why is there no truly great vidya stories?

[Fishnumm]

there are plenty of good ones but nothing i'd put up there with the best of the best like the godfather or something

edit - with the sole exception of bad rats im SUCH A FUCKING MORON FOR FORGETTING ABOUT THAT MASTERPIECE.

@Most Wanted Banana is right

 

[Most Wanted Banana]

How can you say something so preposterous when masterpieces like Bad Rats exist?

 

[No-Eyed Square Guy]

There aren't many movies as good as Godfather either.

But—

Putting stories in vidya was a mistake.

Premises are all that's necessary. Geometrical premises are best—like Tempest or Crystal Castles—but it can go as far as "You're here to rescue the princess." Then you do a million things, and at the end there's the princess for you. Or maybe a surprise princess, like in the old Metroids.

"Lore" games can be good, as long as they don't really make sense. Anything more coherent than Bloodborne is a crappy movie with a really expensive proprietary remote control.

Just watch a movie and hit pause twenty thousand times.

 

[Fishnumm]

There aren't many movies as good as Godfather either.

true but there isnt a vidya story close to it's quality and the medium has been around for over 50 years (and for 30 of em you could tell stories)

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

Because movie and books can just be stories designed purely for the sake of good storytelling, rather than a scaffold that supports 30 hours of jumping on crates and shooting people.

 

[IronBarrelBro]

Scott Cawthon's "The Desolate Hope" had a pretty good story with a greatly executed twist in my opinion, but it probably isn't the mind blowing thing you're looking for. Too bad it was so lackluster as a game though.

 

[Cat tit bingo]

Its hard to put a prose into a game and cinematography is near impossible when the player is in control of the camera. It's like apples and oranges, your never going to have the tight curated experience you get from a film and if you try it will enviable be trite. Games do have great stories but in very different ways then movies.
The pros of game stories are atmosphere and tone. Gameplay will always get in the way of any kind of story pacing, like you can't keep the story going while you're bashing a bunch of monsters with a stick but you can keep an eerie oppressive atmosphere. Silent hill is lauded for its story less because of how we'll written it is but for the incredible atmosphere it builds though out.
There's also interaction that you could never do in movies. If you just read out the events of something like planescape torment, deus ex or vampire the masquerade bloodlines it'd sound banal, could argue the same for most cinema, but by letting you make discussions it pulls you into the world. Everyone knows deep down you're just picking pre-planned choices but when done well the illusion can be masterful. The act of uncovering the story should also be considered, games like outer wilds feel so great because it's you piecing everything together not someone on a screen. The issue comes with replaying the mystery, like a good twist returns diminish on replay, It also relies on the player not being retarded.
There's also metacontext, while used and abused by hack writers games are probably better then any medium at taking advantage of it. The original marathon trilogy is fantasic at including you in the story examining the player character as a slave to you and the game world with out being obnoxious. Still while I hold marathon at a very high bar for game story telling it is told primarily though text on terminals hidden though labyrinths full of aliens.
To try to make a game story like a movie's is a fools arrend, what makes one good is different from the other.
I hope you enjoyed reading my essay as much I did writing it.

 

[Just A Fat Round Bird]

I mean, so far nobody was ever able to top the writing genius of pong from back in the day, I guess the honorable mention would be pacman for it's deeply meta philosophical approach, but just based on story, nothing beats pong.

 

[Boldizar]

Jews

 

[Dojima's Dragon]

Because movie and books can just be stories designed purely for the sake of good storytelling, rather than a scaffold that supports 30 hours of jumping on crates and shooting people.

How come rpg have good story

 

[We Are The Witches]

I think they've already answered you, films can easily excel at storytelling since, well, that's one of its main strengths, whereas a videogame focuses in the game/interaction aspect of it, e.g: Mario's story is shit, let's face it, but it's one of the biggest and most loved videogames out there. We can say the same about Pokémon, The Simpsons: Hit & Run, etc. And that's when there is even a story, there are those basically without one, like Minecraft, shooters, puzzle-games, beat'em ups, etc.

Having said that, there are good stories in videogames, I think you could have enjoyed GTA IV's story, specially at the end or when in regards to Roman (after the wedding); another example could be "999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors", which is an adventure/visual novel essentially, so it can focus on storytelling.

 

[SIMON THE PIEMAN]

I think it's because a talented writer has no reason to put up with the whims and demands of gaming industry. Why go into gaming and have someone dictate what you can and can't write about while receiving a pitiful wage when you can just work with a medium that is already familiar (text), do whatever you want and earn far more money?

 

[Cat tit bingo]

GTA IV's story

I often forget how good gta IV's good story could be, primarily just niko as a character, but the gta mission structure really pulls it down.