Yes. If a game has a good story on top of good gameplay, and the story doesn't take precedent over the gameplay, then great. Having a story in and of itself isn't required for a game to be good. If anything, plot-focused games are what killed creativity in the industry.

>>11891545 (OP)
Depends on the game, but for a majority of games he's completely right. Now a VN or RPG needs a great story, but a good or "just fine" story will serve almost every other genre with no issue.

>>11891545 (OP)
Porn-brained retard.

Yes, then since 2010 the industry started focusing more on story and cutscenes and you can take a look at how that turned out

>>11891545 (OP)
No, like a lot of things spammed by autists on here that aren't capable of actually having sentient thought, it's way too reductive and all encompassing. For the kind of games he was making, sure yeah they didn't need a story. But other games greatly benefit from and would honestly be forgettable shit if they didn't have a strong narrative.

Of course the kind of people who make a thread like this in the first place aren't capable of thinking. So they'll never actually dwell on the idea.

>>11891560
Take that back, goy. This man was a champion of goyisch thought.

>>11891564
>sentient thought
You meant 'sapient'/

>>11891567
t.golemn

>>11891564
>would honestly be forgettable shit if they didn't have a strong narrative
Then they are shit games. If you remove from a game something that isn't the gameplay and the quality of it drops, then that's a shitty game

>>11891574
>t. porn using retard

>>11891564
>But other games greatly benefit from and would honestly be forgettable shit if they didn't have a strong narrative.
they don't honestly. the only type of game that benefits from having a focus on narrative is a game that is completely about narrative (e.g. a VN), except, as we already know, those games are all shit and barely games to begin with. even genres that have typically prided themselves on having involved plots don't really need them to be fun or interesting. just look at the final fantasy series. i'll gladly play FF1 over any of the mainline PS1/PS2 games. FF1 would not be a better game if it had an extra two hours of reading through shallow interactions between sprites. a good game gives you a clear mission and then leaves you the fuck alone.

>>11891576
What an exceptionally brain dead take.

>>11891545 (OP)
It depends on the genre. Personally i appreciate some story and lore, but i can live without it if the gameplay is good enough.

Porn mentioned!
PC gaming confirmed mature.
Take that consolebabbies

>>11891576
What an exceptionally brain dead take. But you're exactly the sort of person I was talking about in that post so it's not shocking you think that. Anyways whining about the quality of something is usually opinion based anyways, not that you're capable of having an opinion beyond what you think you should have. No actual spark of life behind your eyes exist.

>>11891582
And you're a retard that must play visual novels and gay trash like that, I should have guessed that and disregarded your opinion from the beginning, my bad

>>11891584
HELL YEAH!
>does the horn symbol like a coked out gen xer/Jack Black
>YEEEEEEEEAHHHHH! I'M SUBVERTING THE CHRISTIAN SOCIETY THAT HASN'T ACTUALLY EXISTED SINCE THE 50s
>YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAH

>>11891545 (OP)
Depends on what he is defining as "story". The entire tone of a game and its world building is technically a part of its story. Would Doom have been as well received into the public conscious if the concept of being a space marine in a desolate, isolated location fighting demons, was not the plot, and you were instead fighting generic robots or human enemies?

>>11891582
>What an exceptionally brain dead take.
>>11891586
>What an exceptionally brain dead take
lol
did you forget to delete your first post before responding again or something? is the botnet acting up? what the fuck.

>Game dev that is only recognized for making mindless shooters
>"Durr, you don't need story in games"
More like is incapable of making a good story, people didn't play Final Fantasy 6 just for the battle system.

>like 5 posts chimping out at the mention of porn
Why are you guys like this? You are all adults right? I hope you all know why you're still virgins

>>11891592
Top lel.

>>11891597
>people don't play [game] for the [gameplay]
The fucking things I have to read on this board

>>11891593
Plot and story are two different things. Setting is also a different thing. And I don't think anyone means it to the extreme point where there has to be zero story or choice whatsoever

>>11891597
Story is part of the gameplay of an RPG. It's a loophole.

>>11891576
based

>>11891545 (OP)
The endless churning out of movie game slop vindicates his claim.

>>11891597
>people didn't play Final Fantasy 6 just for the battle system
Yet it's the battle system that is the only reason people still continue playing it to this day in the form of difficulty romhacks and randomizers.
If FFVI's battle system was underdeveloped and the game went all in on the story, then no one would be playing it today.

>>11891576
Based and true.

>>11891673
The only "people" who play this shabbos goy retard's games are gen xers stuck in the past.

>>11891679
name your top three first person shooters.
go.

>>11891681
They are by far my least favorite genre, but Doom, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark.

>>11891683
are you just pretending to be the guy i'm responding to, or are you calling yourself a gen xer stuck in the past for playing doom? or do you like doom, but no longer play it because you are a fag? i don't get it.

>>11891687
Whatever makes you most befuddled.

>>11891689
>whatever makes you most befuddled
probably the part where you call DOOM one of your favorite FPS games after saying the subhumans who play games that John Carmack worked on are "gen xers stuck in the past". i have a feeling you were just shitposting and accidentally revealed your true freudian desires. an unfortunate set of circumstances. anyway, goldeneye and perfect dark are good, but timesplitters 2 takes a shit on both, so your taste kind of sucks either way. the moar you know.

>>11891695
>freudian
Ok, i will stop shitposting here. You are a kike.

>>11891560
>zoomer brainrot meme phrase
I guarantee you've watched more porn in a day than John Carmack has in his entire life.

>>11891706
>literally no u
Carmack is admittedly a porn addict, and so are you. Faggot.

I think the long term has shown that pure gameplay design has been too stagnant to discount story/aesthetic value. if every couple years saw an ingenious evolution of gameplay design I might agree, but if we spin our wheels repackaging the same game decades at a time, meh.

>>11891697
no, but freud was. i'd suggest not falling into his proposed schisms in the future.

>>11891708
Anyone as sensitive about the topic as you are has a problem with it. My point stands 100%.

>>11891718
Carmack is a porn addicted shabbos goy retard, much like his entire generation. That's actually you, John. The jews murdered JFK, bombed the USS Liberty, and bombed the Twin Towers.

>>11891545 (OP)
No, but that statement completely lines up with his mental image. He does not give a shit about artistic narratives, he is all about mechanics.

>>11891731
>doesn't give a fuck about fictional fags talking to each other
>just wants the game to be fun and run well
uh, based?

>>11891732
He brought up porn specifically, so he's a porn brained retard.

>>11891735
that might be true but it doesn't make his statement less true. le broken clock is right once a day, etc.

>>11891737
>story games are pretty gay
>says the VN faggot game player
>please take me seriously, btw

>>11891738
i don't know who you're angry at but i've never played a VN in my life and i'd wager that two nukes wasn't enough.

>>11891732
You know how we call somebody 'autistic' whenever they start spending hours discussing fictional events and characters and how they value so much for them. Carmack is also neurodivergent but on the complete opposite of this spectrum. He knows that all fiction is just that, fiction, and for him discussing it is a complete waste of time. He cannot relate to fictional characters as they are just thoughts of someone's imagination, someone who you don't know and completely irrelevant to you. So he thinks that it is more efficient to remove fluff from his games and just focus on the fun part, the part you yourself control and create.

>>11891742
The japs made all the good games, though, retard.

>>11891545 (OP)
No because Half Life and Halo mogged Quake and Doom 3. People like story in games, even the older CoDs had fun little action movie stories that players enjoyed before Activision gave up.

>>11891746
odd statement coming from the guy who hates masturbation, given that the entire island of nippon has spent the last 30 years blowing samurai loads on bodypillows. don't get me wrong, porn is a disgusting jewish invention, but your allegiances are misplaced.

>>11891753
>porn is a disgusting jewish invention
Ok, that's all I'm here for.

>>11891754
fair enough. thankfully DOOM and Quake include no fanservice, so i would advise playing those games instead of JRPGs and shmups.

>>11891757
>puritan telling people to play Doom
ironic

>>11891757
Whatever you say (((western envoy))).

>>11891760
>>11891761
>games about white man killing demons bad
>games about anime girls and killing god good
pfffhumppgh, oooof....

>>11891762
Uh, okay jew.

>>11891763

>>11891764

>>11891769
that's a cool profile pic man, but i was never a fan of karl marx.

>>11891771
Come on now.

>>11891772

>>11891775
I'm the gopher eating pizza.

>>11891779
i know.

>>11891545 (OP)
It's always been true. Its the same reason why JRPGs fucking suck and only Japs and weeb brained retards who have literal shit-tier taste in stories and writing actually like that fucking shit genre. Seriously, has there EVER been anything from Japan that actually has a good story? Anime and JRPGs do not have good stories, for some reason Japan's culture produces the most shallow bottom tier writing in the world. So in the end JRPGs are just fucking boring number simulators with no gameplay. Videogames are meant to be fun interactive experiences, gameplay is king niggers. GAMEPLAY. Fuck story, stories belong in movies and books.

>>11891782
>has there EVER been anything from Japan that actually has a good story?
Trigun. That's all I've got.

>>11891545 (OP)
To an extent, but I think this entire concept and quote is dated. Back in the 90's the tech treadmill was extremely fast and as long as you could make a game play well, and look nice, it wasn't necessarily important. It appealed and was marketed towards a different market than what we have today.

Nowadays, you have to make the plot, and gameplay interesting, since the advancement in tech doesn't take as much precedent over any other features anymore. People appreciate games with deeper lore now, and are more appreciative of these things than ever because almost every single hypothetical gameplay convention has been tried, and tried again, and people want more depth in the experience.

>>11891545 (OP)
What a chad

>>11891783
I wont argue Japan doesn't produce cool concepts. But thats not story. Japan has never produced anything that I finished where ive gone "....Damn, that genuinely has changed the way I think and I am glad for knowing this story" Even their cinematic greats are CONCEPTUALLY interesting, but not actually transcendent in story telling at all.

But then again, neither has ANY videogame story. Because I have actual fucking taste in real things like novels and movies where stories actually shine and im not a fucking manchild about stupid fucking videogame lore

>>11891793
>jacks dick off in private, watching jewish porn
YES, BASED!

>>11891796
As opposed to storyfags jerking off to their waifu cucking them or some tranny bear fucking their ass?

>>11891801
YES, BASED!

>They didn’t need any help getting motivated, however. Carmack, in particular, seemed almost inhumanly immune to distraction. One time, Jay tested Carmacks resolve by popping a porno video into the VCR and cranking it to full volume. Romero and the others immediately heard the “oohs” and “aahs,”and, turned around cracking up. Carmack, though, stayed glued to his monitor. Only after a minute or so did he acknowledge the increasingly active groans. His sole response was “Mmm.” Then he returned to the work at hand.
Source:
https://github.com/jacobo-mc/quake_megarepo/blob/main/masters-of-doom.pdf

I don't actually care about this argument, it just reminded me of this passage. Also, funny how the entirety of Masters of Doom is being hosted on github for some reason.

>>11891808
>Carmack, in particular, seemed almost inhumanly immune to distraction
The man saw a jewish dick and he sucked it. What can I say? He was a fucking fiend.

nobody would've played DOOM if it was just nondescript stick figures

>>11891808
The guy is a savant, what were they literally expecting?

>>11891815
>A story is a bunch of sprites of gay brown imps and cacodemons with giant gaping buttholes and stolen pantera music mixed with stock animal sounds

>>11891808
>the “oohs” and “aahs,”
Incredibly cringe. Reminder that "seductive' kikes and trannies amount to this.

>>11891795
>. Japan has never produced anything that I finished where ive gone "....Damn, that genuinely has changed the way I think
For me, that was Trigun. Again, that's all I've got. Nothing else that came from Japan has ever had an impact on me like that. Plenty of western things have, but that's my only Japanese example.
>Because I have actual fucking taste in real things like novels and movies where stories actually shine and im not a fucking manchild about stupid fucking videogame lore
If we're being honest, 99.999% of books and movies are absolute garbage too. I can name the number of media-related works that have truly changed my life on two hands, with one finger being Trigun. The rest are mostly western works like Romper Stomper.

>>11891545 (OP)

Back when he said that, he was 100% right. There were only a small percentage of games that had realities good writing or story telling, most were point and click games, adventure games, and a few RPG's.

>>11891619
>Strawmans the argument to even be able to attempt to try to argue
The fucking things people post on this board

>>11891545 (OP)
Yes. Generally, if a game has a great story, it would benefit more from being told as a series or film, and usually distracts or clashes with the gameplay. There are some games where the story is well integrated enough with the gameplay that they both benefit from each other.

>>11891808
Seems more like he was immune to bad pranks.

>>11891903
Thinking about it, Carmack would probably be one of the few game designers to say that video games are not art.

>>11891938
He says, as he watches jewish porn.

>>11891938
On that one, he would be wrong.

>>11891891
>There were only a small percentage of games that had realities good writing or story telling
That's still the case.

>>11891576
Yeah, the mark of a good game is having things that would improve its quality if you removed them.

>>11891545 (OP)
For the kinds of games he was making, yes.
Can you have a strong focus on storytelling? Sure, but gameplay should typically still take priority anyway.

>>11891545 (OP)
He never said that. There are no sources.

>>11891938
And he would be right

>>11891894
How is that a strawman exactly? Change [game] for Final Fantasy and [gameplay] for battle system and you have the exact same phrase

>>11891545 (OP)
Based doomer BTFOing RPGtards

>>11892014
It’s from Masters of Doom, dummy

>>11892035
Because anyone with half a brain can tell something like FF6 is much more story focused than something like Mario Bros. If FF6 was nothing but walking around to get into random battles and the occasional boss battle nobody would care about it.

Meanwhile if the "story" of Mario Bros was taken out it would make no difference.

Trying to act like every videogame's story is the same level as importance is as stupid as the the quote in OP's image, so no, you can't just "Change [game] for Final Fantasy and [gameplay] for battle system" because it would not be the exact same phrase since not all games are equal in how little or much their story matters.

People even here don't even like random battles, just look at the majority opinion in >>11889554

>>11892070
I think that's acceptable, you can have gameplay which is just kind of ok, as long as you have a decent story and characters, with good presentation.

However, you SHOULD still always strive to make sure that your core gameplay isn't completely boring and bland. You look at something like the Puyo-Puyo series, they're block puzzler games, and they're good ones too, the gameplay parts are fun and enjoyable to play, the fun story and characters inbetween the gameplay segments is just the icing on the cake, and the games WOULD be less if you got rid of that, leaving only the admittedly still good gameplay.

I say that as someone who thinks that it's ultimately ok that Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, doesn't really have all that much story going, focusing more on their strengths of dungeon-like exploration and fast combat, with just a few narrative blurbs here and there.

>>11892082
Some games are more story focused than others. Yes they should have good gameplay too, but some games can't stand on their gameplay alone because it's meant to compliment the story, and removing it would be like removing jumping in Mario. There are games that are completely story-less and just gameplay, and games that are pretty much all story (even back then we had text adventures and VNs).

>I say that as someone who thinks that it's ultimately ok that Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake, doesn't really have all that much story going, focusing more on their strengths of dungeon-like exploration and fast combat, with just a few narrative blurbs here and there.
If you was under the impression I was trying to say that those games need story, that's not what I am saying at all. I was saying that pretty much all the popular games he made were FPS games that don't need a story, so trying to argue that NO game needs a story is coming from a biased and single-minded viewpoint. Kind of like someone saying that nobody should eat meat just because they're a vegetarian.

>>11892070
This fag never heard of Wizardry

>>11891545 (OP)
It depends what you mean by 'story'. Sticking to FPSs, sure you have games like Half Life, Deus Ex and others that are much heavier on plot and writing than Doom and Quake.

What you have even with Doom and Quake, and also Mario, Puzzle Bobble, even so called 'pure gameplay' shmups and Dance games is quite detailed character and level design. It may not directly tell a story, but often indirectly it does, particularly in Quake and Doom, where you have lots of questions as you go through about who these monsters are, where they come from, what sort of facility thtis is etc. All in a millisecodn before you blast the next giy in thr face, but it is still there. The character nd level design does that.

If we truly didn't care about story, we'd be shooting at random shapes in corridors that were made of random colours and swirls, and represented no real world or fictional environments or characters. In Quake, there'd be no need to reference Giger or Lovecraft in the design etc.

>>11892070
>People even here don't even like random battles, just look at the majority opinion in >>11889554 #

That's a really good point.

>>11892128

Man, fuck writing on my phone.

>>11891564
Thread should've ended here, but this goddamn website is infested with literal autists who cannot appreciate storytelling, imagination, and symbolism.

>>11891564
The truth

>>11891545 (OP)
First sentence is right but true porn addicts know that the brain is the largest sex organ

Games don't need lots of cutscenes or walls of text but they nood some story
I believe people call that "lore" or "worldbuilding" nowadays but idk how to explain it desu
Like the level progression has to make some sense, the protagonist must have some motivation to kill the final boss etc. Even Mario saving the princess is enough
And the story doesn't need to be told directly, just level and character desing is enough a lot of times

People who say "only gameplay matters" here are delusional, even the greatest gameplay in the world wouldn't make a game good if all the art was just blue squares beating red squares on a black background with fart music

>>11892057
Reads like pure fanfiction.

>>11891619
Imagine:
>I don't watch movies for the cinematography

>>11891545 (OP)
i love jacking off to the deepest lore though

>>11891597
Calling shooters mindless is such a poser thing to do.

>>11893280
They rarely provoke any thoughts outside of playing the game to be fair

>>11893096
>Anything that contradicts my particularly delicate sensibilities must be fake, wrong, and probably also criminal. I hope that lying prick gets sued / harassed / detained by ICE. Freedom of speech, baby.
>Wait, his name’s Kushner? Forgive me, I kneel. Praise Israel.

>>11893332
>having to constantly think on your feet in combat situations, or orient yourself around the game world to explore, find secrets, and progress
>these are not thoughts
>this does not elicit feelings
Absolute poseur.

>>11893356
Read the post before replying

>>11893361
That isn't any more true either, you fag.

>>11891545 (OP)
Presence of story in the game allows to add context, and therefore, increase the amount of unique gameplay situations.
You don't just run from left to right, jumping over obstacles from time to time - you are actually saving the princess.

>>11893394
Says the embarrassed guy who doesn't even think before posting...

>>11893350
What the actual fuck?
Did you misquote my post or is this really what /pol/ does to your brain?

>>11893096
The people featured in that book have really not gone out of their way to deny much if anything from it, even the unflattering stuff.
Best I can tell, it's largely truthful, and there's only a few minor errors and inaccuracies.

>>11891545 (OP)
He's right. Outside of Xenogears, the "stories" in video games are universally awful compared to other mediums, so they really shouldn't step beyond being the set-up for the gameplay and art direction.

>>11891545 (OP)
Yes, he's absolutely right and this is a big part of the reason I prefer retro games to modern ones. If you want a good story read a book.

>>11891545 (OP)
At the time where you literally couldn't fit it in the disk? Sure. Even now great gameplay will cover lack of story despite modern expectations.

>>11893427
>Did you misquote my post
Its common on the chans to rewrite your post to something more humiliating. Yes on pol too.

Seems desuarchive is the only way to read the real version of this thread

Considering what kind of twitchy point and click shovelware he was involved in, his point is quite understandable, however utterly wrong.

>>11893546
>twitchy point and click shovelware
Kill yourself, buzzwording zoomoid.

>>11891545 (OP)
Well of course Carmack would say this, he hasn't made a story driven game before. We're talking about John Carmack here, his interests fall upon things like speed, pushing the boundaries of what's possible on home computers, fast 3d graphics, mechanics etc. The greatest to ever do it in his own field, but his quote on the importance of stories in videogames is naïve at best.

Quotes like this, that basically try to summarise something complex and reduce it down to a few words, are exactly the kind of thing midwits love to parrot because "a smart person said it, therefor if I say it too, it makes me smart."

Fair enough if you don't like story driven games, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. But to say they're not important is just incorrect.

Imagine if Silent Hill, THUG 1/2, Majora's Mask, Halo CE, Half Life, Final Fantasy VI didn't have a story. Those games would be reduced to simple mechanics, but they would lose the essence as to why you should play those games. These kinds of games aren't just a collection of systems for the player to master, they have environments and characters that the player has to care about, so that it feels more than just a simple puzzle game.

To make a generalisation like this is to miss what the medium has become. John is correct when you think about the games he himself has worked on, but not for all games.

I mean maybe he said it as a joke.