Gaming and Writing: The Story in the Game

Gaming, as a form of entertainment, has been continuing to evolve since its infancy. Whenever you turn on your console or PC to play a game, you are often seeking to do something other than your current day to day; an escape from the norm.  It can be a simple button-smasher classic, or a hot new richly-detailed RPG, but can storytelling play a role in your enjoyment of the game? There are two sides to every story, and in gaming this trend stays true.

There are many forms of gamers and they’re pretty diverse in their demographic.  How they prefer their gaming experiences differs as greatly as their backgrounds and appearances.  Some enjoy science fiction, while others clamor for the modern war story.  For the fan of today’s storytelling in games, writing is as important as the gameplay.  When a player jumps into Mass Effect or Final Fantasy, they expect to be taken to the furthest reaches of the universe, seeing things that they wouldn’t see in their day-to-day, so the story has to be on the same level. They want to be enthralled by the cutscenes, moments in which they may have to put their controller down for a few seconds just to get the next crucial details of the plot.  For this fan, nothing is more disappointing than to play a game that looks good, but is boring and makes no sense. 

A good story may be critical to the game being sold. In some situations, single player games amass the most writing and dialogue, often requiring a novel’s worth of detail. Role-playing games have been made famous for their hours and hours of gameplay, most of which involve exploration and facing battles to level up your character. The story alone could be short and simple, but for the true RPG fan the story must be engaging enough to make you want to explore the game more thoroughly, and uncover all the side quest’s hidden gems.  If you don’t care about the story, or its characters, where is your motivation to go deeper into the game? The failure of the story could be the failure of the game, no matter how great the graphic detail.  From a fan perspective, any game that asks a player to devote hours of their life to playing it should provide enough quality in the story to make you feel that the end was worth the time invested. Any story-driven game that loses its audience, or bores them, has failed to achieve its goal.

Gaming however, is more than just RPGs. It has numerous categories to meet gamer demands and tastes. With sports games, fighters, real-time strategy, puzzle games, first-person shooters, rhythm games, and more, it quickly becomes a question of if a story is even needed. Team Fortress, the popular PC FPS game, has built a solid fan following. It is a game that does not have a campaign, and for newcomers, there isn’t a noticeable story. However, for the well-experienced and initiated TF2 player there is certainly a background to the universe. Most games seem to experience this form of story element: a universe of its own. Diving deeper into a game’s mythology and characters, one can find a vast background of information on even the most simple button smashers; even Pac-Man has background. So every game has a story, though for some games it is not made obvious to the gamers. It is up to the truly devoted fans to go forth and seek it out, if they desire to, while at the same time leaving the unnecessary storytelling out of the picture for those who primarily want to run and gun.

The gamer who couldn't care less about story and plot, seeks to be entertained with direct fun. They love to skip through cutscenes and get into the action. These are your players who are often lost and confused about why something happened when they ran forward to kill more bad guys and suddenly found themselves alone or dead. Is it the player’s fault that they don’t know what was going on, or is it the game’s? Did the player hear the narrator or non-player character, tell them what was going on? Perhaps the NPC did its job, but the player failed to heed the warning. This is a juncture of gaming that games seem to run into often. “Where do I go?” asks a player as he stumbles into a dead end hallway on Dead Space. Did the player pay attention to the story’s narrative and follow the flashing panels on the wall, or did the player simply go running into a room looking for the next kill?

No matter the game, there is a story. Some may choose to ignore it, while others embrace it, for good or bad. Even though there are numerous games that sell to the action junkie who isn’t interested in a plot, there must be something about the game to pull a gamer in. If Farmville’s simple concept of having a beautiful farm is able to engross millions, than surely Rock Band can keep you glued to your guitar. Story in games isn’t too complicated, though, because in the end it is about selling the product.  A game must first appeal to its audience while sitting on a shelf, and before anyone can play, it must have a niche. Why is there an eagle holding a gun while soldiers charge in the background? With the power of the Internet and game reviewers, most gamers know what they are getting before they even hit the store. Reviewers are a tough crew to crack and often they are looking to get just enough out of the game in order to make an honest decision of how they would rank it. These ranks greatly influence a gamer’s buying decision.

Either a game be a mindless kill’em-all, or a deep story narrative set in the Wild West. Perhaps this fan is looking too deeply, but a game is not a game without a purpose. There has to be a beginning and an end, even if that end is a score on the game’s record chart. You can take a game with the story or without, but chances are you are getting a story—whether you like it or not.