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A bunch of random thoughts related to discussion coming up around the closure of Irrational Games


Count_Zero

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<p>What bugs me about people who rip into the stories of games which try to tell good, interesting stories but fail (at least in the eyes of the people doing the ripping), like, for example, Bioshock Infinite, is that the language used to mock the games often comes in the form of saying “Games can’t tell good stories, why should you try?”</p>

<p>Not that they’re saying games can’t be art – they know that games can be art, and often the people saying these things want more games to be art. However, dismissing the narrative of the Bioshock games as being too simplistic or too trite or playing with the players heartstrings too much is a bit like making fun of little league baseball players because they’re not hitting home runs like the pros. They may get there someday, they may not – but what good can mocking them for trying do?</p>

<p>If you really, really want better video game stories, then signal out the people who do what you want to see for praise, and if someone does something wrong, don’t just mock their decisions, talk about why it didn’t work for you.</p>

<p>I can’t code well enough to work on a AAA, but I can tell when a story works, and when it doesn’t and if it doesn’t work I can tell why. Hell, depending on why the story doesn’t work, I can tell you what it would take to fix it.</p>

<p>Shifting the topic somewhat – games like EVE Online and DayZ aren’t “fixing” game stories, or “telling” better game stories. People are using those games to tell interesting stories, sure, but describing them as the future of game storytelling (as I got the impression P<a>atrick Klepek</a>â was kind of alluding to in <a href="href='http://countzeroor.wordpress.com/category/video-games/'>Video games</a> Tagged: <a href='http://countzeroor.wordpress.com/tag/irrational-games/'>Irrational Games</a>, <a href='http://countzeroor.wordpress.com/tag/ken-levine/'>Ken Levine</a>, <a href='http://countzeroor.wordpress.com/tag/news/'>News</a>, <a href='http://countzeroor.wordpress.com/tag/shawn-elliot/'>Shawn Elliot</a>, <a href='http://countzeroor.wordpress.com/tag/video-game-stories/'>video game stories</a>, <a href='http://countzeroor.wordpress.com/tag/video-games/'>Video games</a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/countzeroor.wordpress.com/2710/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/countzeroor.wordpress.com/2710/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=countzeroor.wordpress.com&blog=3836055&post=2710&subd=countzeroor&ref=&feed=1" width="1" height="1" />

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