Email: General Question on fluff

Below is an email. Usually I put the email in italics or in a custom color, but WordPress is not cooperating with me today.
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Dear Sean,

First of all I think a lot of what you write is a huge breath of fresh air in the gaming world, especially calling out the game industry for what it is.  I also deeply respect your way of thinking and assessing the situation, as it’s far more observant than most and it’s rare for people to pay full regard to the importance of human nature.

I’ve just been a little bothered/injured/confused recently by what you’ve been saying about the role of ‘fluff’ and story in games.  In the light of your recent posts I’ve been trying to work out whether it’s all coming from the viewpoint of:

1)  Developers should make every effort to ensure narrative doesn’t impinge on the flow of the game and gameplay.

2)  The whole concept of ‘story’ in any form is a cancerous, pie-in-the-sky hunk of developer-wankery that must be wiped off the face of the gaming world.

My inclination recently is that you’re leaning towards the latter.

Rather than argue from any theoretical point, I’m just going to put forward the real case of myself.  I love fluff.  Dungeons in Zelda are just a dull slog I put up with not to unlock further Link-upgrades to expand the overworld, but to build up anticipation for the next plot development cutscene.  If at this point you’re going to point the psychoanalytical finger and say that’s just what developers want me to think, I can guarantee you that if they took all the fishing, cutscenes and horse races out, I WOULDN’T FRICKING BOTHER with the game and probably throw my brother the controller after the first dungeon.  Other example: when I play a turn-based strategy game, I always pick units based on appearance and personality quirks, in hope of unearthing interesting dialogue.  The gameplay between talk is just a way of making it even more satisfying when they do come out with a memorable quote (hence not just googling them).  And, of course, spaceship-based shooters like R-type bore the hell out of me.  Why should I even care about helping a faceless hunk of metal get from one end of the screen to the other?  It can fly into a cliff and explode for all I care.

I’m just wondering, does this somehow invalidate me as a game customer?

Still, I will definitely concede the point that narrative impinging on content can get annoying.  I think it’s not so much story itself getting in the way but fancy look-at-what-I-can-do! camera shots and interface embellishments that just slow down the pace.  While dialogue can tell a player something, perhaps providing progression motivation for those inclined, Michael-Bay-Splosion tastic cutscenes that aren’t moving on the plot tell nothing and leave nothing to be done.  However the only time I find it truly unforgivable is when it’s clearly a shallow cliché-storm of a ‘story’ with unconvincing, inhuman characters who serve as nothing but progression devices yet somehow insist on splurging dialogue.  This is the reason I personally consider Twilight Princess a dull and unsatisfying game.  But once again it comes to the ‘why should I bother?’ factor.

I guess it was slightly covered by your post on November 20^th, with the words “If these developers have the talent of being hired by the movie industry or the book industry, then sure, go ahead and put movies and ‘amazing story’ into your game. But such talent is very rare just as game making talent is rare. The odds that such talent of movie making or story writing exists alongside the talent needed to make games is yet even more rare.”

So possible solution:  Hire professional authors/screenwriters who know what they’re doing to handle the scenario side of things?  Probably would be expensive, I guess, but still…

I’m wondering if the fluff-or-no-fluff issue is a matter of the source of fulfilment in a game – is a game defined as pure, unadulterated titillation of the problem-solving portion of the brain, or can there be other goals for which someone plays?

By the way, here’s something I found from an earlier post on this blog regarding women, game choices and N64+ Zelda:

“ Women love Mario. Women love Zelda. I recall no girls playing Zelda in the NES and SNES eras. But they apparently responded to Ocarina of Time. Before the Wii was coming out, (remember, I wasn’t a console gamer and going into a place like Game Crazy felt like I was going into some dark underground shop) I was stunned at the sight of young teenage girls asking when they could pre-order Twilight Princess. Part of the explanation for Ocarina’s high sales HAS to be the women.”

I’m just wondering, as a female, might my feelings expressed above be some sample within a possible explanation?  I remember some mention in that post of women disliking isolation.  I totally agree on that point – and what does isolation imply?  Lack of interpersonal interaction.  Even a mute protagonist (they still need a face) having others talk to him is a level of interaction.

Sorry for the long post/mail and taking up your time.  And the writing being kind of disjointed and convoluted.  It’s kind of hard to express things electronically without sounding overly hostile or opening up many opportunities for misunderstanding.

P.S. If your opinion turned out to be more along #1 after all, I’m really, REALLY sorry for inflicting this rant on you.

P.P.S.  I also think that Other M is a stupid idea.  Why’d I want to focus so much attention on a girl?

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My reply:

You are agreeing with me. Here is the money quote:

I love fluff.  Dungeons in Zelda are just a dull slog I put up with not to unlock further Link-upgrades to expand the overworld, but to build up anticipation for the next plot development cutscene. If at this point you’re going to point the psychoanalytical finger and say that’s just what developers want me to think, I can guarantee you that if they took all the fishing, cutscenes and horse races out, I WOULDN’T FRICKING BOTHER with the game and probably throw my brother the controller after the first dungeon.

This ‘dull gameplay’ you refer to in between the cutscenes is the target of my criticism. There should be no ‘dull gameplay’ at all. You should enjoy playing the game just by playing the game. When you say you are ‘slogging it through’ just to see the next cutscene, this tells me there is a big problem with Zelda.

Aonuma himself says he views the story/cut scenes as ways to motivate the player. My take is that the player should be enjoying the game and shouldn’t require story/cut scenes in order to play.

For example, Wii Fit and Wii Sports do not have a story or cut scenes. Yet, they are fun to play.

Wii Sports Resort is fun to play despite having no story or cut scenes. Sword Play in the game is fun. It is fun because the gameplay is fun. The gameplay is not ‘dull’ and sword play is never ‘plodding’. It is exciting. However, it does get old since you only attack stronger Miis. I would love to attack a dragon or monsters with that sword gameplay.

What is very interesting about the older Zeldas is that they are fun to play without the ‘cutscenes/story’. The gameplay has a type of arcade-like nature to them. It is this gameplay that created Zelda fans in the first place.

Aonuma is going about it the wrong way. He is relying on the spectacle, i.e. cutscenes and story, to motivate the player. I’m criticizing the cut scenes because they are being used as the motivating factor to excuse dull gameplay. But Aonuma does not see this. He thinks the dull gameplay is fine.

Changing the relationship of going to a field and then going into a dungeon is not going to fundamentally alter the gameplay. It appears as if the gameplay is still going to be ‘dull’. It appears that Motion Plus, instead of being used to create that arcade like combat that Wii Sports Resort has, will instead be used only for ‘realism’. It is the same exact Zelda formula but with Motion Plus ‘realism’.

The bow and arrow and the sword play of Wii Sports Resort had players immediately think how awesome these things would be in Zelda. However, the consumers were not dreaming of Motion Plus movements in and of themselves but of the exciting and skill-based nature such controls used.

Zelda has not been a skills based game for a LONG time. The Super Guide will be used only to make harder Lolo puzzles and maybe some harder bosses. It won’t bring back that arcade like nature that the earlier Zeldas had.

I am a pessimist on Zelda: Wii. But my pessimism is based entirely on Aonuma and Miyamoto’s comments. Motion Plus might create a ‘spectacle’ big enough to draw temporary interest, but the fundamental problem bugging the series lately will likely go unanswered. I expect Zelda: Wii to be the same exact pattern of modern Zelda games. The tradition of dungeons and fields are not the problem.

Imagine how much fun Zelda would be if you thought the parts in between the cinematics were ‘fun’ in and of themselves? I don’t know if you think Wii Sports Resort is fun. But many do. Imagine having that type of fun throughout Hyrule?

I think a game series is in big trouble if it is relying on story/cut scenes to motivate players to play the game. The game, itself, should be fun to play.

Many girls play Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and were playing games like Pac-Man, Bubble Bobble, and other classics in the past. In many ways, girls want the same things from games as men do.

I agree with you that if they took out the story/ cut scenes out of Zelda, the series would collapse. But this isn’t because the story / cutscenes are good as it is that the gameplay is so rotten and dull. Spectacle is the only thing that is propping Zelda up now. Every new Zelda game must have wild and unexpected spectacle now.

But the earlier Zeldas did not rely on spectacle to create an exciting consumer experience. There were no ‘Hyrule Field’ moments in the earlier Zeldas. There weren’t even any cutscenes and not much of a story. So how in the world did early Zelda sell and turn non-gamers into Zelda fans?