winmine]

What do you want to sell a game with if not story?

What about gameplay? As in, the expansive decision making process that defines games as a distinct art form?

What's the huge difference between Half Life and Doom if not the story?

You're being aggresively ignorant; I don't see how it's possible not to see the difference between Doom's constant survival action and Half-Life's paced and thoughtful puzzle mechanics intermixed with unique and hectic battles. They're practically polar opposites from map architechture to the underlying mindset the game expects out of its players.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

You can't sit there and tell me there's no story in Street Fighter (maybe initially, but by the alpha series there was a shitload of backstory) and to be honest I did enjoy most of those games (don't try and tell me that STUN Runner or SFRUSH are good games though)

I though impulsively that they'll make FPS games with no story, and no that we've seen close to a bajillion FPS games, the only thing now that can really make one better than another is story. Story and Gameplay. and if someone like Jaffe could make a game chock full of gameplay w/o the story, don't you think it would have been done already?
Also fun never had anything to do with what I said earlier. I had a shitload of fun playing GTA2, but did I ever finish that? hell no.
GTA3 and Vice City though, had me hooked enough on the story to actually want to finish them. same with HL 1 and 2. Not the same with Doom3. . .

And one more thing I wanted to bring up is that, all those games are old school. Try and find a good storyless game like those in the past 5 years? Did you? I didn't think so.
Old school games are fun because that's all they are, old school games. They were often hard or challenging, which kept you saying "Just one more level" or "I just need to hold on to the spreader until the boss."
Now however, videogames are just as much digital expression of either technological advancement or creative expression as they are games now.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AKAImBatman]

You can't sit there and tell me there's no story in Street Fighter

I can and I will sit here and state that Street Fighter II was without a story.

don't try and tell me that STUN Runner or SFRUSH are good games though

Don't try to push your personal preferences on everyone. STUN Runner and SFRush are awesome games. Just because you don't like them doesn't change the fact that millions of fans would agree with me.

if someone like Jaffe could make a game chock full of gameplay w/o the story, don't you think it would have been done already?
[...]
Try and find a good storyless game like those in the past 5 years? Did you?

Allow me to introduce you to my good friends Sid Meier [wikipedia.org] and Will Wright [wikipedia.org]. Say hello guys! Hey, can you tell us about your great new games like Civilization IV and The Sims? How many millions of dollars did these games net you? You know, I hear that you guys managed to pull off these games with no storyline what-so-ever! That's just incredible! I've heard about games like Roller Coaster Tycoon [wikipedia.org], but your offering take the cake!

Isn't technology incredible? Now back to AcidLacedPenguiN for a gloomy weather forecast.

Re:Cinematic???

[MojoBox]

There isn't. Games that claim (or are claimed by others) to be cinematic consist of two parts, the cinematic and the game, and ne'er shall the twain meet. Yet anyways. I suppose the game that has gotten closest to this is Half-Life 2 (or just HL if your going to get pissy about HL2), but while they admirably did away with cut scenes, they still had to find artificial ways to lock the player into cinematics, effectively cutting the game into the two previously stated parts. They also had to make your character a mute, but that's neither here nor there.

Re:no story? Baloney

[AKAImBatman]

You are an intrepid Slashdotter on a mission to collect karma points. Armed with only your trusty language skills, you must brave the dangers of trolls and downmodding. Can you do it, or will you be the next to end up at -1...

Look ma, I wrote a story! *rolls eyes*

Re:Wow, totally opposite.

[Chibi-Hikaru]

And that's exactly why game makers ought to be focusing on games with stories: there's no reason for people to re-buy Pac-Man, but they'll keep buying new stories.

Huh, I own Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart Double Dash, and Mario Kart DS. By your logic there's no reason for me to buy anymore than just one of those three games. There's no story. GOOD GOD THERE'S NO STORY?! What ever could possibly drive me to buy those sequals??? Might be because there's new tracks, new karts/characters, new weapons. Ie. New CHALLENGES (what games are REALLY about) due to new EXPERIENCES (the other thing games are about). Games are not about telling stories. They MAY tell stories but they are essentially about challenging you through various different experiences. If we were to extract this into the real world, soccer and football are similar games. The goal is to get the ball to the opposite end of the field. The reason to play both is that while similiar your experience during the gameplay of each is different. You also replay these games because they are challenging and you will experience a different game each time. No matter how many time I've played Mario Kart, it has been a different experience. How much of that can I say for something as horribly linear as FF7? You will eventually end up beating Sephiroth (essentially getting first place) and you will be all the other enemies/bosses/etc (the other racers) going from Midgar to the hole in the ground at the end (essentially the exact same damn tracks in the exact same damn order). So instead of giving us more games with more story (good god, read a book, watch anime, go see a movie), give us more challenging games. It's the only reason I'm looking forward to the Wii and not the other consoles is because with the new control design there is potential for new challenges and experiences.

Re:Wow, totally opposite.

[keendreams]

I think everyone is missing the point here. Jaffe is not talking specifically about just playing games with stories, but more so working on them. There is a difference between working on a long story driven game like God of War which could take years (3 years) to develop and lots of energy spent on fit the game play around a plot line. It could be fun to dream up a complex storyline for a game, but grafting numerous scripted sequences and event driven mechanics can be a real chore. Working on something more pure, more focused on game play can be quicker and the design, more spontaneous. Thus more fun for the developer. Sort of the difference between developing Quake and Halflife.