ThePurposeOfStory

The Purpose of Story

Matt asks:

> What is the purpose of Story in a game?
>
> This is not a trick question. :)


Here's the beginnings of an answer, which I have spent many years and many pages chasing:

The short answer is that the purpose of story is to get the audience to give a fuck about what they're seeing. By "give a fuck", I mean to be emotionally involved.

This is true across all mediums: novels, films, games.

But wait! There are many great games that have no story, such as Tetris!

Indeed, I don't give a fuck about the falling bricks in that game. And I don't need to. Story is not a crucial part of the fun of Tetris.

(Sure there's the "story" of putting all the blocks together before they fill up the screen, but this is an emergent narrative that has no outside "author". When I say story, I mean a traditional narrative with characters and emotions.)

The weird, touchy thing is that story is THE central pleasure of a movie or book, but it is not necessarily THE central pleasure of a game, although it can be (Grim Fandango, Planescape Torment).

There are two competing schools of thought regarding story in games: ludology and narratology. Ludology is the idea that it is "play-style" that drives a game (Tetris, Katamari Damacy). Narratology is the idea that it is story that drives a game (Grim Fandango, Planescape Torment).

Cameron is clearly an unapologetic ludogist, which is why I enjoy working with him.

I too am a ludologist, which is why I'm opposed to long cutscenes and voiceovers, such as the long slideshow that precedes Mercenaries 1.0. I believe that if your game/world/story isn't explicable IN THE GAME, than it isn't explicable. Period.

Read my first post on the wiki for more on this. My ludology preference is also why I feel Half Life 1 is the most formally pure and aesthetically brilliant game narrative ever told -- by eschewing ALL cutscenes and keeping all the story elements IN THE GAME, it tells it's story in a manner that no other medium can reproduce: not movies, nor books, nor music.

Half Life was an unprecedented event in game narrative. And it hasn't been reproduced yet, at least not until Nov. 16th.

Every FPS that uses even a single cutscene, skippable or not, is a step backwards from Half Life 1 for the art of storytelling in games. (I'm looking at you, Bungie, you underachiever!)

The bottom line is that a game doesn't NEED a story. But if it does, and the story is a crucial part of the game, then the the story is there to get the audience to give a fuck about the events of the game.

It all comes down to giving a fuck. Either the audience does or doesn't. There is no in-between state.

Mercenaries 1.0 fails this test. Failing the test, it attempts to mitigate the failure with loading screens and what not, but you can't patch a severed artery with band aids.

The question then becomes: how do we get the audience to give a fuck?

Luckily, there are clear and simple rules for this, especially for game narrative (which is a more nascent and much simpler form than film).