I think attempts to broaden the appeal of gaming through story will likely run up against the same obstacles encountered when broader society looks at genre fiction, especially fantastical genres like SF, fantasy and horror. In the wider public imagination, books, films and tv shows set in these genres couldn’t possibly contain depth or real human emotion – it’s all just wizards, pixies, rayguns and aliens, right? Just like Grand Theft Auto, Bioshock, Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty couldn’t contain anything truly emotive. Right? Right?
My wife was reluctant to watch Battlestar, but is now a hardcore convert. But she only took the chance on it at my (frequent) urging. I’m going to try a similar thing with Portal, a triumph of storytelling linked to a fantastic gameplay device that makes playing it both fun and emotionally engaging. I’m already halfway there because she loves to watch me play Bioshock – the setting, implicit narratives and dialogue fascinate her.
I’m not sure what the broader point in the GWJ article is about casual gaming – how much emotional depth and storyline can you really get in a Flash game? Most of the time, the ’storylines’ in these games remind me of the incredibly simplistic writing and ideas of old-school Commodore 64 and NES games – they’re there as MacGuffins, simply to advance the action, and don’t mean anything in and of themselves.
I remember the first time I got emotionally invested in a game – it was playing the original PC version of Dune, when I got to the kiss scene with the female lead character. As an archetypal geeky kid, the fact that I had been successful with a girl in this 16-bit, 256 colour 2-D sunset kiss scene came as an unexpected and quite powerful punch in the gut (a good one). I became more open to narrative as an attraction in itself, not just a framework to hang the game off, coincidentally around the time that point n’ click adventures were just getting popular (Grim Fandango took this to whole new levels). I think the key is not necessarily web-based or simplistic casual games, but simply a low barrier to entry for novice players. Someone new to RPGs or FPSs (or RTS or any other type of complex game) can often be overwhelmed by the numerous controls, bad guys coming from all directions or, in some more complex games, lack of a clear initial goal.
Perhaps the answer is some kind of ‘newbie’ mode, something that goes beyond the near-universal ‘Easy’ setting towards real (turn-offable) hand-holding. When we combine that with good writing (and here I agree with Michael Zenke, games writing needs to take a similar approach to pushing storytelling boundaries and more directly reflecting the real world if it is to have a broader appeal), we may well get a ‘Battlestar Galactica’ of gaming – a game that you can discuss down the office, at the pub or with your Auntie.
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The Half-life approach to story telling I think is the best example of effective story-telling through never taking the player out of the experience.
However, the article basically lends to creating interactive movies, which anyone can control. That’s not really going to happen, as the lessons learned with all those FMV games from the 90s show, there is a limit scope as what you can do with the medium.
I reckon this whole issue is partly to have gripping stories woven into the gameplay, but more a PR exercise, to show the masses that gaming can be something that we all can enjoy. The UI would be the biggest hurdle, and I think Nintendo have done the best thing with the controllers on the Wii to that end, and that would be the direction to follow for the masses.
I fully agree, one only needs to think back to the dread words ‘multimedia gaming’ to remember how dull, expensive and awful interactive movies were (at least ones viewed from fixed positions). The Half Life model of no cutscenes is essentially an interactive movie, just one that you happen to actually be in.