Wright says the obvious that video games are not a good medium to tell a story. The game player’s role is that of an actor, not that of an audience. In movies, actors play the actors. In novels, the writer must enact the characters (which is why writers tend to be halfway crazy).
I don’t think Wright’s TV show will be successful because of two reasons:
1) No one watches Al Gore TV.
2) Entertainment never works when the content is decided by amateurs (the web voting public).
Anyway, apparently some game designers are unhappy with Wright saying the video game is not a good place to tell a story. (Although I don’t think that guy knows what a story is if he is referencing games like Ultima IV or Starflight. Those games are the opposite of ‘story games’. They are quite non-linear where the player makes his own adventure… which is what Wright is saying.)
What I am seeing when I hear game designers yearn for the ‘great-story-in-video-game (which after decades and decades, we are still ‘yearning’ for), what I see is the children that fill the Creative Writing classes who are animated by one thing: “I have a story within me!”
It is easier to master a medium than it is to become a decent storyteller. In other words, it is easier to become a good writer than to be a good storyteller. It is easier to become a good director than to be a good storyteller.
Becoming a good storyteller is extraordinarily hard and only few members of the Human race have ever become skilled in this practice. Most stories are bad and are never heard. To those with promise, stories last fifty years, more or less. To only the skilled does a story last longer than a century. But those are the masters. Even the crappy storytellers that are good enough to get people to pay to hear their story are rare enough.
Reading and writing are a mass medium. Despite that, only about 0.01% are able to write a story people wish to buy. Cameras and filming are a well known medium. Despite that, only a percentage can point cameras at stuff and get people to buy their ‘story-in-video’.
Since the skills to make a video game are *much* less widespread than reading and writing or using a camera, the probability of being able to tell a story via gaming (if it is possible) falls beyond that 0.01%.
There is always something I found greatly foul when I hear game designers talking about telling great stories. It is something other than ‘that is not gaming’. It is a very raw emotion I keep holding back.
Just who the hell do these people think they are? Why do they think they are qualified to tell a story? Because they can program a computer? Get out of here.
Good story tellers are people who tend to have experienced life. In order to write Moby Dick, the author had to go on three campaigns on a whaling boat (which is insane. No one was a crew for that long due to how dangerous the profession was).
Video game designers are dorks who go to Comicon, play games all day (which they probably have to), and watch niche movies no one else watches. That is the life of the video game designer. The reason why their stories are so uninteresting is because their lives are so uninteresting. Video game designers are not that stock of people who would go on an African safari or go into military combat or walk through the citadels of power. Interesting people make interesting stories. The reason why video game stories suck is not just because it is an incorrect form of the medium but because game designers have uninteresting lives.
There is another group of people who have a similar problem. Academics tend to never break out into writing stories people want to buy. The reason why is the same: academics do not tend to have interesting lives.
Politicians REALLY suck at being storytellers. This should be no surprise as the politician has such a phony life.
The frequency that the game designer rarely strives to have an interesting life is why I keep being reminded of the ‘Creative Writing’ classroom full of students who ‘have a story in them’ yet none have life experiences. What I’m saying is that the game designer’s life experiences are no different or exciting than the average man on the street. So why does the game designer assume he is a better story teller than the average man on the street? Because he can program a computer?
Malstrom's Articles News 