Thread 719135207

Obviously I don't expect the medium to produce something on the level of the Sistine chapel or war and peace in my life time but realistically where do you think video game storytelling will be taken within the next 20 years.

When do you think exhibiting high art will become something developers will want to achieve.

women

>>719135207 (OP)
Halo 2 is as close as you will get.p

They already did it. Dostoievskij did it using only words. Some games did it using video+music+text+gameplay

>>719135207 (OP)
Because good writers have better offers and opprtunities than working on videogames

>or war and peace
>much-much word is good
Shit thread.

>>719135207 (OP)
Because unlike literally every other piece of media, video games have to account for player agency (player retardation), which hampers the way the narrative is told. Just look at Half Life, for example, and see how autistic Freeman is purely because the player is in control of him.
There's a reason nobody talks, or cares, about CYOA novels. Because they're all written with the base assumption that the audience is retarded.

>>719136023
You can sub in any work you'd like. the point is that video games don't come close in story telling to what our literary traditions have produced. Compared to them, it's like video games are stuck writing fan fics on wattpad.

>>719135207 (OP)
>where do you think video game storytelling will be taken within the next 20 years
I'm currently under the belief that video games are about to become so bad that people stop playing them alltogether

>>719136424
>Disco Elysium
>Xenogears
>Nier: Automata
>Shadow of the Colossus
>Planescape: Torment

>>719136712
shadow of the colossus is your only example that actually uses the video game medium to tell it's story the rest are youtube video essay slop

>>719135207 (OP)
>plays low effort AAA slop
>why dont games more gooder?

>>719136712
Disco Elysium and Platescape I think maybe showcases how you can create interesting narratives in video games and how the medium might evolve on storytelling. But they are still not very good.

>>719136817
nigga the indie games suck ass too.

>>719137059
Yes, I know the indie games you play suck ass.

>>719137094
theres not a single indie game on the market that comes close to high art

>>719137007
Why?

I’m amazed that people still have the gall to treat vidya like it isn’t art. Everything that goes into making a game is a culmination of every single aspect of modern culture high tech engineering. It’s fucking divine. Treating it like anything less is the worst kind of ignorance.

>>719135207 (OP)
>Sistine chapel
>Story

>>719137262
video game can be art. there is no doubt in my mind. but no game comes close to the level of the classics. they were literally created 50 years ago. it makes sense why. its not insulting to say so or even ignorant.

>>719135207 (OP)
War and Peace. A little too long. A rollicking historical novel written for the general reader, specifically for the young. Artistically unsatisfying. Cumbersome messages, didactic interludes, artificial coincidences. Uncritical of its historical sources.

>>719136813
Disco and Planescape put player choice at the forefront of the experience.

Nier uses multiple playthroughs to aid in its story telling.

>>719136712
Xenogears is garbage. Like worse than your average YA/romantasy novel tier.

>game stories suck
Play To The Moon and in general the Sigmund Corp series. There's something everyone can take away from it.

>>719135207 (OP)
>videogames
>high art
lmao, never going to happen.

>>719137360
what else did gpt tell you?

>>719137446
Why?

>>719137346
>only the Classics can be “art”
Genuinely ludicrous sentiment. People tend to take things like this to logical extremes since there was a brief modern period where people where making meme sculptures designed to troll pretentious bourgeoise and the movement backfired so much that now no one knows what art even is.

Vidya is art. Everything about it is art.

>>719137479
to the moon kinda broke me when it fully sunk in that she died thinking he'd never remember

>>719135207 (OP)
Name one videogame story that you consider the highest of them all. If you think there's none, is because you're expecting the same level of refinement from a medium completely unrelated. Or are you one of those retards that believe classical music has the same artistinc intent and depth than classic books or paintings?

>>719137606
Ulysses. A divine work of art. Greatest masterpiece of 20th century prose. Towers above the rest of Joyce's writing. Noble originality, unique lucidity of thought and style. Molly's monologue is the weakest chapter in the book. Love it for its lucidity and precision.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Never liked it. A feeble and garrulous book.
Finnegans Wake. A formless and dull mass of phony folklore, a cold pudding of a book. Conventional and drab, redeemed from utter insipidity only by infrequent snatches of heavenly intonations. Detest it. A cancerous growth of fancy word-tissue hardly redeems the dreadful joviality of the folklore and the easy, too easy, allegory. Indifferent to it, as to all regional literature written in dialect. A tragic failure and a frightful bore.

>>719137660
Oh, if you thought that was sad, the other games are equally, if not even more sad.
Especially Impostor Factory.

>>719135207 (OP)
>When do you think exhibiting high art will become something developers will want to achieve.
They already try to, Outer Wilds is great, decent piecemeal storytelling with an emphasis on learning the world to understand the puzzles
>>719136712
They’re going to completely dismiss every game you list btw

The main issues with trying to portray games as high art is that it spent a couple decades being advertised as a child’s toy which completely kneecapped the general reception of any game that does try and ignorant cunts that think books and movies are high art because they were told it was, Art is annoyingly subjective, games can be art, good luck convincing people not to nitpicky faggots about it, 10/10 plot, 5/10 gameplay? Doesn’t count. 10/10 gameplay 3/10 plot? Doesn’t count.
8/10 gameplay 9/10 plot? Hmm well it wasn’t perfect so it doesn’t count.
games haven’t been given a fair critique since the NES days

>>719137640
are you like retarded? When did I say "only" classics can be art. I said that video games are this baby medium that was invented 50 years ago. Obviously its works cant be expected to rival the classics.

>>719137262
It is low art because it's made for mass appeal and commercial purposes.

>>719137863
This. Movies are low art

>>719137629
The translation is horrible, straight up butchered. Compare:

Bart:Why would such an old man live all alone in this abandoned cave?
Fei:I don't know. Probably digging for ancient Gears or something?
Bart:Right! So you think so too?
Fei:Hey! I just said that as a joke. Don't take all that stuff seriously. They're only legends, you know.
Bart:No... that old man is up to something!
Old Man Bal:This can't be...
Fei:??
Bart:What's wrong, old man?
Old Man Bal:Is this your Gear?
Fei:Well, sort of...
Old Man Bal:Where did you get it?
Fei:I'm just borrowing it.
Old Man Bal:This is... the host for the spirit of the slayer of God...
Fei:Wait a moment! What did you just say?
Old Man Bal:Nothing. I didn't say anything!
Fei:No! I heard you! You said, slayer of God... That's what you said, isn't it old man!!
Old Man Bal:Your Gears are fixed. You have no more business here. This is a bad time for me. Be on your way!
Fei:Be on our way...:? Listen here, old man...!!

And

"Your moldy chariot ferried you to the Mortuary, Restless One. You would think you were royalty based on the number of loyal subjects that lay stinking and festering upon the cart that carried you." "Your body was somewhere in the middle of the heap, sharing its fluids with the rest of the mountain of corpses." Dhall broke into another violent fit of coughing, finally catching his breath minutes later. "Your 'seneschal' Pharod was, as always, pleased to accept a few moldy coppers to dump the lot of you at the Mortuary gate."

there's many factors, just about everything involved with releasing a major game works against it having a respectable story. the extreme technical demands of any moderately high fidelity, large in scope project(talking 6th gen level fidelity), the 50$+ release model that comes with the expectations of a minimum 6-8 hours of gameplay content, the need of publishers to target the absolute lowest common denominator to recoup their investments.
when you get beyond that it's just really difficult to simulate conflict outside of physical violence and danger, how do you gamify the chuck jimmy you're not a real lawyer scene from better call saul? chatbot dialogue trees?

>dostoevsky
>good

>>719135207 (OP)
They can be good, high art is niche not the popular slop we all consume from time to time

>>719137863
Yep. Dickens? James? George Eliot? Low art. Sorry not sorry.

>>719137775
>They’re going to completely dismiss every game you list btw
I know, it's both funny and sad how the ones who are most influenced by this cultural snobbery are the ones who think they're a step ahead of everyone else.

>>719137926
But the translation isn't the original work. Also i wasn't comparing the scripts, but what a great book does with just words, a game like XG does with images, music, and text. Comparing a complete work like a book to just one part of a game's story (the script) is simply unfair imo

>>719138085
not true. I will dismiss video game stories as never having come close to being as good as the classics. And this is just true.

I think how games manipulate player agency have evolved much more rapidly than story telling to the point where the gap is fucking horrendously obvious.

>>719135207 (OP)
the hard truth of videogames is that making any premise that doesn't deal with violent enemy actors is either exceedingly difficult or limited.or requires other human players. it's just the most obvious path of least resistance to make compelling gameplay with human characters that 95% of the industry ends up being more gratuitous than commando just to meet the basic runtime.

>>719137863
By that definition Shakespeare is low art.

>>719136023
>Much much word
It's not even verbose just long, that's more an issue of your attention span than anything else

>>719138038
You keep Rick James out of this

>>719138445
And it was when he was alive, it only stopped being because it stood the test of time.
So maybe indie games can be considered high art in 30 years the same way arthouse is by some today.

>>719135207 (OP)
>pic related
games as a medium are great because they're interactive, you as a player make choices and interact with it. The difficulty of making good stories in games is having the game give the player enough agency that their decisions matter and actually affect the plot while also being sufficiently restrained so that the developer can actually write and flesh out those differing story options so they feel worth picking.
>When do you think exhibiting high art will become something developers will want to achieve
we're already at the point of modern movies where small studios make low budget stories about depressing sad things and big budget projects are usually happy go lucky schlock, but every once in a while the stars will align and you'll get a pretty decent story where you as the player have *some* agency to actually affect things like disco elysium or TWD season 1. Kojimbo is already trying his hardest to make incredibly weird and high budget shit like death stranding, it's only a matter of time before someone makes something that polished that resonates with a much wider audience and becomes a classic.
>>719137328
he used it as an example of high art not story telling you prick

>>719138250
Whatever you may say about image composition and music enhancing the dialogue, it can all be dismissed by the primacy of the text when it comes to storytelling. You can have a beautifully shot movie, but if its dialogue reads clunky and its delivery falls flat, then the audience won't be immersed in its story.
Not that films necessarily need a story. You can have films with horrible scripts and wooden acting, or even a completely silent film, and they can get carried by its cinematography into the realm of art. The same way a book with shallow character and no real plot to speak of can be good if its author is a master prose stylist. The same way vidya can be good if its gameplay is a lot of fun.
Xenogears commits a double sin in that not only is its dialogue horrible, its gameplay is even worse. No matter how good its images and music may be, you can't recover from that.

>>719138763
>silent films don't have a story
>cinematography isn't integral to story telling in a movie
what part of "show don't tell" did you not understand when you learned that in 5th grade retard?

>>719138271
That's interesting newer games are very good at controlling the player, maybe that is downstream of the adtech dominance in the office next door

>it needs a good sto-
Faggot. Tetris is the most artistic piece of work ever produced.

>>719135207 (OP)
BY
DESIGN

>>719138271
>this is just true
well you can just say thing without really making a point or arguement, sure. I've felt considerably more emotional connection to videogame characters than characters in a movie, and I've seen countless more movies than I have played games. Game directly connect you to a character by literally putting you in their shoes and making them do what you think is correct. Well written characters will reflect what the player will feel in a given situation, not what they should feel like your implying.

>>719138762
>he used it as an example of high art not story telling you prick
The thread subject line mentions video game stories. He mentions War and Peace. He questions where video game storytelling will be in 20 years. He is obviously attacking games based on the quality of their stories. Its obvious he's a midwit who doesn't consider the visual, musical or experiential qualities of a game. So yeah, I think he would say something that retarded.

>>719135207 (OP)
>When do you think exhibiting high art will become something developers will want to achieve.
Never since remakes are gaining more popularity. And the people who aren't doing remakes are just making propaganda stories.

>>719139178
Henry James remade many of his early stories. Pynchon reused and remade his early short stories for V.

>>719135207 (OP)
videogames were not initially created to tell stories, some devs managed to circunvent the limits of the medium and create amazing stories, then retards tried to copy that and the result: the current state of videogame industry.

>>719139109
There is some artistic expression that happens in and around the interactive element of games, but it's never very complicated, it's just "this feels nice" or little kojima jokes like the rumble going off when you get pissed on. I don't know if there's room for much there

>>719138085
Always the same shit
>games aren’t art
>ok here’s some games that try
>that doesn’t count
>what games do you even play
20 years of this same thread on the same site on the same board with the same posts

>>719139109
>Its obvious he's a midwit who doesn't consider the visual, musical or experiential qualities of a game.

nigga i typed "high art" in the original post. what else constitues high if not the sistine chapel you moron.

and besides, whether the visuals and music are good, it will never EVER make up for the state the video game stories are at right now.

all of these so called good writers like dazai, kafka, dosto and whatever other shit is just people being whiny fags, life bad humans bad
only cynical fags read them, and this shit doesnt work for vidya

>>719139316
Lobotomy Corporation tries to put you in the shoes of the main character by having you go through the same things he has to experience: difficult, repetitive and long management experience. And it culminates in one of the most cathartic endings I've ever seen in not just video games, but stories in general.

we'll get there eventually. player agency and narrative are at odds with each other. You'd need to something where the narrative builds organically through the player's choices and we're not there yet.

Silent hill 2 is basically high literature

>>719139417
So I was right.

>>719139543
>player agency and narrative
>high player agency through choices and narrative meaning
anon its called real life

>>719139109
The Sistine Chapel comparison is ignorant as well considering the circumstances that led to its creation are so niche I don’t understand what a game equivalent could possibly be even in theory

>>719139543
The Stanley Parable

>>719137863
Bro the fucking Mona Lisa was a commission

>>719136330
Freeman being a bizarre mute that the other characters acknowledge but them speak around/over/for in every cutscene is a bad case example. It's supposed to be more natural but winds up being much weirder than if he just randomly said "yeah lets go fuck the combine in their pussies!".

>>719135207 (OP)
The obsequious worship of literature as "that thing smart people like" is embarrassing. Look around a bookstore one of these days, and NOT in the classics section that contains only things that our society as a whole has carefully curated to preserve for their quality through many centuries of selection.

>>719135207 (OP)
>war and peace
There are HMOFA smutfics with more interesting and though-provoking stories than War and Peace.
If you actually think that War and Peace is better than most of the best written games, then you either haven't played anything besides multiplayer/AAA slop or you are a pseud.

>>719138271
>as never having come close to being as good as the classics
Yeah comparing 40 odd years of writing in an industry mostly geared towards interactive toys against the best of a few thousand years of writing will probably get you that.

They're all still worse than ape escape 1 though.

>>719140672

Huh? Your saying that art collected and preserved over centuries and even thousands of years has more merit to them than the books on the for sale section at barnes and nobles? Holy fuck, how come no one knew this?

>>719135207 (OP)
Never because there's too many normalfags on the internet that treat video game companies as parental figures and will rabidly attack any attempt at criticisim. The irony of it all is that the people they're desperately defending hate them.

>>719141083
I don't think from software hates me. I think they're perfectly nice people that make games I like.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns10hzKYgYo
Hire theatre actors

Asking why video-games don't have good stories is like asking why books don't have good cinematography. That's not what the medium is designed for or even capable of. A game's value comes from its mechanics, gameplay, atmosphere, art direction, level design, and how it stimulates player agency. Not from its story. Stop trying to make video-games something they're not, retard

>>719141379
Movies use cinematography to tell stories, games do the same with cinematography and gameplay. You’re retarded

I strted Diablo 4 yesterday. They're clearing trying to have a compelling narrative but I cannot give less of a shit.

>>719141449
And yet, in all 40+ years of the video-game medium existing, there hasn't been a single game with storytelling on the level of even the average movie. And even if you argue that there are, you could only count them on one or two hands. Clearly there's a reason for this universal, decades-spanning limitation

>>719141148
You must be enjoying your remakes.

>>719141560
>there hasn't been a single game with storytelling on the level of even the average movie.
This bait stopped having any bite past 2006 brother. The average movie is slop romantic comedies or bruce willis action flicks

>>719141560
There's never been a single movie with multiple levels of ape-catching action, made only possible by dual-stick analog controllers! When are they gonna catch up?

>>719139062
we don't need to deny your experiences with video games to conclude that they aren't high art or that they don't have good stories. I'm sure you did feel some type of way playing a game.

No video game has come close to the layers of intricacy of what we would expect of something becoming of high art.

>>719142071
Games at a baseline are more intricate than 90% of movies. Also the term high art is purely retrospective, you couldn’t call a movie thats come out in the past 20 high art without getting scoffed at by people like you. Even in literature, there are some people that scoff at dostoyevsky and just reel back and compare him to some “higher” art. Its jerking off without a point. Shakespeare was written for the common man to watch on stage. The only thing that matters in art is how it affects the audience and creator.

>>719135207 (OP)
If you are alluding to Dostoevsky’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigamarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of ”sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, ”spilling Jesus all over the place." Crime and Punishment’s plot did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. Dostoyevsky never really got over the influence which the European mystery novel and the sentimental novel made upon him. The sentimental influence implied that kind of conflict he liked—placing virtuous people in pathetic situations and then extracting from these situations the last ounce of pathos. Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway. Dostoyevsky seems to have been chosen by the destiny of Russian letters to become Russia’s greatest playwright, but he took the wrong turning and wrote novels.

>>719139252
We're talking about remakes of video games though not henry james

the only games i've come across with actual literary writing reminiscent of classic literature are a machine for pigs and a weird indie horror game called growing my grandpa.

>>719142626
stop stealing nabokov's writing you stupid faggot, you're an idiot.

>>719137863
Pack it up boys
I guess all those cool statues that you see the museum that Michelangelo made aren't art because he made money out of them

>>719135207 (OP)
I think it's different with video games because the elements because each form that a video game adheres to is drastic and inseparable from the core of each genre, with new forms creating splinters of genres that become unrecognizable where each advancement no longer takes the form of the original and has now become a separate genre, think rpg and mmorpg, fps to tps, tactical, 2d fighter to 3d fighter.

The structure of songs, movies, and paintings and books are laid out but video game structure becomes radically different with each genre, the answer to your question is that to create a masterpiece you must master the form of your work first and then each element afterwards should be mastered and refined to create your masterpiece, this creates a conundrum where each genre of a video game requires its own separate masterpiece as they each take different forms and have wildly different structures.

I dunno OP, I play games for gameplay not narrative.

>>719142881
These people don’t know that like 80% of the paintings they dick suck were commissioned by nobles

>>719142986
>to create a masterpiece you must master the form of your work first and then each element afterwards should be mastered and refined to create your masterpiece, this creates a conundrum where each genre of a video game requires its own separate masterpiece as they each take different forms and have wildly different structures
This is actually by far the most correct answer in the thread that’ll be ignored because it’s not senseless arguing or bait.
Games have a unique form of design, each its own handcrafted world moreso literal than any other media. It’s difficult to describe; you control the development of games practically down to the metaphorical atom, it’s insanely difficult and usually requires a entire staff of people to have it finished under 2~4 years, Dwarf Fortress creator took 20 years working on it until he considered it “finished” enough, then just kept doing working on it.
That’s one game.
There’s novelty in the unreplicated insanity found in game development

>open stealth recommendation thread
>no good rec's
:(

>>719135207 (OP)
mother 2?
mother 3?

>>719135207 (OP)
The closest we will get any time soon is a refinement/perfection of the schizo horseshit like hylics or ENA
This isn't a bad thing.

>>719135816
what a joke
Pathologic or 50% of all visual novel stories shit all over Halo 2

>>719136330
cheap excuse

>>719137262
shut up you r*ddit chud
its just a medium. you still have to make the art
and 95% of all the producers fail at it

>>719137950
>burned out ukraine chud

>>719140672
men have stopped reading and writing
the market is only reflecting the reality of foid consumption

>>719135207 (OP)
I'll do you one better and say that ALL video game stories are ass. Literally man baby tier garbage 99% of the time. Even Disco Elysium, the supposed best written game there is, pales in comparasion to anything by Dostoevsky or Beckett.

Let's face it, video games are not a serious medium.

>>719142626
post the prompts you used to generate your corny copy pasta

>>719136330
You don't actually. Just like a literary author doesn't have to account for every retard being able to understand their work, video games have as much freedom to ignore the average retard and do what they want.

I would say video games are much more labor intensive compared to books, but by now the tools are available for a single dedicated person with vision to realistically do something on the scope of an RPG maker game but with no restrictions.

>>719146758
not a single entity in existence considers disco shartium good except burned out leftoid retards

>>719135207 (OP)
Video games don't need stories, they need to be as arcade-like as possible.
>the bad guys are here
>now you must kill the bad guys
That's all the exposition and backdrop you will ever need for a video game.
t. literature elitist

>>719136712
nier automata story is extremely trite not even considering the terrible pacing and repetition
the only reason people like it is ass be honest

>VIDEO GAMES ARE ART! THEY JUST ARE, OKA-
>bing!
>WAHOOOOO!
>DOUBLE XP WEEKEND!
>HEADSHOT!
>B-B-B-BATTLE PASS!
>LEVEL UP!~
>FREE DLC UPDATE! HECK YEAH!
>ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! 25 GAMER POINTS :D

honestly if i had to choose the best story in a game id probably say undertale unironically but it only really works as a game

>>719135207 (OP)
It will never be achieved because the point of video games is to entertain and not to indulge in a metaphorical meditation of the human condition through the behonding lens of his creations.

some of the posts itt read like they were written by people who huff their own farts.

>>719135207 (OP)
Blue prince is pretty good.
I'd say it's a rather powerful game for what I think video games should be as an art form.

>>719135207 (OP)
same reason the writing in all other media is shit
have you not seen any modern tv shows, movies, etc

>>719137414
Gets it
>>719136813
Pseud who doesn't get it

>>719135207 (OP)
Because if you were even slightly decent at writing, you wouldn't be working on vidya

>>719135207 (OP)
If you look at videogame storytelling in the way way that you look at movies or books, then it will obviously pale. The thing is, most storytelling in games is done with the interactivity and is much understated. Yes, there are games that are more linear and straightforward, much like a movie, but many games have the story be something more presented than told.

Also, there are some great stories and writing in gaming, you need to seek them out beyond your typical cinematic AAA stuff.
Here is a few recommendations from me, some are obvious:
>Disco Elysium
>Planescape
>The Pale City
>Fallout 1 (yes, not just plot but world and journey)
>Pillars of the Earth (originally a book, but better imo)
>Xenogears
>Age of Decadence (loremaster for world, metchant for character study)
>Silent Hill 1 + 2 (atmosphere is a part of story too)
>MGS (unironically, yes it's wacky exploitation, but overraching themes explored are great)
>Pathologic
>Outerwilds
>Witcher series (fun genre, not high art or whatever)
>GoT game, forgot exact name (written by GRRM too)
>The Last of Us 1 (best "cinematic" slop imo)
>Alan Wake 1+2 (lynchian)
>Darkest Dungeon (world, despairkino)
>Desolate Hope (world + plot)
>The Forgotten City (game not mod)
>Paradise Killer (ace attorney-like)
>Primordia (less plot, more themes)
>Sally Face (newgrounds Saturday cartoon creepy pasta style)
>Telltale's TWD
>West of Loathing (comedy)
And you have obviously VNs which are another beast. Most are shit though.

Issue is people expect games to be just like movies to have good stories or like books to have good writing, but it's a narrow mindset since it's multi-layered with the most complex layer of interactivity.
But there is a very strong argument as well like anon here mentioned >>719135878
Better for the talent to go somewhere they are more successful, recognized, respected, and in more control of their work

Make it vidya.

>>719137414
Might not be the best *written*, but they are the best works that utilized their medium to create something exclusive to it and play to its strengths in creative and powerful ways.

I'd also add Pathologic with it's use of multiple playthroughs and how it's difficultly and immersion are integral to the world-building and narrative itself

>>719135207 (OP)
Games have to be interactive which means the storytelling potential in them is heavily limited, especially when the protagonist is just a vehicle for you to do video game stuff like kill bad guys or run over civilians.

>>719147317
this

the game is a setting, the "story" is gameplay
the written and acted plot of a game is part of the gameplay but it is not the whole story, which is not complete until you play it.

games can never be literature because they have already surpassed literature at being, as you say "a metaphorical meditation of the human condition through the beholding lens of his creations." no author can possibly write what a game allows a player to do.

CYOAs exist

>>719147457
BG2 with Jaheira romance

>>719147401
I know in my bones people would be receptive to actually thought provoking video games. It's just a matter of justifying the extensive labor when there's no guarantee of profits.

>>719147547
a cyoa is wholly limited to the choices the author thought of.
a game is not limited in such ways because you, the player, have direct agency to kill all the npcs or cheat or otherwise not play the game as intended.

>>719138763
This is a false argument that fails to understand mediums and boils them down to only one arbitrary aspect with a clear bias.

It's like saying a comedy objectively fails because the story isn't well-written, regardless of how funny it is or how successful at what it tries to do. Or saying a silent film is objectively bad because it doesn't have sound, and that sound is not an element but a requirement.

>>719147001
Nier sucks because it so fucking juvenile and pretentious. It's basically your typical final arc in a battle shounen with your "muh philosophy monologue".
The gameplay is subpar too, but weebs like it because they have the intellectual and emotional capacity of a 13 year old. Or your typical essayfag who just likes anything deemed deep by the internet.

>>719135672
>why society stinks
/thread

>>719137262
>art is defined by medium
No.
Can be? Yes.
Is? No.
Same with movies, books, music, etc. That's why we also have art that's made out of everyday objects. Because it's not about the medium, it's about intent and expression.

>>719147521
that's one component. but everyone still recognizes that games have plots and underlying narratives driving them.

sure, the player may be acting out that narrative themselves which the literary author has no way of achieving. but that doesn't mean the plot no longer exists.

the problem is that videogames almost without exception have very poor plots.

right now the low hanging fruit is finding ways to exploit/maximize player agency. its easy because the games are naturally built to do so.

but eventually we will get to the point where innovation will happen through plot. at least i hope.

>>719135207 (OP)
I have an MA in English literature and I took a minor in game studies, so take my expert opinion for it that games are art.

You can also denigrate my degree as a joke degree, of course, but then I don't think you can pretend to hold literature in any high esteem at the same time.

>>719135207 (OP)
Most conflicts in vidya stories are resolved through violence. That immediately disqualifies those stories as being art because violence being the solution to everything is inherently juvenile. Literature figured that shit out since the Epic of Gilgamesh.

>>719147945
TLoU 2 confirmed as art

>>719147927
>You can also denigrate my degree as a joke degree, of course, but then I don't think you can pretend to hold literature in any high esteem at the same time.
Kill yourself academia scumbag. You are not the art police, no amount of daddy's money will grant you the authority to dictate who is allowed to appreciate art

>>719148050
>TLOU 2
>the game where nearly all the conflicts are resolved through killing or maiming someone
There is a reason why the TV show heavily toned down the shoot outs, you can't tell a serious story with such a high body count.

>>719135207 (OP)
>War and peace
>Good

>>719147927
The only "dev" that I know who has such a degree creates text porn game, a bad one at that

>>719135207 (OP)
They are not "so ass".
You're just a moron/speed reader/pay no attention with your own or somebody elses' assumptions on what is high art.
You, unironically, do not get it. Plenty people don't.
>>719136330
Freeman is NOT autistic, you foolish internet denizen. He's written as a _________ stand-in that just so happens to be a strong silent type.

>>719135207 (OP)
>next 20 years
hopefully nowhere fast. Vidya is a pulp medium through and through and gameplay should be the foremost concern.
Stories are nice but I wouldn't want anyone to break their back over one in a game
>>719148050
unironically yes. If you want games to be high art, then you get shitty movie games.

>>719137775
>games can be art
Games ARE art.
The problem is that people are treating the label "art" as a marker of quality and not a state of being.

Films are art.
Synecdoche, New York and White Chicks are both films.
Literature is art.
Grapes of Wrath and My Husband, My Stalker are both novels.
Music is art.
The works of Bach and the works of Insane Clown Posse are both music.

All of it is art.

>>719137702

As far as gameplay being used for narrative, Lobotomy Corperation unironically.

Best story is probably Prince of Persia Sands of Time and 2007. Both have great stories.

>>719148154
macbeth confirmed as not art

If you're a good writer you write books.
If you're a decent writer you write movie scripts.
If you're a mediocre writer, you write for TV.
If you're not a writer, you write fanfiction, or video games.

>>719147075
I don't watch Marvelslop so just imagine that I greentexted a list of their shitty one-liners to illustrate that all artistic mediums have trash

>>719135207 (OP)
Gamers have incredibly low standards and will pour praise on a plot that is as good as a B-movie at best.

>>719148324
(You)

>>719148383
This

>>719148292
Pulp is not synonymous with low anything.

>>719147414
>the forgotten city
i saw so much glazing for this thing
but after playing it i was just deflated, annoyed and upset over wasting my time with this thing

>>719147945
I'll make sure to relay to Vergilius that the Aeneid isn't art.

>>719147898
stop the r*ddit formating you clown
the site has natural spaces between posts

>>719148269
but they are ass

>>719148695
Do you have a single fact to back that up?

Video games as a whole are still trapped between being as "games" like toys and as actual expressions of artistic intent.

>>719135207 (OP)
>Claims to be a scholar that reads "well written" literature
>"So ass"

>>719137718
Nabokov. Bad writer. Worse critic.

how come so many anons here have such limited, unchanging views on art?

>>719135207 (OP)
The vast majority of books and movies and TV shows today also have ass stories. The top 3% have good stories. The people who think videogames are the only medium that on average has poor writing, are the people who don't actually know what the average book or movie is like today. Something like Legacy of Kain is closer to being art than the last 10 years of Hollywood are.

>>719147945
You need to stop reading oriental crap made by sissies. I prefer stuff like Beowulf and the Song of Roland where violence is glorified and the only solution.

>>719148659
That is a tragedy

>>719135207 (OP)
Video games are not like books, movies or theatre.
Video games are like music and porn.
You don't listen to a song and be like
>damn the story was so ass
It's all flavor text, you're there for a different sensation.

>>719148892
Glad some /lit/ posters recognized it right away

>>719136330
Half Life doesn't involve choosing your own adventure in any way so not sure about that one.

>>719136712
>>Nier: Automata
a black-and-while filter and a big assed girl in a veil does not equate to good writing

>>719149106
Fuck off Carmack

>>719147945
>because violence being the solution to everything is inherently juvenile.
Ignorant fool! Sheer stupidity of you!
You don't even know what juvenility IS!

>>719148078
I would like everyone to appreciate art, thing is, you don't

>>719148249
I think you only know one dev

>>719135207 (OP)
Good video game stories do exist, you probably just haven't seen them. Anons have already made enough good points though. Games are very labor intensive and time consuming to make, sometimes story elements may get lost in translation as many different hands and departments fiddle with it.

>>719148154
I guess it's too deep for you
>>719148292
>unironically yes. If you want games to be high art, then you get shitty movie games.
Not necessarily but it also doesn't exclude them

>>719146519
Naw. I am not even the bggest Halo 2 fan but its better than those shits.

>>719148050
It's art. Just politically charged and uglified.

>>719147401
and what would a decent writer be working on?

>>719135207 (OP)
>I want to play games for kids but I want to feel like an intellectual while doing so
Why hookers aren't intellectual geniuses?
Why booze doesn't make you smart?

>>719149741
esl wizard

>>719148926
Because they are limited, unchanging men

>>719135207 (OP)
Confluence of problems
Covid fucked with production schedules
Majority of developers are only in for a paycheck or to own the heckin chuds.
More on the chud hating devs. All the girls every single one that joined the industry is doing so because men were attacking feminism. They don't care about the games they are making in fact they only want to shove in their garbage idpol and call it a day.
Gameplay has stopped being the focus, ideological stories are front and center.
Each large and medium game company hire their own group of anita sarkisian's to make sure the games come out as misshapen and disfigured as possible.
UE5 seemingly the worst out of the box game engine of all time. It trades stability framerate and graphics for meme shit like raytracing.
If you removed the influence of Larry Fink, Tim Sweeney, Anthony Fauci, and Anita Sarkisian, video games would be in a much better state.

These issues have severely negatively affected video game development.

There are good stories out there, but those games are more story focused as a result and the raw gameplay ends up lacking. It's hard to make a compelling story within the confines of gameplay that consists of killing or defeating everyone.

>>719148926
>>719148926
>unchanging
Change is neither necessary, nor inherently good.
Perhaps you should ask why are they so biased.

>>719150168
Jesus get a grip you loon

>>719137262
I hate hyperbolic fags. No video games are not divine. They are clearly man made. It is an affront to creation when you compare toys to the works of God. Your circulatory system is divine. Your ability to process oxygen and convert it to energy is divine.

>>719150293
Ok Im willing to hear what problems you have. This is a forum for discussion. Not petty insults.

>>719150332
Reality is distinctly un-Christian, always was and always will be, much like it's not any other Abrahamic, Hindi or any other.
It is not an affront to creation at all.
These are co-creations, and are as much contents of reality, some of which ARE divine, as anything your particular denomination of escapism drools over.

>>719135878
this
>>719147414
i dont entirely disagree but the blatant lack of writing and mise en scene in games is awful. top me that's entirely separate from expecting games to be movies or literature.

>>719136330
>/v/ has gone full circle to demanding video games be art with the same fart-huffing obnoxious arguments pretentious faggots used in the early 10s
I know you guys are retarded, but

damn

>>719137479
I played To the Moon, it wasn't that great. It was basically Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but worse.

>>719135207 (OP)
No, because video games are made to do numbers. Most "high art" was produced at a time when the expected audience was a select portion of the population, usually highly educated, and a portion of that audience was very discerning or even experts in the artform they were interacting with. However, even if you dismiss the audience aspect (I don't think the average aristocrat was some luminary genius), there is still the issue of the art production itself. The top artists like Michelangelo, Velasquez or Coradini were financed to produce the highest aesthetic achievement possible given their skill. Video games are under constant budgetary pressure from investors and corner-cutting is not only expected but encouraged.

This discussion is sterile
Narrative is games is more akin to movies than novels
Modern film writing is garbage and vidya as a subproduct of it is stinkier garbage
Game narrative must find its own ways instead of just being a subculture redundant

>>719150742
Gaming has found it's optimal way to tell a story. It's archeological storytelling, environmental storytelling, world building, stuff like that.
Some developers just insist on garbage like forced walking and talking or copying tv/film 1:1.

>>719135207 (OP)
actual good writers are gonna write for tv or movies.

>>719142071
>that they don't have good stories
What would even be a good story in a video game? Some crap that's fine for books and/or literature memes like "he said calmly" and overly flowery descriptions, but it just gets lost or fundamentally doesn't work when translated to either a play or a movie or a game.

>>719151051
Nah, mechanics is superior still

>>719147628
That's a completely retarded point ignoring tendencies of "real" videogames and text-based CYOAs both. Like I genuinely wonder how many things you've played to say that player interaction "not as intended" is something that ever works.
Is a game not limited by the rules placed upon by its developers? How many game systems are robust enough to handle that "direct agency", rather than just reduce it to game overs? Do text adventures not have mechanics to facilitate more subtle interactions? If choice is explicitly offered to the player, does that make it fake and pointless?

>>719151171
TV and movies having good writing?
Anon, it's 2025, this isn't even a thing either anymore

>>719150332
Ape escape has more aspects of divinity than the limbic system.

>>719148521
It most certainly is. As in, the very term "pulp" was used for cheap writing on cheap paper for the masses. I am not saying the entertainment for the common public is apriori bad, much less unworthy, but it is by definition lowbrow.
Unless you wanna go into double negatives and claim that unenlightened masses are the real appreciators of fancypants high art.

>>719135207 (OP)
I hope you story niggers will leave the medium one day, just stick to writing letters instead of fucking over my playtime

>>719135207 (OP)
art in video games is about quality game mechanics, player interactions, level and enemy design, etc. etc., unfortunately "art" midwits that don't understand how to engage with video games properly will never understand this

>>719153489
Philip K Dick writing is "pulp", as was pubçished in "pulp" magazines, yet is is some of the best science fiction/fantasy around.

Btw so was Sherlock Holmes, it was as "pulp" as it gets back in the day.

Because writers nowadays are no longer talented men or women who have experienced a full life and want to capture the spirit of growth and love that accompanies it. Instead we get whatever resentful brownoid mix race whining about their work and how they don’t like white people for reasons that happened to their ancestors, half the time incorrectly.

>>719153772
Indeed. So is Vance and Lovecraft. Also, plenty of poets of venerated poets earned their crust via magazine publications.
My point is that it's all "entertainment for the common public" in contrast to the art commissioned by nobles, or "entertainment for the elite". This is not an insult unless you're a joyless cunt who hates episodic adventures, but a reminder of how and why those things were made.
Unless, once again, you want to argue that a story meant for the common man somehow tends to be more convoluted than Lem's postmodern ramblings meant for intelligentsiya.

>>719137950
Seething Pollack detected.

>>719135207 (OP)
RDR1 has a kino story. Feels like an actual Western on a biblical scale. RDR1 is probably the best video game story that stands on its own, seperate to gameplay (for example, Bioshock and Dishonored have rather simple stories that are given more depth due to the gameplay). RDR2 ln the other hand has better gameplay but a far worse story, that, at best, rehashes all the themes of the first one but with a more likable protagonist, and at worse is badly paced slop that isn't even a western and isn't even compelling.
>>719135878
Seeing as the majority of great writers died impoverished, I doubt this.

>>719147646
Xenogears is a game. All games should have good gameplay. Ergo, Xenogears is a shit game. Simple as.

>>719155717
So by your logic Torment is even shittier

>>719156005
Yes. But at least its novelisation is good https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2501881.Planescape_Torment
On the other hand, Xenogears' script is awful https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/199365-xenogears/faqs/10004

>>719147414
these games are all terrible except MGS
killer7 is more interesting than all the others you listed

also visual novels still manage to do good stories because they can capture more nuance to human interactions that most games cannot
hotel dusk had a lot of heart
trace memory wii as well

>>719149330
You know I'm right. The feeling of gaming is just a different kind of sensation as just consuming a narrative. Look at the roots of gaming: pong, pacman, space invaders, arkanoid, tetris, etc. look at old genres like shoot em up, beat em up, racing, fighting, platforming. These games engaged people without a story, the stories came later with the home console, when gamers were promised and expected long sessions connected by saves. Only then did heroes journeys start getting tacked on. You are there to push buttons that simulate actions. Stories are just there for context. The narrative driven console game is like a concept album with some idea to connect he song lyrics, or like a porno flick with some retarded background about why the chick needs to fuck all these guys.
I'm not saying it's not art or that it's some lower form of medium (is music a lower art form than literature or film?) I'm just saying the niche is different. Games tickle that sense of play and feeling of mastery when you finally beat that level. That's not an experience you get from other media. It's more like irl games. But damn, the story in that air hockey game was shit. I think the story in billiards is better.

>>719158186
Look at the roots of literature: grocery lists, tax records, inventory logs, legal codes, agricultural yields, etc. look at old written genres like ledgers, census reports, and shipping manifests. These texts engaged people without a story, the stories came later, when people started reading for leisure and authors were expected to write things with characters, plots, and emotional arcs. Only then did hero’s journeys start getting tacked on. You are there to read symbols that represent information. Stories are just there for context.

>>719150741
Monarchs and aristocrats sponsored and bought art and artists services to boost the reputation of their dominion. Nowadays there is barely any incentive to produce beauty so there will be no beauty. Average IQ plummets due to dysgenic democratic incentives. High achievers are disincentivized and punished by increasing tax burden. There is no real aristocracy, everybody is a slave to their respective master states. Coercion is ugly, dont expect high art in such a coercive environment.

>>719135207 (OP)
>Why are video game stories so ass
the industry won't hire anyone who can write. and if they do they will fire them to capitalize on the brand they created. see TLOU2.

I simply wish more games put more effort into integrating story and gameplay together. Oftentimes, all you really have to do is pat the player on the head and gently let him down, when he succeeds at something unexpected or does something he really shouldn't. I don't even know if devs can't implement that due to difficulties, or don't realize how many details they are missing. There must be some testers that will note every stupid permutation of variables that writers will have to consider.
Why can't stories and mechanics be friends? Stories are often viewed as systems, not inviolable ones, but still subject to certain rules. Mechanics are how player interfaces with the game, and thus can elicit visceral emotional responses. I genuinely don't think any game portrayed the one-man-army aspect of player characters better than Westerado Double Barreled. And it's shown in a very simple way. I genuinely don't think there is any magic system more interesting than one in inkle's Sorcery. And it's just about putting in effort to write out all the consequences for different spells.

>>719155717
That's like saying good grammar is the only thing that makes a book's story good.

>>719156958
Elitist weeb much?

>>719156958
>these games are all terrible
>vns are better
I doubt you even played them or you are above the age of 15 or above an IQ of 90

>>719159115
>${Something} is a book. All books should have proper grammar. Ergo, ${Something} is a shit book. Simple as.
I don't see any contradictions in your stupid gotcha.

>>719137262
Videogames have a lot of potential as an art form, but the vast majority of developers (especially the ones with the money to actually be able to make something interesting) are not interested in making art, and if they are then their understanding of the concept of "art" is rather shallow and crude.

Kojima is like the only person in the world who uses the medium to make real art and actually has the resources for it, but he's kind of bad at it

>>719147414
To add to your list
>Northern Journey
>Mundaun
>Darkwood

>>719158737
*Bzzzrrrt*
Wrong.
Narratives that were recorded in writing were originally oral stories passed down between storytellers. They actually predate the invention of writing. Just like how games predate video games.
My comparison is right and yours misunderstands the premise.
Perhaps you should read more books instead of watching video game cutscenes.

>>719158937
>I simply wish more games put more effort into integrating story and gameplay together
I don't want this. I want video games to be fun again. Put your fucking movieslop in the waste bin where it belongs, homo.

What is 'high art'? Please define the metric at which point something crosses from mere entertainment to a piece of art.

>>719159815
>You have no strict definition for this phenomenon therefore it doesn't exist
>bbbbrrfft
>uhg I just farted snifffffff ugh gotta love that smell
You are a fag

>>719158937
I'll never get how Deus Ex released in like 2000 and blew everyone away with how subtly interactive the story was, but then everyone was just kind of like "well that was a cool game wasn't it" and refused to follow up on the concept. Subsequent Deus Ex games didn't even try to take the interactivity further, they didn't even try to be on the same level as the first game.

>>719159334
Notice how you omitted story. You are just too lacking in intellect to even grasp a very basic thought.

>>719158937
Yiik is a great example of why games don’t try to be art
>your main character can’t have flaws that don’t play into power fantasies
>your story can’t be open to interpretation or people will cry about plotholes
>your story can’t touch on controversial subjects or people will use it to virtue signal

Stories can really only tell basic, by the numbers stories. I still remember Pillars of Eternity getting shit because it asked questions about religion too.

>>719158186
>Stories are just there for context
That's a massively important part to just gloss over. Context, visual or narrative, is the thing that makes an abstract system that involves pushing buttons into simulations of actions. Or if you insist on using that Carmack quote: context is what turns photographed coitus into highly appealing sexual content. If you think yourself an enlightened mechanical purist that cares not for context, then I must ask if you have fun solving game theory problems.

>>719159646
If you wanna bring up proto-art, then it's weird for you to start with arcade games rather than physical or tabletop ones. And if you do start with those, then you have to note that games, by nature, are exclusively a social activity. So a lot of vidya is heretical in that purpose as well.
My point is that there is little reason to bring up origins, when modern versions are such distant offshoots to begin with.

>>719159646
*Bzzzrrrt*
Wrong.
The earliest oral stories weren’t complex narratives or fully formed hero’s journeys, they were simple myths, short moral tales, and primitive explanations for the world. Just like how early video games were basic mechanical experiences.
Over time, oral storytelling evolved and became more intricate, not because stories suddenly became “required,” but because the medium proved capable of carrying more meaning. The same is true for video games.
My comparison is right and yours misunderstands the premise.
Perhaps you should learn more about the history of oral tradition instead of pretending every caveman sat around telling Shakespeare tier epics.

because you are a retard playing vidya for story
go read a book

im still mad how we went from a rare masterpiece like StarCraft to... SC2.
wtf blizzard.

>>719159946
Because we are talking about a fundamental property of the medium and not "one arbitrary aspect with a clear bias". Story of a game can be good, and your overall experience may be positive, but the quality of basic gameplay is the thing that will determine if you like the game "because" or "in spite of" it.
The funniest thing about defending Xenogears is that by disc 2 there is substantially less (terrible) gameplay, so if you were actually invested in the story then you'd like it more.

>>719160367
>pretending every caveman sat around telling Shakespeare tier epics.
Grugeo and Gruggiette

>>719135207 (OP)
We already missed that chance, video games are marvel movies now.

>>719159779
If you enjoyed anything but puzzle games or autistic simulators like dorfort, then you are a hypocrite.

>>719160367
You didn't disprove my point.
Also, to address the flip side of your point, written word didn't grow out of being dry texts full of technical information. Well not anymore, now it's a medium to record the posts of monkeys like you.
>>719160312
>If you wanna bring up proto-art, then it's weird for you to start with arcade games rather than physical or tabletop ones.
Not it isn't weird. The discussion is about video games, why wouldn't I start with video games. I also didn't bring it up, the other anon did.
Can you read? At which age did you finish school? You seem to have trouble following a chain of events.

>>719160819
>you enjoyed a video game that had a story in it, you are a hypocrite for saying you don't care about narrative in video games.
No it means I enjoyed playing the game. The story was just there.
I bust a nut to an h-manga that had a story. Are you intellectually dishonest enough to tell me I wouldn't have done it if not for the narrative? Are you sure it wasn't the art style, that the mangaka didn't draw that puffy cunny just right?

>>719160054
Yiik had some huge gameplay problems and it comes across as annoyingly hipster, people already hate it before they even notice your three points

>Story
Heavily matters in shit like text based games, cyoa, RPGs, most P&Cs and their devultion known as walking sims etc

>>719146519
>Pathologic
I don't get the pathologic dicksucking. The game has some neat ideas but the execution of said ideas is absolute garbage It's genuinely an awful experience at times.

>>719161406
>It's genuinely an awful experience at times
As intended

>>719161073
So you want to see games be "fun again" and also see all stories as net negative and also still play games by just skipping all text I suppose. Is there a sudden influx of story-heavy shmups or some nonsense? How are your complaints not a self-regulating problem, how did you get into a genre that has lots of words to begin with?
>wouldn't have done it if not for the narrative
Yes. My autistic fetishes do demand a certain amount of foreplay to really get going, there is no payoff with no setup.

>>719161681
you can create an intended awful experience without making the gameplay and underlying systems utter dogshit
I liked what the game was going for with player agency and the necessity to suffer from your own mistakes but the game was more broken than it was polished

>>719161179
Would you say disliking something is a valid reason to read it incorrectly?

>>719162043
>also see all stories as net negative
Where in my post was this? I just responded "I don't want it" to "more story and gameplay integration". I'm satisfied with sorry Mario, the princess is in another castle. All your base are belong to us. Doesn't need more than that.
>My autistic fetishes
Don't project this onto mankind. Not everyone is like you.

>>719153340
still far better than 99% of video game writing.

Astlibra

Because people like pretty oo aa things more on a surface level than a furfilling story. So it takes more "artistic skill" (ie spending 1000s of man hours perfecting drawing a circle rather than actually gaining valuable life experience) to actually make something people will pay attention to. The people with the capacity to make the greatest stories usually are people with no artistic talent so its not really monitizable so they will never be much more than ideas guys in this economy. So the best stuff that floats to the top is usually an autist who can both focus on making art while making a somewhat decent story, but even then they are still not the "perfected" storyteller just the best of the worst.

>>719163409
The solution to this is to just go insane and kidnap a good artist and chain them to a desk while forcing them to illustrate your magnum opus.

People put classic literature on a pedestal because of boomer shilling and selective bias; only the most popular works got preserved for future generations. Read Fate/Stay Night and it's easily on par with old books if you stay objective.

As for traditional games stuff like Unpacking, Obra Dinn, or 1000xResist uses the medium to tell their story. Something people are still working on since video games are a new medium

>>719163716
That or just use ai

>>719138038
This is true, funnily enough.

>>719163829
(You)

>>719164081
In 500 years kids will be reading Genshin Impact in language class. Doesn't matter if you like or not that's just the truth

>>719135207 (OP)
Games appeal to escapists and escapists aren't interested in relatable characters or the realism it would take to give fantastical themes any meaningful gravitas. They don't like to feel ways about things, they don't ever want to be frustrated or sad or uncomfortable. They want to be immersed in a world where they will never feel these things ever again. You can't really blame them, the world is enormously unpleasant now compared to the days when most great fiction was written.

>>719135207 (OP)
Video game stories can and have been as good as stories found in movies and literature, but I still don't think we've reached the endgame of what would be a high quality *video game* story. To me that would be a game whose "story" is entirely done through gameplay. Instead of telling it's themes through prose or dialogue it does so through interaction. I think the hardest part about this is the pure fact that games are a summation of so many artistic disciplines that conventions from those are inherited and treated as dogma so we see developers fall back on more typical forms of storytelling like text and cutscenes instead of doing so through the unique aspect of the medium.

>>719163851
wouldn't work. people subconsciously love seeing the real human suffering behind artwork. that's lost if its just generated.

I read Dostoevsky and hmofa stories

>>719162729
Then you just sound mad at everything story-related due to stereotypical moviegames. Looping back to Westerado, the story is dead simple and the game is small, nothing but one big western cliche. The cool "integration" part is how the world of that cliche changes depending on various player actions. Pulling a gun out mid-conversation has neat little consequences, and not just big dumb game overs, and not just essential NPC invulnerability.
Or if that is too hipster for you, bits of variant dialogue in Deus Ex are also good examples. There are not many, and they do not really impact "the main story", but the game acknowledging player's action is always nice.

>>719150332
Which god?

>>719164402
That's just because everyone will be speaking Chinese in 500 years and they have maybe like 3 works of art that possess merit. Eventually they will need to reach down

>>719163851
AI can’t do shit

>>719165043
favorite novel?
favorite fic?

>>719162778
>he thinks breaking bad is some unmatched masterpiece
lol

Video game stories are made for the kind of audience they have in the majority. Simpler or more shallow, not necessarily bad. Even the melodrama faggotry in Kingdom Hearts 1 succeeds in making a "good story" for what it proposed itself to do: a fairy tale/disney-esque story mostly aimed at children and young teenagers. You just dismiss it because of the aesthetics and the way it's not. Not because it's "bad". Or you were old enough already to not be the target audience.
There ARE artsy and 2deep4u game stories like you pretend to care for, but you probably don't know these games exist.

>>719135207 (OP)
I think it's hard to do because games are fundamentally different from books and movies to be considered the same way because the former is experiential while the latter is a recounting. Railroading the story with one path and resetting the scenario until the player does it just right is experiential poison; it just doesn't make sense for the medium. I think the games that do it best are ones that have a lot of openness and mechanics, so most roguelikes or anything with dynamic campaigns like Mount & Blade. With this, a developer can facilitate a story by creating scenarios or systems that result in scenarios, but the new challenge is that how it is experienced is at the mercy of player engagement.

>>719135207 (OP)
Games are toys in the end, you play and interact with the toy and its state changes. A conventional story is told linearly with no chance of interaction. The typical compromise is sections of play peppered with cutscenes in which the story properly progresses. However I think that the potential for game stories lies in the actual events that make up the game play, not the narrative bolted on top. A lone player slowly conquering a very difficult game is a story. A disastrous run of Deadmines eventually ending in victory is a story. And they are really very emergent in a way that a pre-written narrative can't be.

>>719165063
I didn't play the game you're talking about but it sounds like a non-cancer way to sprinkle story into game. Dare I say fun.
>the game acknowledging player's action is always nice
I think I misunderstood what you really meant. I have come to the conclusion that I agree with you.

am I missing anything?
also actually good thread

>>719135207 (OP)
I think it has happened a few times, but the gaming industry in its current form doesn't provide the best context for this to happen.
Even worse, the spirit of the time is very anti-artistic, all media suffers from a drop in quality. We can discuss a lot about the causes, but few people will deny the fact.

>>719137346
Ok, fine. What work from any medium in the past 5 year comes close to the level of the classics? If the answer is none, its not video games fault.

>>719165552
Xenogears and Xenosaga

>>719135207 (OP)
>i only play shit games with shit stories and then try to act like all video games have shit stories
ftfy

>>719164576
>escapists aren't interested in relatable characters
What do you think self-inserting is?

>>719165419
I think this is an astute observation. Your experience with a game is itself a story. When you finally beat that boss, that's your heroic triumph, but that boss had to be hard, the content of the game has to be worthy of that response. An epic no damage run is a story in the way bowling a perfect game or pitching a no-hitter is a story.

>>719137446
You didn't play it

>>719165552
Ctrl Alt Ego

>>719135878
Very few writers make money with books or journalism.
Vidya has more money.

The problem is the vidya audience skews very young and lacks the refined taste for good stuff.
It's safer to repeat the same shit stories forever, just like the hollywood flicks.

>>719165552
Jules Verne Voyage

>>719147945
So you want fantasy? Because the redpill of the 20th century is that they made all of us feel bad about violence, precisely, because its the solution.

>>719165552
I'm going to suggest adding Ace Combat 04, Assassin's Creed 1, and Mass Effect 1.

>>719165552
Black Souls
Lobotomy Corporation
Library of Ruina
Cultist Simulator
Book of Hours
Drakengard 1

Remove OMORI
Remove Chrono Trigger

>>719165552
>Pseud the list

>>719135207 (OP)

where are you even looking? Gachaslop? Nintenslop? Ubislop?

>>719148295
You speak the truth. Art is nothing more human creativity applied. Then you can have bad or great art.
The word has an elitist charge since before we were even born.

>>719166175
Don't know about OMORI, but I'm vouching for Chrono Trigger. It's well done.

>>719165043
notes from underground
HATSSSSS and On the fringes

>>719165868
We did, it was thought provoking 20 years ago. It's literally evangelion in rpg form.

>>719165552
Yakuza 0

>>719148383
Yeah, but this happens only because the industry pays pocket change and is sustained by fanatics that choose to be poor as long they are allowed to work with vidya.

>>719165291
did i mention breaking bad?

>>719165868
I played past that awful mecha tournament minigame and dropped it right around Thames. The game's garbage both in terms of gameplay and its writing.

>>719165193
Notes from underground
HATSSSSS and On the fringes

>>719148808
Because that is exactly what they are. Its literally in the name, video GAMES.

>>719135207 (OP)
Video games are going through a big crisis at the moment, although it's not a very loud one because people concentrate on crying about numbers of jobs. The field grew too fast and a large percentage of the people working in it are shoddily trained for assembly line type production, not making art. Even worse, the passionate people are retiring or essentially becoming senile. Big studios (very much comparably to the studio system in Hollywood) try to fix the problem by throwing money at it, thinking if they buy a proven franchise they can just pour some money on a studio and it will shit out a banger every time. Additionally they are perfectly happy to continue exploiting brand recognition every way they can which only adds to the problem.

Back around the 90's and even in the early 2000's you had to really want to work in the field and have some kind of passion for it that functioned as a natural filter.

It's not all doom and gloom though, there are still good games coming out every now and then and there are still a large number of passionate people developing the skills they need to make good games. In fact, measured in sheer numbers the amount is probably more or less the same, but it encompasses a notably smaller portion of the field at large.

Indies have the most potential for producing genuinely good games but it's also a festering ground for absolutely horrible shit so that balances out too.

>>719165552
what an eclectic collection
how would you even describe them, games with story gimmicks that affect the gameplay? feels like you could split them into 3 buckets depending on the level of artsy and/or meta bullshit you're willing to tolerate, because it's hard to justify putting farcry and ace attorney and pony island into remotely similar boxes

>>719150289
You will suffer all your life. Change is the only constant in life. People that refuse change, just suffer as they become anachronic.
To stand upon yourself as an unchanging monolith is a truly stupid way to live that objectively produces bad results.

>>719166338
>>719148295
No, I don't think art is so inclusive. There are things that are too commercial to be art, and that doesn't mean it is bad, just more shallow.

This thread is full of people so stuck with labels, that they insist that humans are featherless bipeds.

>>719166420
Its the other way around. Why watch evangelion when everything it does, xenogear does better.

>>719167161
So, what's Seele? Who's Lilith? What's the Lance of Longinus?"
Anno: "idk lmao"

"But what's the Gazel Ministry? Who's Miang? What's the Zohar?"
Takahashi: "well... "*

>>719135207 (OP)
The problem is that gameplay and story are often at odds with one another. The story tells you that your character cares about saving his son but the player cares more about building up his base and taking over the wasteland.

>>719166643
From what I've heard shit like ubisoft schools might actually be worse than arts degrees. Working at a "big studio" is not even remotely a guarantee of stability, and huge turnover of nobodies and tenured members alike mean that smallfries have basically no chance to get real experience nor pivot to something else. Those institutes are a flame to invite naive moths and grind them into dust, which is maybe a step above a literal scam. I just hope that older professionals commit some of their skills to manuals or somesuch, otherwise effective principles of "game design", drowned out by abstract academia and video essays, will end up as oral tradition.

>>719159779
You have no idea what you're saying. Movieslop is *less* integration between story and mechanics, not more.

>>719167161
this is quite the subject to ponder upon. never crossed my mind.

>>719165806
thanks

>>719165901
>>719165995
>>719166153
>>719166175
will look into it

>>719166220
it's a new list, I'll keep on working on it

>>719166423
thought about that one too

>>719166648
I know it's really hard for games. I would say everything that either is well written or uses the vidya format to convey the story in a meaningful or even 4th breaking way

>>719167915
I have been pondering why hasn't someone made an autobiography in the form of a videogame
which real person's life would be fun to larp as?

>>719137950
>Le contrarian meme

>>719162484
No, I'm saying if you make something absolutely infuriating and intolerable that you should expect that a lot of people will hate it and won't even want to get it. It doesn't have much to due with it being art specifically

>>719161406
This is why you are a golem
You demand experiences to be pre chewed and puked out to suit the consumption patterns you have been indulging in for your while life. What are these ? The processes that have created the very pit of embarrassment everyone sees now. Games will never achieve artistic greatness bcs they serve the proles first and foremost.

>>719169473
Ok let me put it this way since we’re comparing vidya to other mediums. I read a book for book club. I go to the book club, and we’re discussing the themes of the story. I say “I don’t care about the themes of the story because it was bad”
That’s a totally reasonable perspective to approach the convo and every time anyone else talks about themes and plot I can say “yeah but it was shitty and gay so I don’t care” and that’s contributing

>>719136712
>>Disco Elysium
>good writing
hahaha

>>719171025
that might work under the assumption that construction of "themes" was competent, if nothing else, but considering every yiik apologist sings a different tune, i disagree
i mean, thanks to the joys of postmodern reinterpretation and post-launch updates, even word of god is not reliable, so what is there even to contribute?

>>719171469
>different people come away from the story with different, textually support themes?
>that’s indicative of bad writing

You say shit like this and then wonder why people say games aren’t art due to being shackled by proles lol

>>719167867
Read the replies a bit more. That anon convinced me I was wrong-headed in my response.

>>719171025
Not what I'm trying to say. I just mean that it's a bad example of people not accepting artistic games because the game is both intentionally and unintentionally repulsive

>>719171789
you really want to lean into the whole "postmodern" thing? i have some autistic opinions on that, but for now i'll simply say that yiik is not a "postmodern rpg" but an rpg with a script that follows literary postmodern tradition (this is a bad thing fyi)

>different textually supported themes
to say everything is to say nothing, multiplicity of interpretations is in fact "indicative of bad writing", for it places the onus on the reader and not the writer
>muh joyce
has his fair share of detractors, and his works still feature a core theme running through the whole thing
what's at the core of yiik? after i answered that question for myself, i realized how poorly the rest of the game played into it

>>719172614
>to say everything is to say nothing,
>what's at the core of yiik? after i answered that question for myself, i realized how poorly the rest of the game played into it

Direct contradiction lol, it can’t “say everything” and also have a core theme it’s built around. Pick a lane retard.

>>719135207 (OP)
Story is the least important part of a video game.

>>719172990
Not every dev is Miyamoto anon.

The thing with videogames is that they're a combination of many different disciplines all at once and that for one to truly be a masterpiece it has to excel at all of them, a book needs good writing, a movie needs good cinematography and writing. A game needs all of the above plus the gameplay has to be both engaging and complementary to all other aspects of it.
The sensation sekiro gives you when you finally cut down isshin is something that not many other works of art can provide, and it's because the story is not just that now you have to kill an inmortal demigod grandpa because his grandson doesn't want his country to die. But the whole journey the player experiences from when you first pick a sword and panic the moment more than one guy rushes at you to facing down the sword saint on a one to one duel to the death.
People that immediately dismiss videogame stories as amateur or shallow usually don't pay attention to that when it's the very thing that separated videogames from any other medium

>>719135207 (OP)
Hopefully story will be less important in the future, its one of the cancer that is killing games
Fuck storyfag gamers

>>719164576
one of the biggest games of the year is literally about confronting the reality no matter how uncomfortable and terrible it may be

>>719147414
>Disco Elysium
No the story is bad
>Planescape
Ok at best
>The Pale City
Mid
>Fallout 1 (yes, not just plot but world and journey)
Bad story
>Pillars of the Earth (originally a book, but better imo)
didnt play
>Xenogears
literally unfinished on 2nd disc
>Age of Decadence (loremaster for world, metchant for character study)
meme
>Silent Hill 1 + 2 (atmosphere is a part of story too)
inferior to the movie it ripped off
>MGS (unironically, yes it's wacky exploitation, but overraching themes explored are great)
poorly written shit
>Pathologic
gibberish
>Outerwilds
decent
>Witcher series (fun genre, not high art or whatever)
decent
>GoT game, forgot exact name (written by GRRM too)
just watch the show instead
>The Last of Us 1 (best "cinematic" slop imo)
watch the show instead
>Alan Wake 1+2 (lynchian)
watch a lynch film instead
>Darkest Dungeon (world, despairkino)
meme
>Desolate Hope (world + plot)
didnt play
>The Forgotten City (game not mod)
bad
>Paradise Killer (ace attorney-like)
didnt play
>Primordia (less plot, more themes)
didnt play
>Sally Face (newgrounds Saturday cartoon creepy pasta style)
bad
>Telltale's TWD
mid
>West of Loathing (comedy)
didnt play


>And you have obviously VNs which are another beast
most of them are inferior to anything else, which is why most anime that adapts them is bad

>but it's a narrow mindset since it's multi-layered with the most complex layer of interactivity.

interactivity takes away from the story

Even the most midle of the road book mogs most videogames. There's only a few exceptions and those are rare.

>>719173536
name a few "middle of the road" books then

>>719147945
it's not just violence but the immense quantities of it required to fill out the length of a full length title . before you get into any arguments about the merit of violence itself as a theme, slaughter specifically being practically a core requirement of your medium tells you that there is obviously a serious distortion in regards to storytelling.

>>719171391
turns out all you need to convince the retarded normalfags that your writing is good is to make walls of text with pseudo intellectual bait

>>719173602
you do know there are games where you don't have to kill anyone right. undertale did this 10 years ago

>>719172882
most attentive yiiker, everybody
>to say everything is to say nothing,
exclusively an opposition towards (you)r MANY THEMES GOOD position
i am not saying yiik is one such story, in fact i assume no story is like that by default, otherwise you slide down into absurd reduction of "anything can mean anything" really quickly
>what's at the core of yiik?
the most basic bitch way to analyze a story
even if you are a massive relativist, you are still gonna come away with something yourself, so what's the nitpick?

>>719135207 (OP)
>but realistically where do you think video game storytelling will be taken within the next 20 years.
It's already pretty good imo with many games using the gameplay to tell stories in ways books simply can't. And to answer your question the only way we can go from here is up hopefully, but i don't take the future for granted, nuclear holocaust can wipe us all out tomorrow for all we know
>When do you think exhibiting high art will become something developers will want to achieve.
Video games are already high art and in regards to what devs desire i think some of them already desire that though only the truly obsessed and insecure will care about proving that to you and your ilk OP(read:faggot), name what games you played and outline why they don't represent high art, while you're at it define "high art" and specifically respond to the games posts ITT explaining how they failed, now you probably won't do that but that's simply due to you being an ignoramus and a faggot on top of that.

>>719173119
Yeah you've hit the nail on the head. I think alot of these people, similarly, would be filtered by alot of cinema that leans more visual than plot. A best in class videogame has more in common with les samourai than it will with dostoyevsky

>>719173119
I liked the art direction in sekiro but the story was whatever. The best bosses were the big monkey (not the headless one though) and the demon. The one from game where the monsters are more fun to fight than the humanoid bosses. All those samurai and ninjas felt kinda same-y to fight.

>>719137262
Good writers don't work on videogames. Except the very few everyone can already name.

>>719164576
>escapists
How is lisa the painful a game where you play as a drug addicted, dying, abused as a child, depressed and lonely, fat and balding old man an escapist fantasy?
How is disco elysium, a game where you play as an alcoholic, amnesic, suicidal loser who gets humiliated and tricked by half the population an escapist fantasy?

>>719173816
Don’t strawman me. A story can have multiple textually supported themes, and different people can have different interpretations of a story. “Textually supported” being the operating words that prevent “anything from meaning anything”. The thing you think is “at the core” has to be textually supported as well.
Like come on dude they teach this shit in 7-8th grade. Also another thing, why do you keep trying to make this about writing quality when it’s about how the audience interacts with the medium? If you want another example that won’t trigger some schizo reflex, Dragon’s Dogma also has a problem with people not really engaging with the themes and just going
>woah I get to be a god awesome
>The brine? Yeah that’s just a game mechanic doesn’t mean anything

Art has to use its medium to its advantage. Video games are an interactive medium so they have to use their interactivity to convey their messages. Maybe interactivity has little storytelling potential. What can you really explore? Freedom? Player morality? That's kind of limiting as far as themes go.

>>719165552
>am I missing anything?
Anything I’d suggest, you’ve already included. Anything you haven’t included that I can think of isn’t something I can confidently recommend for its story.

>>719159574
Kojima hasn't made a good game since Ground Zeroes. Nobody understands Death Stranding and for those who do it's nothing especial or revolutionary.

>>719174398
Books describe a world to you. Movies show it to you. But only in a game can you live in it, talk to NPCs, explore every corner, be part of it.

>>719174398
>Art has to use its medium to its advantage.
Why? And name a book and a movie and explain how both use their medium to their advantage in a way that wouldn't be possible in any other medium

>>719166423
This one is poorly written trash, doesnt belong there.

>>719173863
I think the story of sekiro has a lot more to it than it seems at first glance, the theme of all things having to die eventually or become stagnant and decay is present on every single aspect of the game to an almost religious degree. From wolf's immortality leading to everyone around him getting sick with dragonrot, the monks who committed unspeakable atrocities just to get a lesser form of it, all the creatures with immortal centipedes in them and genichiro's whole character, who wants to make ashina go on by any means necessary. That moment at the end where isshin acknowledges that ashina has to die but still will honor the last wishes of his grandson and fight you was very impactful for me
also kuro's and sekiro's relationship was cute

>>719173498
>>Disco Elysium
>No the story is bad
>>Silent Hill 1 + 2 (atmosphere is a part of story too)
>inferior to the movie it ripped off
>>MGS (unironically, yes it's wacky exploitation, but overraching themes explored are great)
>poorly written shit
Nta but elaborate

>>719174804
yakuza 0 has one of the best atmospheres I've seen in a game, 80's bubble japan is a kino setting and the three captains of dojima are extremely well characterized, it's a soap opera a lot of the time but what it does well it does it exceptionally

>>719174804
so it fits the pic because all there is shit

>>719175002
It's bait, ignore it

>>719170332
based post desu

>>719137007
Explain how

>>719173670
>turns out all you need to convince the retarded normalfags that your writing is good is to make walls of text with pseudo intellectual bait
this. idiots admire complexity

>>719173796
undertale is a gimmick subversion of what would be a standard violent romp through the same constant stream of enemies, it wouldn't exist without the rule.

>>719135207 (OP)
The new God of War have mature and deep stories. I'd highly recommend watching them on YouTube.

>>719174354
>prevent “anything from meaning anything”
yeah sure alright that's uncharitable, but "open to interpretation" is a blight of marketing in the modern era of commercial episodic and often inconclusive due to NEVEREVER or cancellation art, so i bitch and moan about everything that doesn't have the guts to put a period at the end
and needless to say, the art of bullshitting is all about twisting and turning text to support what you want, deceiving without telling a single lie, so i give no benefit of the doubt

>The thing you think is “at the core” has to be textually supported as well.
do you not? do you think authors operate in this interpretative superposition, without a core of their own? legit missing something here

>keep trying to make this about writing quality when it’s about how the audience interacts with the medium
suppose i am just arguing about that, it was my first reply in the chain
and since you argue about the broad concept of interpretation and perception, this ties directly with """true""" quality of the piece, and whether the reaction is justified

>>719175352
then what about stealth games, point and click adventures, puzzle games, visual novels, horror games like the classic SH games where confronting an enemy is normally the worst choice and I could go on and on

>>719135878
this is true for any game dev position
good programmers can each much more outside of game dev too

game dev is a vile industry abusing genuine interest of its employee candidates to lowball them

What have you fags been reading lately?
I've been going through East of Eden

Too much violence. Are there any videogames that aren't either abstract puzzles or violence?

>>719163383
This. Highest form of storytelling.

>>719176051
Doraemon Story of Seasons

>>719175412
BETTER

>>719137775
>They’re going to completely dismiss every game you list btw
Nothing’s more immature than making a point then handwaving every reply instead of actually engaging.
>>719166903
Nta but if i were to give a clear definition I'd say that:-
Art is a from of self expression and that the quality of how "artistic" something is lies in how good it is at making people think or feel, if a piece of art fails at evoking emotion or starting dialogue then it's bad art, while good art is capable of evoking emotion and making people think or engage with it's ideas.
For example, children stories and cartoons are bad because they were made to be more digestible to children, so the bad guy is bad because he just is, the good guy is good because he just is, etc, never does it provoke deeper thought.
Using this definition
>overwatch, marvel rivals team fortress league of legends
Wouldn't be art at all, because they're made to be played only same as soccer or wrestling, it's not an art it's a game.
>undertale, silent hill, lisa the painful, metal gear
Are art due to them having themes ideas and stories that are being told to the player with clear intent, and because they succeed at getting across the emotions and ideas that they set out to get across.

>>719175149
>It's bait
Unfortunate but expected

>>719135207 (OP)
Outer Wilds has one of the best stories I've seen. It's not like as you say War and Peace or Trotsky, but it doesn't leave any questions unanswered and everything makes sense. It's a completed story that's been read and reread for errors which I think is the main problem with a lot of modern day game stories.

>>719135207 (OP)
Hiring product managers is more important.

>>719175352
Nta but he gave you an example which counts, and in regards to it being the rule and the sheer amount of violence that isn't the case and you only say that because you're ignorant, here I'll spoonfeed
>metal gear
especially metal gear 3 with the sorrow playing on the theme of killing when you had other options, 2004 game btw
>yumi nikki
>Ace attorney games
>disco elysium

>>719149643
Imo it's bad art because the themes are hypocritical and don't work within the story and gameplay, it tried to tell a story but failed horribly.

>>719135878
Bullshit, no one reads books anymore

>Whenever artfags are put in a corner they go radio silent and stop responding
I'm noticing

>>719175683
The point of reading fiction isn’t to extract the “one true author intended meaning” from the piece, you seem like you’re getting plot, quality, and understanding the themes all jumbled up. You can understand the themes and still think it’s bad, but most people who play video games will actively decide to NOT understand the themes if they don’t like something (and often times use personal opinion as their barometer for quality).

>>719136712
>>Nier: Automata
Unserious dogshit.

>>719147945
>violence being the solution to everything is
the truth.

>>719137194
>high art
You dont know shit about art faggot. Youve never gone to a museum, youve never appreciated it.

>Oh theres no videogame on the level of artistry of the sistine chapel
Yeah, no shit retard. There no movie either. Very few things are in that level of excellency and nothing will ever be made in that level again.

>>719135207 (OP)
Because the ones with good stories are japanese and you're incapable of looking past art style and presentation. Likely because you're more concerned with how a piece of media makes you look, or how it's useful to confirm prior biases. You're not interested in understanding why a game tells a story the way it does, if or how the chosen gameplay relates to the overall theme.
Then there's the possibility you judge writing based on hollywood movie standards; excitement and relatability are more concerning than exploration of an idea to you.

There are many reasons why you don't respect or understand videogame stories. My question to you is: did you give them a real chance, or have you bee looking to validate your bias against them?

Your next reply will be "oh yeah what are some games with good writing?" I will then list some and defend them and you will reply with a laughing reaction image and no argument.

>>719135207 (OP)
Videogame storytelling isn't ass, it's just told differently because it takes player agency into account. A story about the futility of revenge wouldn't work because it would annoy players. It would have to be a tightly controlled VN with minimal interactions like Paper's Please.

>>719178936
but it's not as if "plot, quality, and understanding the themes" are all completely disjointed, "quality" is a characteristic of plot or theme or prose, "understanding" hinges on author conveying SOME idea successfully
getting into real abstract shit here, but ultimately i don't think it was unreasonable for the public to decry yiik's go nowhere plot or allanson's own words
unfair, perhaps, but that's just basic human nature: to excuse what we like and to double down on what we hate

>>719147001
I think replicant is much better but automata's no slouch. The running theme relates to androids and machines worshipping their god (humans) but that god isn't around. Human are dead. God is dead. This doesn't stop their rampant worship and attempts to mimic that which they cannot become. The problem is that androids and humans need to develop their own cultures and ideas instead of aping humanity. This is also expressed in machines naming themselves after human philosophers. Human philosophy cannot apply to machines.

I love it, I thought it was very unique.

>>719141560
>there hasn't been a single game with storytelling on the level of even the average movie.
Faggot the average movie is dogshit. Last of Us is better than most of them.

>>719136712
>>719147414
These anons know their stuff.

>>719179773
>"understanding" hinges on author conveying SOME idea successfully
The author can serve you food but it's ignorant to expect the author to chew it up and puke it in your mouth like a baby bird so you can dab your lips and say "that wasn't subtle at all".
Readers need to put in a little bit of effort.

>>719137950
>Reddit Contrarian

>>719173498
Midwit the post

>>719179483
>you will reply with a laughing reaction image and no argument
No, I will just call you a weeaboo. You probably shouldn't reply, because your explorations of ideas will likely validate my bias towards you.

>>719164576
>Games appeal to escapists
Projection.

Also all art is escapism. Youre being drawn into sometihng that is different from reality. Books are escapism. movies are escapism. You watch them BECAUSE theyre different from your life. Retard.

>>719180130
>No argument + an "insult"
Nta but you proved his point

>>719179773
You aren’t being abstract you’re being stupid. Intentionally reading a story wrong because you don’t like it is anti-intellectual and retarded, if most people are doing it then most people are stupid.

>>719135207 (OP)
The very nature of interactivity in contrary to a "good" story. No matter how "good" you make the story, the player will always fuck it up because they don't take themselves seriously enough to act the part in a "serious" story.

>>719174851
My guess is that it draws heavily form Buddhism. Immortality, or more accurately, the desire for immortality, is seen as foolish and wont bring you towards enlightenment.

>>719180130
absolutely btfo'd.
just as he predicted:
>no argument
this thread is so fucking grim.

its sort of out of scope to define high art in this thread. obviously this is going to be interpreted as dodging by me. but we sort of have to hope that you can recognize the huge yet subtle differences between pop culture and high culture.

its still an active area of debate and there isnt even a strong scholarly consensus on what it it, or that it even exists. some people think that the democratization of media has killed the incentive structures for high art. so maybe it isnt that video games are failing to become high art but rather current cultural forces just dont encourage it in the first place, regardless of the medium.

historically, high art was considered a product of the elite and that type of stratification is just dying, so the above seems to follow. but still, like people have mentioned here, shakespeare wrote for the masses and his works are considered classics. so maybe its too hasty to make a very strong connection between high art and the elite. plus, the very idea that the elite consume some type of art separate from the pop culture of the masses is also doubtful.
i think for the sake of a simple heuristic, high art is supposed to be culturally transcendent, critical, philosophical and a representation of the cultural forces from which it was born. so its not enough to conclude something as high art just because its the quintessential example from a generation. it has to do more.

also i think people are fundamentally misinterpreting my position. its not like i hate video games or i have never felt moved by them. to describe it: imagine your at your wedding and your friends play some mid music. so what ends up happening is that the mid song becomes imbued with one of the most intimate and moving moments of your life with a person who you love. this is an analogy to video game stories. people are right to say that video games innovate through agency but the story itself, the background music, its ass. or in the very best cases, mid.

>>719175035
Yakuza 0 feel the most like an adventure of all the games. Switching from Kiryu to Majima back and forth really contributed to the storytelling.

>>719179483
I don't have a bias against them. And neither do I not respect them. Those things aren't mutually exclusive with understand video game stories to be ass.

This was peak Nintendo.

>>719179975
and here we go with "real abstract shit", the drawing of the lines between what may or may not be a valid reading, what does or does not constitute a model reader, what merit can a piece of fiction have
who are you to decide who was subtle and who was a hack? who was too stupid for calvino quotes and who put more thought than the author did?
that's why i don't like this interpretive dancing rigmarole, because it slides into some flavor of absurd reduction really quickly oh hey i heard that one before
both you and >>719180387 are more lenient towards the writer by asserting that the reader is more likely to be mistaken, but that would mean that there is SOME inherent nature that author puts into his work, one that can be seen and judged by itself, irrespective of subjective (that is reader's) interpretation,
then we start the loop again, arguing about death of the author in one breath and stupidity of the masses in another

>my sentiment that means we'll never see eye to eye
try to find what the author meant, then compare it with conclusion you came to by yourself — that's the best way to dissect a story
everything after that is obfuscation for the purposes of prolonging discussion about the story, rather than reading the story

>>719180528
>The very nature of interactivity in contrary to a "good" story.
Your argument is invalid and relies on the "viewer" or "player" being a disingenuous asshole or a complete and utter retard, and if we apply that same standard to books then they're also unable to be good because there's this hypothetical reader and viewer who will stop the movie midway and laugh at how stupid the actors look mid-shot and who will intentionally misinterpret the books themes.
Adding to that Games are sometimes even better then books or readers because a game can actively call out the player for their behaviour which contrary to your argument makes games better then books and movies because it addresses the viewer whereas a book is incapable of that
One of the best examples of that in my opinion is undertale in how if a retarded faggot decided to kill toriel and then reset to "prove" that "it's just a game lmao it can't react lmao, mercy and whatnot don't matter etc" flowy calls you out on that.

>>719181330
>this thread is so fucking grim.
OP is simply baiting and so far bookfags have shown either their pure ignorance about the medium which makes them unable to argue for or against it, and their ragebaiting posts with no substance which leads me to believe that they're just shitposting.

>>719181348
Youre a midwit. Entirely too concerned with how videogames are percieved rather with what they are. Too self important to stop posting slop, not brave enough to debate. Rather you have to write five paragraphs when really you want to say a phrase: Videogame stories are trash.

Theyre not. Obviously. As with everything there is the slop that is produced for mass appeal, and theres somethings that has some soul and vision behind it. Its completely retarded that you cant make your point beyond theyre all shit, many anons have already named many games with competently written stories, atmosphere and world bulding that are only really rivaled by the best literature has to offer.

Silent Hill 2 is better than The Shining in all ways that matter. Its scarier, it has a more vivid atmosphere, fantastic visual and sound design, soundtracks are even, and the overall story of Silent Hill 2 hits much, much harder than The Shining movie, which is already better than the book version.

Its your job to tell me why Im wrong. Why Silent Hill 2, which has some of the best narratives videogames have to offer, will never really reach the narrative heights of a Kubrick Film. You cant, and The Shining is objectively one of the best movies ever made.

>>719179839
Those are simply the themes of the game. The game conveys these themes through boring characters and shock. The game doesnt have many narrative tools to properly make me care about any of that. 2B is a boring character and 9S is simplistic. They lack the humanity necessary for me to care about them. Themes cant carry a story that cant deliver them. 2B is a porn tier design, her design is not apt for serious philosophical narrative. automata is better seen as some sort of shounen vidya equivalent, but even then it lack the interesting cast.

My hate for Automata is because it doesnt treat its own themes with the gravitas they deserve. They sabotage it at every turn with shock value, tired anime tropes, just plain bad storytelling where the game doesnt even contain the story pieces necessary to properly consume it. Like, yeah, youre going for existentialism, do something with it, im not gonna like your story just because of the themes its going for, to have to actually do something with it.

I think that focusing on video game writing as a metric of high art is the wrong approach. I don't think there's a perfect video game masterpiece, but there are many games that offer special moments that other mediums can't provide. The devs goal should be maximizing the ammount of such moments.
We might take Resident Evil as an example. The whole series is campy and low-brow, and yet its safe rooms surpass the rest of the game. The combination of the music and the rooms' gameplay role creates a profound feeling in the player that cannot be easily replicated by another medium. This is a fundamental part of the current video game landscape, many games have these beautiful moments that can exist independently of their "low-brow" stories or aesthetics.
A masterpiece of a game doesn't necessarily need to have a story at all, just as symphonies, paintings, sculptures, cathedrals, and even movies and books don’t necessarily require one.

>>719182460
i guess so. although this thread has been remarkably fun to read through, even if most of it could've been just shitposting.

>>719183232
nicely written, anon. i agree.

>>719183220
>My hate for Automata is because it doesnt treat its own themes with the gravitas they deserve.
every JRPG in existence
you are absolutely right. it's not that vidya can't be art, it's that it's a product for kids first and formost. the older I get, the more it frustrates me. I play 70% indies nowadays

also I updated my list

>>719183238
>although this thread has been remarkably fun to read through,
I agree.
>even if most of it could've been just shitposting.
Not "most" but moreso one side arguing and the other either making points that they don't intend to defend or masking their insults in the form of an argument that is easily refuted a couple of posts later. It's like hearing only one side of a conversation, fun but lacking.

>>719175948
I've been trying to read the books Limbus is based on so Wuthering Heights and Crime and Punishment atm. I want to read The Little Prince soon too

>>719183220
It's funny I hate Nier and Nier Automata because I knew Yoko Taro and his crazy witch co-writer could not possibly pull off the existential themes they were trying to portray. I preferred when Yoko Taro didn't care about his writing being better because his Drakengard characters being mentally unstable monsters with barely a fiber of morality while being put in position to "save the world" from a genocidal god was far more entertaining than poor attempts at intellectual pondering. If he kept going and did Drakengard 2 himself, maybe not made Drakengard 3 a prequel then it would've been a trilogy worth remembering. Instead he acts embarrassed as if his standard of writing is above all that now when it clearly isn't since he still relies in cheap shock value.

>>719135207 (OP)
Dosto was a hack.

>>719182057
>arguing about death of the author in one breath and stupidity of the masses in the next
Textual support
>Textual support
Textual support
>Textual support

The masses aren’t stupid because they disagree with the author they’re stupid because they do not use the text for their interpretations

>>719184364
I really liked how brutally raw and unfiltered Drakengard 1 was compared to his later shit, I wish it got a remake instead of Nier

>>719184087
how do you like wuthering heights? it's one of my favorite books.

>>719185195
Well, I'm withholding judgment until I'm done but it has been a bit of a tough read. I enjoy Nelly and her withering comments on how everyone else in the book is completely stupid but at the moment it just seems to be a nonstop tragedy horror show haha
If there's a good ending coming I don't see it

>>719135207 (OP)
One of the main issue vidya has is that story is dependent on everything else. A level need to be cut? Tough luck nerd, you'll have to restructure your whole story. Half of the cutscene won't make it to the game because we don't have the right velocity? That's a you problem. An important encounter with a boss need to me moved at the beginning of the game because it would feel cooler and would give you abilities that are better to have at this point? Well, just find and excuse!
They will do this with tools that are most of the time just serviceable because they are pretty low on the priority list.
And at some point, when recording are already done, you'll have to adapt with the line you have to try to make something that makes sense. Narra, except in some rpg, is often the 5th wheel. And even in them, when tech says "well, sorry but no", they can only live with it.

>>719165087
My god

>>719148383
Marc Laidlaw is a good writer and he does both.

>>719185195
nta but how do you stomach victorian books (i.e. books published by brits in the ~1800s)? am i crazy for being bored to pieces by dickens, the brontes, and others?

>>719148295
Video games are a toy for children, there is no special thought that goes into making them. Look at Fortnite, Call of Duty, Pokemon, you wouldn't say even one of those is art.
>>719148383
Kojima btfo

>>719183483
>Far Cry 3
>Black Ops
>Shadowbringers
I see the bar is quite low here. I might just as well suggest whatever I enjoyed story-wise.
>Cryostasis
>Arkham City
>Sleeping Dogs
>Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2
Also where's Max Payne not 3?

If books are so good then post 3 good scifi and 3 good high fantasy books right now

>>719175743
>stealth games
the ones where you smack 100s of enemies on the back of the head who kill on sight? it's another gimmick, a niche aesthetic repackaging of the same constant supply of violent confrontation,
>horror games like the classic SH games where confronting an enemy is normally the worst choice
same as above
>point and click adventures
how do you expand on this in terms of dynamic interaction? how do you keep it going beyond a static problem that's been solved? yes non violent games can be made, they exist. can they come close to filling the utility of violence? not as they currently exist, no.

>>719186670
Films are entertainment for children, there is no special thought that goes into making them. Look at Smurfs, Minions, Paw Patrol, you wouldn't say even one of those is art.

>>719135207 (OP)
As much as it can be a meme I can't help but wonder if advancements in things like AI simplifying the game making process, or at least making more polished games without the resources and corporate overhang, can mean writers get more freedom and ability to work some magic.

Video games are a mainstream which is woke and boring. Pre 2015 games had plenty of good stories, could say the same about every mass media production. Its not just games, we are living in sad dystopia. Unironically need a big restart

>>719184845
>oh Yoko Taro that silly, horny guy ha ha
>uh acksully everyone is an unfeeling automaton that must learn to love so the secks appeal doesn't matter
>insert masturbatory philosophical gibberish
Meanwhile Drakengard had
>psycho-killer with a dragon that hates humans justifying his hundreds of kills
>mind controlled child soldiers cut down like nothing
>woman that is willing to cause the end of the world to fuck her brother
>woman who wants to eat children so she can protect them in her belly
>a pedophile that tries to be a good person yet still gets hard from being hugged by children
>ending twist is the god of this world hates humanity and sends giant cherubs to eat everyone
>super powered women who literally go insane if they don't fuck at least once a day
I miss it.

>>719186686
SHB is easily one of the best rpgs on there nepbro

>>719185347
don't worry! the book's fairly divisive, so it may not pull you in as much as it did me. i personally found book heathcliff's shenanigans to be incredibly entertaining from beginning to end. i'd add something more, but i'm afraid that i'll drop in a few spoilers accidentally lol.
read on, i guess. it's definitely worth finishing through to the end. the payoff is there, i assure you.
>>719186384
the characters in the victorian books i've read are all incredibly miserable. the world they're put into is indifferent and cruel to them. but the relationships they form amongst themselves are all incredibly interesting. some are warm and romantic, some are incredibly abusive. i guess it's fun to see them all unfold and evolve until the end. if they even go on for that long.
i hope i didn't sound snobbish.
and that i answered your question.

>>719187750
Yeah I love Heathcliff of course. A few times I've sworn the book's meant to be a comedy with some of the insane shit he says, like him saying he only keeps his wife around because torturing her is more fun than how much she irritates him

>>719186837
i can't.......

>>719186837
The dying earth by jack vance.
I really love his prose.

>>719184087
>I've been trying to read the books Limbus is based on
Doing that had made me realise how much of a scam limbus is and how much it mishandled the books & characters. I deleted it and stopped reading the books, the whole thing was off putting and left me with a bad aftertaste

Shit b8 but RDR2, Halo 2, The Last of us, Ass Creed Brotherhood, Mafia 1 and 2, Bioshock, Fallout NV, The Metro series, and the Witcher 3.
Fucking kill yourself

>>719135207 (OP)
I didn't like War and Peace. Too much pointless information (I don't care about big old oak for 3+ pages to describe it) and Bezuhov's plotline is the only interesting one

>>719137918
Not the ones that are worth it. How much money did Tree of Life make?
>>719141732
Yeah, Detroit Become Human is much better than most of the movies churned out by Hollywood

>>719187474
Haha even for 00s it's so fucking edgy and ridiculous (complimentary). I wish more writers weren't scared to have scumbag characters as focus in their games, because it can be ridiculously entertaining. One of the reasons Mouthwashing has been so memorable recently

>>719187750
not snobbish at all – i appreciate the sincere response. maybe i'll pick up another book from the era again

> war and peace
Subhuman drivel, and I'm a Russian.
Stick to Dostoyevsky, you pseud.

Disco

>>719135207 (OP)
>implying books are high art

>>719135207 (OP)
>Expedition 33 blocks your path

>>719188535
They forced us to read that shit in school, like at 13 or 14 years old. Shit was so miserable. Actually most books they forced us to read in post-soviet schools were miserable, and I loved reading.

>>719163829
Correct. I've read more classics than anyone ITT and it's just as you say. I wouldn't say most of them were actively bad, even though many of them were extremely bad, but they are extremely overrated.

>>719164081
I would be willing to bet 1 billion you have not read a single book by dosto, all of which are shit btw.

>>719189510
School purposely chooses garbage and useless books and forces them you to read them while passing them for "great literature", this is global and done on the purpose to make the general population dislike reading.

>>719188940
>Dostoevsky
Sentimental whining.
Stick to Gogol, you pseud.

>>719189765
Good taste. Gogol is probably the best soviet writer.

>>719189969
>Gogol
>Soviet
Kekaroonies

>>719189619
They do that with math too, i can't stress how harder stuff like integration is made to be only for me to look back and realise it was the simplest thing ever but they explain it in the most confusing terms.

>>719190204
Pre-soviet. It's all the same shit, the only difference is how deep the boot was.

>>719135207 (OP)
Females writhing

>>719190851
/lit/ please

>Expecting great things
>From a shithole where the first university was established 300 years later than in most of Yuroland
o I am laffin

>>719190436
Well, that is a different can of worms all together, they overburden you with useless exercises that take hours to complete, not because they are difficult but because they simply take a long time to type out fully step by step and they give you large amounts of them, just to make you waste your own time.

>>719135207 (OP)
planescape torment has better story than all of dostoevsky's work combined

>>719190436
Even in collage they teach easy stuff like u-substitution for integrals in a confusing way just for the sake of it. Also when you have a question they just reply repeating the definition, without adding anything. Just because you're good at the subject doesn't make you a good teacher.

>>719191105
dangerously based

>>719135672
Nah there are some good women writers.
The problem is they're not psychopaths, and the only women who get ahead in this industry are psychos

>>719135878
Yeah let me take a look at current comics and movies and TV series...


...

>>719135207 (OP)

I can foresee games like BioShock, Disco Elysium, Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time, Shadow of The Colossus, Deus Ex, Half Life, Red Dead Redemption and The Last of Us earning their place beside the likes of Dostoevsky and Steinbeck within the next 10 to 20 years. It will become more of an actual conversation when the boomers who gatekeep whats considered art finally die off.

>play story game
>it doesn't have branching paths or funny wild endings if you go down said path
>one fixed story path that creator hammers down your throat
meh

>>719191950
Bait

I would suck dick to get a high quality Magic Mountain game with a social link type system in which you build relationships with all the patients of the Berghof.

>>719191950
Not like it's any different in "branching" stories, I haven't played a single RPG that doesn't punish you heavily for going down the "wrong" path according to the writer of the story.

>>719192036
How is that bait? I really don't get why you'd make a "Game" like that instead of just a comic/animation/movie/what have you. If you make a story game it at least needs to have choice.

>>719192089
I should have specified i mean games like visual novels/rpgmaker stuff.

>>719173498
>everything sucks I am so smart
yeah sure anon, nothing says very credible and intelligent like reductionism and dismissal. Powerful stuff. Real strong arguments.

>>719189765
On the internet, nobody knows that you're Nabokov

>>719160698
At this point you are just dimwitted. You are incapable of precieving things beyond arbitration.
>this game's story sucks because it's gameplay sucks
What wit, my god!

>>719192105
Because not every story or game gains depth from multiple endings and stuff like that. Chrono Trigger or Steins;Gate are cool tho

>>719173498
We can tell that you haven't even played these games by how retarded and completely false you are.
Why did you feel like commenting on something you haven't even played? Or worse yet, haven't understood artistically?

>>719138762
>decent story where you as the player have *some* agency to actually affect things like disco elysium
Your choices don't matter the game is completely linear in it's story.
>TWD season 1
All of the Telltale games don't have any real choices they all just give an illusion of a choice "Character name will remember this" and if you don't check what other choices do, you can actually fall for this illusion and think that the story goes the way it goes because of you.

>>719147945
>That immediately disqualifies those stories as being art because violence being the solution to everything is inherently juvenile.
But violence is the solution to everything. We just don't use it because we have empathy.

>>719166903
>No, I don't think art is so inclusive. There are things that are too commercial to be art, and that doesn't mean it is bad, just more shallow.
Completely wrong, commercialization does nothing to stop art from being what it is. That doesn’t make it GOOD art, mind you. Even the shallowest of MCU bullshit is still art. It just sucks.

To put it simply: all games are art. Not just video games, all GAMES. Tabletop, digital, sports, every game is art. It doesn’t matter if the game is shit, just like it doesn’t matter if the painting or the movie or the song or the sculpture is shit. Quality has absolutely nothing to do with what defines something as art. In fact, humans only consciously produce two types of objects/ideas: tools and art. Both are physical manifestations of human creativity. Tools are made only for accomplishing a single physical objective in the real world. Art is everything else. In other words, a man who makes a spear to hunt so he can live through the winter has made a tool. A man who makes spears because he likes the ways spears look and fly through the air has made art. Intention is the crux of this argument.

>>719193778
So is pure math a tool or art? Maybe it's art, and when applications for it are discovered, it becomes a tool?

>>719193994
I’d argue math is less something we make and more something we discover/resolve. Numbers are tools to understand math IMO. I think math can be beautiful in the way a sunset can be beautiful, but we don’t create either of those things.

>>719147945
holy midwit

>>719193778
>all games are art. Not just video games, all GAMES.
I didn't know american football was art

>>719193778
i dig this. really nice view.

>>719194115
>but we don’t create either of those things.
Anon i can almost hear Al kwharismi and L'hopital rolling in their graves. Your definition of art is too broad and fails due to that, "if everyone is super then no one is" and all of that

>>719194651
> L'hopital
Not a big deal, the rule named after him wasn't developed by him but by one of the Bernoullis, he just paid to have his name put on it

>>719182573
No dumb fuck I'm trying to clarify what high art is. The thread is already debating whether football is art or not. That definition of art becomes useless and confusing. So you turn back to high art to try to capture what something like the sistine chapel is.

>>719192562
Steins;Gate is bad weeb slop regardless of the number of endings.

>>719194404
It is. As is baseball, basketball, and every other sport you can think of.
>>719194651
>your definition of art is too broad
I’ve tried to narrow it down, but every time I do I run into an obstacle I can’t move past, so this is what I’m going with.

>>719195129
I’m the one doing that, and
>That definition of art becomes useless and confusing.
I disagree, it clarifies that art is a very very broad range of media and subjects as it should be.
But you do have a point here >>719181348, though I think high art can be tricky to define as you’ve said. But I do think that if you want to argue that video games have yet to produce truly great art? Completely reasonable. I’m not sure I agree, but that line of argument holds up logically.

>>719189408
Yeah E33 is the one game I’ve played that actually feels like a literary experience