EA Dev: 'Game Stories Are Crap'

Alex Hutchinson, creative director on Army Of Two: The 40th Day has said that linear stories in videogames don't make the grade

Speaking exclusively to NowGamer about the Army of Two sequel, Hutchinson, who spent six years working on titles like the Sims and Spore, told us that videogaming suits narratives generated by players. "One of the things I took from [my time at Maxis] was this idea about the player driving the story, the player driving the narrative and the player being in control of their own game, which is the thing that we do in gaming the best," he said. "Telling a linear story we're actually crap at. The best story in a game is a terrible movie, it's made up for by the fact it's an awesome game. We're terrible at telling stories, we kid ourselves that we can tell stories. They're awful, they're cheesy, they're shallow, they're weirdly paced, they have bad endings that are always blowing things up or punching people – we're not good at that."

"We're terrible at telling stories, we kid ourselves we can tell stories"

Hutchinson believes that players should drive certain elements of the story due to the interactive nature of gaming. "If you ask players – and we saw this at Maxis and you even see it in shooters, which is why I think it's very applicable – 'What was the story? What happened?' they don't tell you the story, they tell you what they did," he said. He also explained how Army of Two: The 40th Day will try and buck the trend for linearity: "We try to branch it out," he said "'Do we go left or right, do we go up or down, do we stick together or do we split up?' – but it's still reasonably linear. But let people make their own story."

source: http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1532/ea-dev-game-stories-are-crap

No arguments here.

Metal Gear Solid franchise has an amazing story, not to mention pretty much any Bioware game, the GTA's etc etc.

I agree for the most part, some have decent stories and I am hoping DA has a stellar one, but the majority are cliche and very predictable.

that's probably why they bought bioware...they really needed some great story telling in their cast of various companies, lmao

Mass Effect, KoTOR?

Mass Effect, KoTOR?

Avian005

i think this was EA's main division talking...not the bioware employees

They can speak for themselves, but beyond that I disagree.

I agree, but writers need more ideas, be creative, it's a story after all.

I love to write so I know what I'm talking about.:D

I cant agree 100% since I do tend to like some game stories and enjoy myself. Its like any otherform of entertainment.There are crappy stories in movies and im pretty sure there are some really bad books out there. IM the type of person that compares the form of entertainment in its own i guess area is a good word cant think of anything els. So I dont look at a games story and compare it to a book or movie level story. I compare it to other games. Same goes for everything els.

This is why he was working on the Sims >_>.

Granted, some stories are not the devs' main priorities. But there are some pretty terrible movies out there, and video games, as a whole, can stand on its own two feet. Movie classics are considered so because they push boundaries within its "field", just as video games do. It's understandable to play a video game for the story, but if the developer ONLY concentrates on storytelling and not much else, perhaps he/she is better off working on other forms of entertainment.

KoTOR, for example, was able to wow many of its players the first time around. But not so much me, as I probably spoiled it for myself beforehand... but that's what I get for playing the game long after its release :P. Mass Effect, while debateable about the greatness of its story, many parts of it was amazing to experience when more of the plot gets revealed. If video games can do this, it's far from crap.

That's what I've been sayin...I rarely play a game for the story

I more or less agree. Still, there are many great stories in gaming, like Mass Effect or Freelancer.

I don't think the problem has only revolved around developers not being able to construct a good story. I think some of the blame is not only on gamers, but on what most developers expect that gamers will cope with/accept forever, or may actually like. I'm one of those that doesn't necessarily expect a novel out of games(at least not at this point, the industry is still too young), but I have nothing agaisnt an interesting, at times outside of the box premise when it comes to story, which immediately ties to the universe of the game, that glued to other facets drives the game forward.

On the other hand, I just can't believe that an industry that has a few decades in age, worth billions, with a huge number of companies in them filled with industry professionals, is completely bereft of a creative mind capable of coming up with a story that can possibly rival other mediums in the story department. Yes, at times it feels exactly like that, but it's extremely improbable. Wth is going on then? I do not know. When you're a gamer, and you feel like you could make a more original premise in less than a minute in comparison to 80+% of games out there, something is definitely not right. But then again, games are a little more complex than just worrying about how good the script is.

Mass Effect, KoTOR?

Avian005

Two games out of a list of thousands, and even then I don`t think you have to worry about anyone confusing a BioWare game with Joyce, McCarthy or Dostoevsky (and this is coming from one of the biggest BioWare fans out there).

Until great story driven games attracts gamers and sells crazy just like GTA, Halo, Gears, COD, Mario....etc devs and pubs will try to make great stories.

Till then, he is totally right especially with the shooter genre, there is almost nothing memorable in a shooter game.

Lets wait and see what kind of impact Heavy rain and Alan wake makes for the gamers, if this two titles drive major sales, we would see a major shift in genres.

Metal Gear Solid franchise has an amazing story, not to mention pretty much any Bioware game, the GTA's etc etc.

EVOLV3

Until great story driven games attracts gamers and sells crazy just like GTA, Halo, Gears, COD, Mario....etc devs and pubs will try to make great stories.

Till then, he is totally right especially with the shooter genre, there is almost nothing memorable in a shooter game.

Lets wait and see what kind of impactHeavy rain and Alan wake makes for the gamers, if this two titles drive major sales, we would see a major shift in genres.

HAZE-Unit

Until great story driven games attracts gamers and sells crazy just like GTA, Halo, Gears, COD, Mario....etc devs and pubs will try to make great stories.

Till then, he is totally right especially with the shooter genre, there is almost nothing memorable in a shooter game.

Lets wait and see what kind of impactHeavy rain and Alan wake makes for the gamers, if this two titles drive major sales, we would see a major shift in genres.

HAZE-Unit

[QUOTE="HAZE-Unit"]

Until great story driven games attracts gamers and sells crazy just like GTA, Halo, Gears, COD, Mario....etc devs and pubs will try to make great stories.

Till then, he is totally right especially with the shooter genre, there is almost nothing memorable in a shooter game.

Lets wait and see what kind of impactHeavy rain and Alan wake makes for the gamers, if this two titles drive major sales, we would see a major shift in genres.

schu

unless you want to redefine it not as a video game but an interactive e-book or something with less action

Sure, I love gameplay but I would like to see the games evolve, for me story driven games is something I always get more excited about then games with no stories.

Im not saying we want a book to read, Im just saying I want the games universe, characters...etc to be defined and explained in better ways.

And Im just showing two examples of two heavy story driven games that are coming next year regardless of the gameplay or gameplay mechanics/style, Im just saying that story driven game would become more and more important and serious even if takes 1 hour of a 20 hour shooter game, or a game that plays like Mario.

I hope they will sell big for devs to consider making serious and better stories.

[QUOTE="HAZE-Unit"]

Until great story driven games attracts gamers and sells crazy just like GTA, Halo, Gears, COD, Mario....etc devs and pubs will try to make great stories.

Till then, he is totally right especially with the shooter genre, there is almost nothing memorable in a shooter game.

Lets wait and see what kind of impactHeavy rain and Alan wake makes for the gamers, if this two titles drive major sales, we would see a major shift in genres.

nmaharg

I said almost :P

And HL2 had a decent story, not OMGWTFMASTERPIECE story :P

Metal Gear Solid franchise has an amazing story, not to mention pretty much any Bioware game, the GTA's etc etc.

[QUOTE="schu"][QUOTE="EVOLV3"]

Metal Gear Solid franchise has an amazing story, not to mention pretty much any Bioware game, the GTA's etc etc.

enterawesome

No, not really. Some are, for sure, but I do think that stories seen in Half-Life, GTA4, Mass Effect, KOTOR, and MGS could all hold up as movies.enterawesome

[QUOTE="enterawesome"][QUOTE="schu"] for a video game, sure have you actually read any decent books though?alextherussian

Metal Gear would be an awesome TV show!enterawesome

:lol:I have to agree. Don't take this as some kind of downplay towards the quality of the games, but I would love to see a live action series featuring a bad ass old man, wearing a bandana, while kicking the hell out of futiristic robots and terrorists, and of course, futuristic ninjas(and hell all the crazyness in the mgs universe). It would be hilarious :lol: (in a good way) :P

He's 100% right. Video games are by far the worst medium for strait story telling.

Imagine if you were watching starwars, and at the end Skywalker was shot down by Vader, and then the movie rewinded back a bit ovr and over until he got it right and blew up the Deathstar? That would be the worst movie ever. The whole concept of (tell a bit of story then kill a bunch of guys to see the next part of story) sucks.

mgs final fantasy uncharted 1 and 2 god of war kingdom hearts all say himakincopies

You mean with the poorly written dialog, bad plots, and talentless voice acting??? (though I haven't played UC2 yet...)

I disagree. I love narratives in video games, I think they're great

[QUOTE="makincopies"]mgs final fantasy uncharted 1 and 2 god of war kingdom hearts all say higoblaa

You mean with the poorly written dialog, bad plots, and talentless voice acting??? (though I haven't played UC2 yet...)

Seriously. I've seen you write this stuff before. Name some good games then that don't have poorly written dialog, bad plots, or talentless voice acting. I can tell you this, if you think that the voice acting in the Uncharted games is talentless then I suggest you take the reigns and offer your voice talents to the world. Apparently you know something WE don't. :|

He is so very right. I think linear stories in games have potential though, but so far they've been ass for the most part. Even Uncharted 2, whose amazing set pieces and fleshed out characters have been the talk of the gaming community for awhile is missing a lot when compared to movies of the same genre.

He's 100% right. Video games are by far the worst medium for strait story telling.

Imagine if you were watching starwars, and at the end Skywalker was shot down by Vader, and then the movie rewinded back a bit ovr and over until he got it right and blew up the Deathstar? That would be the worst movie ever. The whole concept of (tell a bit of story then kill a bunch of guys to see the next part of story) sucks.

goblaa

You haven't seen Goundhog Day, have you? :P

While I agree with him in most cases, to say all game stories are crap is just plain wrong, I just finished playing Valkyria Chronicles not long ago (yeah I know I'm a year late) but even so that had a great story with lots of good twists and everything, and the game itself felt like it was more of just an extension to the game itself than the other way round. That's how much good story (not repetitive and overdone/too long) it had, yeah in some cases like this having a linear story is perfectly fine.

He's right especially considering the first Army of two had an awful story lol. Most stories from videogames do tend to be weak aside from some exceptions (mostly RPGtitles IMO). I don't really think devs really take story telling seriously and same goes for the gamers who play those titles.

Uncharted 2 has taken story telling in video games to a whole new level.

Games USED to have good stories... Now they are mostly hackneyed drivel.DragonfireXZ95

Uncharted 2 has taken story telling in video games to a whole new level.

Blazerdt47

What level is that? Mediocre-Indiana-Jones-wannabe?

What a time to be alive. :|

[QUOTE="DragonfireXZ95"]Games USED to have good stories... Now they are mostly hackneyed drivel.Blazerdt47

Someone hasn't played Silent Hill.

Uncharted 2 has taken story telling in video games to a whole new level.

Blazerdt47

Anyway it really depends on the game. most games are like mario where they have little to no story. There are some games like U2 and Halo 3 that have a servicable story, like they get the job done but a lot of people could get by without it. Then there are those games with amazingly complex stories, from devs like Kojima and Bioware, where there's so much going on and so much side/back story that you head might explode. So really it depends on your tastes and what you want your game's story to be like.

Whoever used that porn movie analogy got it spot on.

If the story helps drive your game foward, great. But if it a good story is required to keep a gamer driven to finish it, then maybe the game itself at its core isn't really good at all.