7d ago

We can't keep making videogame stories for players who aren't paying attention to them

www.pcgamer.com We can't keep making videogame stories for players who aren't paying attention to them

Let me get lost, I promise it's okay.

I've noticed a trend—particularly in some recent RPGs—of, well, let's call it 'Netflixiness'.
Dialogue designed to leave absolutely nothing to interpretation, to exposit information in the most direct way possible, devoid of any real character or context. There's an assumption that any moment the audience spends confused, curious, or out-of-the-loop is a narrative disaster.
I hate to keep knocking Dragon Age: The Veilguard about, especially since I still had a decent time with it all told, but the thing that made me break off from it after 60 hours really was its story. It's a tale that does get (slightly) better, but it gave me a terrible first impression I never quite shook.

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Devil's Advocate: This is for the adult gamer set who only have a prescribed amount of time they can spend on gaming. They get a chance for a few hours every few weeks. Their lives are overwhelming with details and information they need to remember regarding every day life. They simply don't have the mental capacity to remember all the details from a game they spend two to three hours on once every few weeks, not when their mental focus is given to you know, real fucking life.
While I understand the frustration with such writing, because it bothers me as well... I don't have a job where I work 60 hours a week nor do I have children. I'm kind of the exception to the rule when it comes to being able to give a game my full attention. Further, I have always had an incredibly good memory and attention to detail. Most people I have met in my life simply... do not have incredibly good memories or attention to detail. That doesn't make them bad people who are living life wrong, it just means their brains work differently or they're putting that mental energy to different things.
If we want people to pay attention to these stories, well, we've got to change fucking society from the ground up so they have the free time to actually be able to do so. Whinging about it like this isn't going to magically make people pay better attention when they have to split their time with taking care of their children, which obviously should take priority over a fucking video game.
People act like the Netflixication is because people are all busy staring at their phones... I posit that it's actually people cooking meals, doing dishes, doing laundry, ironing clothes, and a thousand other tedious daily activities where they're trying to squeeze in some entertainment while also paying attention to something else entirely.
- Games with complicated or involved stories just need to go back to having a comprehensive log or journal. That used to be a staple of big games, to the point where it could take you days to read all the lore and journal entires. That might not be fully ideal for those adult gamers either but theres definitely a comfortable middle ground where your active missions page has a little brief for each objective telling you who gave the quest, what they wanted and why. Lots of games these days can have like 20 active quest markers and give you no information about any of them beyond some random npc you talked to once wants 10 of something for some reason.
  
  I like the way the new wave of CRPGs — Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, etc. — deals with this problem. Of course you have a journal with a quest log and a lore encyclopedia. In addition to that, if you hover over highlighted words (names, lore things) during dialogue, it shows you a short explanation.
  
  I remember back in the day, when a lot of the time you had to keep your log/journal yourself with pen and paper. Getting back to Lands of Lore after a week without any notes? Might as well start over.
  
  Talking about lost feature, I feel like like less modern games like to give their players a comprehensive map.
  It used to be that map is a basic feature in games that involve any kind of navigation but nowadays some games just....don't?
- That's a good point and, for lack of studies about it, it's impossible to tell which is the most pervasive.
  As a counterpoint, and this might be an "unpopular opinion"™: not all games are (should be) made for as broad an audience as possible and different attention (investment) levels should be expected depending on the game. That obviously won't resonate with the business side of the gaming industry, but I think everyone needs to be aware of how much time they can dedicate to their hobbies and pick them accordingly.
  I'm thankfully not in a position where I have to work 60hrs a week and I'm childless as well, but some weeks might leave me with less free time than others and I pick entertainment/media accordingly. That might not be what others do and I know my experience is likely purely anecdotal, but if I feel I don't have enough time to properly enjoy a game or remember its premises as I play, I'll simply do something else, even if gaming is my favourite hobby.
  And to be clear, I fully agree that society needs to change dramatically either way. Everyone would benefit from better work-life balance.
  
  not all games are (should be) made for as broad an audience as possible
  The problem is that when a AAA game costs three hundred million dollars to make due to all the performance capture and famous actors and high fidelity graphics and whatnot, you have to reach as broad an audience as possible in order to make that money back.
  I think this is what's killing the blockbuster movies, too. Everything needs to be lowest-common-denomenator to have a hope of turning a profit.
- What's even the point of playing story games then if the story is condensed and simplified to such a degree? If all explanations are spoon fed to you and the story if so primitive that the bar is on the floor it just becomes boring. At this point you are better off playing games that focus on gameplay instead, it will be a more fun experience.
  It's like reading a summary of a book of just watch a short clip about it on TikTok because books are "too long" and then calling yourself a reader.
  
  It is only boring if you get to play it from start to finish in a couple of days.
  It is not boring if the same story is spread out over months because of limited playtime.
- This is not a good argument for unnecessary exposition though, this is just an argument for shorter, bite-sized narratives, or even what some games already do (like The Witcher 3) where they recap where you are in the loading screen. If anything, unnecessary exposition just wastes what little time you have to play, or forces you to skip the dialogue entirely.

I mean, good creators don't? There are still AA and indie devs pouring their heart into stories they want to tell?
This article is basically just bemoaning that AAA develops for the lowest common denominator, which I can understand as a gripe, but it's a very old gripe. If you start really digging into AAA, you'll get other similar ones like "Why are these gameplay loops made for people who don't like gameplay" or "How come perfectly serviceable story focused games get mandatory crafting systems added onto them." When you're trying to make something to broadly appeal to as many people as possible, you stop making art, so I don't know why people keep expecting AAA to produce artistic experiences.
- I agree, AAA games are long dead. However there was a time where AAA games were amazing, maybe around the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era. Back when devs were allowed creative freetom to make the games they actually wanted and try new things. I think a lot of people with these complaints miss that level of catered quality from back then
  
  the industry has also be caught in the grips of budget gigantism by an influx of investor cash for the past decade.
  Outside investors saw dollar signs with the rapid growth of the market, and also huge financial successes like fortnight. So they were willing to put up a lot of funding in hopes of outsized returns. Pressure from investors and management meant appealing to the largest audience possible, and also chasing the latest trends. Despite the huge budgets, the games were unfocused and bad, both from trying to appeal to too many audiences, and constantly changing direction during development to chase trends.
- "Why is this dish made for all palates, so bland?"
- This article is basically just bemoaning that AAA develops for the lowest common denominator, which I can understand as a gripe, but it’s a very old gripe.
  And an easy one to fix: Don't fucking buy AAA games!

I love story based games, and the story is my favorite thing about a game, usually. Unfortunately, so many games try to tell you a story like a movie would or like a book would. They intersperse cutscenes between gameplay to tell you what you did or are doing. That's... boring at best. Video games can tell stories in a unique way that other mediums can't, because they're interactive. DDLC is my favorite example, that game has a story that can only hit as hard as it does because you the player are an active participant in the story. Or Dark Souls, where the story exists for you to find, or not... everyone has a different understanding of what the story of that game is after their first playthrough, and the deeper you look the better your understanding is. Tell interesting stories in a way that uses the medium to the fullest and you'll gain an audience. Recite a screenplay every 10 minutes between spurts of unrelated gameplay, and people won't care about your story.
- DDLC
  Nobody knows what you're saying, you should consider spelling out an acronym the first time you use it.
  
  If you don't understand an acronym the first time you see it, you should consider looking it up. I will save you the trouble though; I was referring to Doki Doki Literature Club, a popular indie game with a long title that is commonly abbreviated.
- Freaking YES. Movies need to spoon-feed a bit and so does TV, but you have a whole medium that lets people be as confused or not and that's a great thing. If a player doesn't care, there are options to not dive deep, if they do they will. My first playthrough I was confused what the genophage was. I heard bits and pieces but was genuinely confused. You know what I did? I walked over to my crew mate who mentioned it and asked him! Why is that so hard, the unknowns al_are_ the suspense! It's what keeps me playing.
  Compare that to mass effect Andromeda where they introduce it by having two characters explain it at length in front of the player. This event that would be on par with WW2. So natural. "Hey friend, I was just thinking about WW2. You know, that war that involved the acid vs the allies fought between 1939 and 1945 in which we saw a fascist leader march across Europe?". Jesus hell have some respect for your players, stop fucking spoon feeding us.
- It depends on the game. I still like Metal Gear Solid 1 & 2.
  
  Those are the best games in the series IMO. Sons of Liberty is a prophetic masterpiece.

This concept of a second screen show is so unbelievably fucking moronic... It's your own damn fault if you're not paying attention!
I have a second monitor that I play things on, and it's either a stream of someone playing something similar or the same game, or it's a show I've already watched and know the story of.
If I'm watching something new, then I'm watching it. To have stories dumbed down, or just butchered to suit tictok brainrotted people completely devoid of attention spans is so freaking depressing and only exacerbates the issue. But in the end I guess I get it, you're out for a profit and it hurts to have a plethora of idiots rate you poorly because they weren't paying attention and didn't understand the story... Ughh...

To me it feels like there is a fundamental dissonance in the video game industry. Where major publishers and studios can’t seem to internalize that there are two things that people might come to a game for; Video games as experiences, narratives, things to be explored; and video games as … well games, a set of mechanics to be interacted with, to be challenged by. This isn’t to say a game can’t be good at both, but many games are weighted one way or another.
Factorio is a truly absorbing gameplay experience, but it doesn’t really have a story beyond what is needed to frame and flavor the gameplay.
“Vampire the masquerade: bloodlines” is a classic of atmosphere, character interaction and role play, but just about everyone who played it will tell you the combat is serviceable at best, and there is one level in particular that most people just remove with a mod because it’s just combat, with no dialog or interactions with other characters.
So many major studios and publishers seem to routinely focus on the wrong elements of previously successful games. Taking the wrong lessons and misunderstanding what made previous title’s a huge success.
People are not coming to your story based RPG to play it mindlessly while listening to a podcast or audio book. If people are doing that, then clearly they’re not coming to it for the story, and the solution to that issue is to write a better story or refocus around what ever they are coming for.

Maybe make dialogue between "Find the dwemer puzzle box, it's... uhhh... somewhere" and "GO [fast travel] TO PLACE X, KILL Y IN ROOM NUMBER 6 AND DONT FORGET TO COME BACK WITH THE EVIL SWORD OF DARKNESS [automatically picked up by your character] [a yellow marker appears on your minimap and field of view, with a magic trail leading you to the quest location]"

I agree with the article. Why cater games towards a crowd that doesnt want the game. Just stop it. Fuck EA and fuck companies like Activision/blizzard for dumbing down RPGs so Normie's might like them. You're ruining the experience for people who want to an RPG and making it "tolerable" for people who dont. The end result will always be a mixed bag, a mixed bag of shit.
Just let them play call of duty or FIFA and let the people who enjoy RPGs play RPGs with good story and RPG elements. You're not doing anyone a favor by making an unenjoyable mediocre bag of shit.

"What you need to know about your audience here is that they will watch the show, perhaps on their mobile phone, or on a second or third screen while doing something else and talking to their friends, so you need to both show and tell, you need to say much more than you would normally say."
This is so baffling to me. So you've discovered your audience has a limited attention span. I can see that. But for the love of all that is holy, if you know this, why even make a game with a story in the first place? The thing with videogames is that stories can be minimalistic as all hell, or even optional. Just let the gameplay speak for itself and have the story be "defeat the bad guy on the mountain" or something.
- I, for one, enjoy narrative-focused games, and would prefer if they didn't go away completely
  
  As a fan of story-driven games, I absolutely am NOT advocating for complete removal of stories in videogames. What I was trying to say is that if Bioware knows that their audience has an attention deficit and is developing the game around this fact, you're going to get a crap story. And judging by the reviews for Veilguard, that seems to be the case.
  If Bioware is dead set on developing games for a crowd that watches twenty-seven thing simultaneously, why develop the story at all?

I go back and forth on this a lot. I've been gaming since the Atari 2600 and I agree this happens in games, but personally disagree that Veilguard was a clear example. I really enjoyed that title and platnum'ed it. I think it's more likely, that just like music, movies and tv, expensive studios tend to use the most profit / least risk model. So if a game is appealing for age 1 to age 80 it gives them the least risk and the widest demographic. To further minimize that risk, every game has to have the same stupid Hollywood pitch lines of "Oh this game is
<insert popular title here as X>
but with a different Y and a new Z" in order to get traction from investors. Boring and dull are side effects of it. The fact it started to spread in the RPG genre is just another level of degradation.

Exposition != story.
A good story can be (and usually is) told with minimal exposition. AAA games being exposition-fests is a result of game executives and writers infantilising players in the name of "widest audience appeal".

I feel like stories have never been my go to. I always find myself playing games with excellent gameplay, rather than story (Mindustry, Balatro, Galaga, etc). I love a good story don't get me wrong, but gameplay is my main attraction to games, and I feel thats where games started. If you look at retro games like Dig Dug or Adventure, or even modern indie titles like Balatro the attraction is basically 90% gameplay
- I think that’s kind of the kicker, a lot of studios and franchises got big based on the quality of their story telling, but did poorly with audiences that were just there for the gameplay. The gameplay in these games is there to serve the story, to support it and facilitate it, not to shine by it’s own merits. But if you’re just there for the gameplay and don’t care about the story, then the gameplay will be boring.
  So they’ve sanded down the story to make it easier for people who don’t care about it to follow what’s going on, and thus make the gameplay work for them..
  But now you have a story built to serve gameplay, and gameplay built to serve the story. Nether is good on its own merits, so no one really likes it.

Yeah, I'm gonna say this person doesn't hate to keep knocking on Veilguard, because that seems to be the one example they can bring up. I mean, there's a cursory name check of Dawntrail, but otherwise... yeah, not sure what games this is talking about other than Dragon Age.
Clair Obscur didn't do that. It went to absolute pains to not do that, in fact, to the point where I find the deceptive twist-building a bit over the top, in retrospect. I wouldn't accuse the CDPR games of going that route. Baldur's Gate does overexplain often, but in their defense the game has a million characters, plot points you go through out of order and a runtime in the hundreds of hours, so I wouldn't change that.
What else is even doing this? I feel like we're back in "AAA sucks" territory where AAA stands in for "this one game I didn't like". Writing in games runs the gamut. I would struggle to find a single defining thing to praise or criticise across the board.

Hear hear! This is such a plague on games and media right now. I don't blame developers that much, because lack of friction is super commonly taught in game design courses, and it's not always bad. It can be done waaaay too much though.
- there probably shouldn’t be a lot of friction for things the player isn’t supposed to be focused on, like say the interface should be unobtrusive and easy to navigate, a player probably shouldn’t have to use moon logic to figure out how to open a door. Things that aren’t the focus shouldn’t require the player’s focus.
  but a story driven game should have the player focusing on the story, not actively encouraging them to ignore it!
  Players who don’t care about the story would probably be better served by a different game altogether.
  
  Yep, exactly. That's the good use of lack of friction. The philosophy I have is just that it shouldn't be seen as always good no matter what. It changes the experience to remove friction, so any decision to do so should be thoughtfully done with the experience in mind.
- I find this so strange, because it is often the friction / mystery that compels me to keep playing. See Blue Prince, Sifu, Soulslikes, Outer Wilds...
  
  It comes from a good place. Make things have more quality of life. Makes things feel smooth and responsive. Don't make things obtuse and confusing.
  The problem is that while some friction kind of sucks (I don't think many would want clunky movement or controls), lots of experiences get thrown out with the bathwater when this goes too far.
  My philosophy is that friction needs to be seen as a tool. It does something to the experience, and it needs to be considered whether removing it will improve the experience, and if so, what is being lost in the process?

I wanna blame the writers more for this but honestly, I think a lot of Netflix writers know their audience is just on their phone. I have people in my life that just watch their phone, notice they missed something, then REWIND THE SCENE so I get to watch twice. It really is bad, it happens with people older and younger than me.

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