It is the early 1980s. You, the magnificent reader, have made a video game.
“Oh boy!”
Yes. And the game you made is a space shooter. You have a space ship that flies around and goes ‘pew pew’ to shoot evil alien monsters. But now comes the truly hard part. You must sell your game.
“Oh dear! What do I do, Malstrom?”
Your panic is noted, reader. You just can’t walk up to people and say, “Hey, look at this game. There is a spaceship. And it shoots evil alien monsters.” People won’t care. So how do you make them care?
When you made your game, you focused on the HOW. But you forgot the WHY. Why should that spaceship go around shooting evil alien monsters?
“I… I don’ know, Malstrom! Help me! Please! Or my game won’t sell!”
Very well, reader. Perhaps to give your game a ‘why’, you should approach the customer and say…
“IT’S A DUEL TO THE DEATH WITH THE EVIL SPACE MONSTERS!
“You are the last hope of the people! You’ve just lifted off the confront the all-out attack of the amoeboid space monsters!
“Your hyperspaced fighter is armed with the greatest arsenal of the galaxy! Air-to-surface and double beam for incredible firepower. Powerful forcefields for protection. You’ll need them just to survive.
“Because at the heart of the Evil Monster Empire lies the Evil Monster Super-Fortress… the nerve center for the all-knowing, all-seeing Evil Space Monster Bio-Computer.
“It’s a duel to the death.
“While the entire galaxy watches.
“Waits.
“And hopes.”
The reader looks at Malstrom as if he heard the most ridiculous thing in the world.
“No one would buy a game with that description!” the reader complains. “Have you been smoking those ‘happy’ cigars again, Malstrom?”
Take out your classics and read the back of the boxes…
The above is definitely a ‘story’. But it is to give a ‘why’ to the game. The reason why early games like PONG didn’t need a description because they were unique. No one had seen a video game before. But now there were many video games. Why should I buy this game? “Because it is a DUEL TO THE DEATH WITH THE EVIL BACTERION!” Oh God! No! Not the Evil Bacterion! I hate that guy! I must buy the game immediately!
A common theme of Miyamoto’s games (Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, Zelda) is the WHY is to save the princess. Of course, that dumb princess was always in another castle. But it gave a ‘why’ to the game so it wasn’t just some guy in overalls breaking blocks and wandering around.
Many games understand that the ‘story’ of a game is told through the game’s environment. In Metroid, you go through areas such as Norfair. The change in environments gives a sense of progression, a sense of adventure, and a sense of universe within that game.
In the Gradius game above, how absurd would it be if someone made a modern Gradius game and said, “It is story time! Let us make the pilot of the Vic-Viper into a CHARACTER. Perhaps he is an alcoholic and has problems with the wife. Then, we will do some cutscenes about his backstory. Perhaps tell the tale of how he flunked out of flying school and got back in after having an affair with the school’s superintendent. Character! Character! Character! This is what makes a great story! And, boy oh boy, will it make a fantastic new Gradius!”
This is totally losing sight why story elements are added to games. They are to provide the ‘why’ to the gamer. Not to the developer.
The above is, and shall remain, the best example of a game believing the ‘story’ is more important than the game. Without the story of the original Metroid, you would just have some helmet soldier running around shooting monsters. Adding some text, which requires no art and is easy to program, made the game much more interesting by giving the player a why.
This is the intro to Super Metroid. This is not a story, people. It is just a few sentences which places the current game into some sort of frame: Why? The why is answered by ‘saving Baby Metroid’. But why would anyone want to save a Metroid? “Because it has abilities that could benefit all of Humankind.” OK. Let’s go.
No one would say the intro to this game is a ‘story’. Yet, it is as much as a ‘story’ as Super Metroid. It gives a ‘frame’ to answer the question of ‘why’. Why are you running through a post-apocalyptic street shooting aliens? The intro answers it.
Even games like Chrono Trigger do not offer a story in the traditional sense. As I replay Chrono Trigger, the theme of heroism is present and clear throughout the game. Heroic music trumpets my movement. And what is the ‘story’? It is to frame me as the hero. The why of the game, as in most RPGs, is for me to be a hero. The why of the game is not to click ‘attack’ on the menu screen. That would be boring. But being a ‘hero’, well, THAT is exciting.
This is also why games originally had ‘intros’ or ‘cutscenes’. It is to give the game a sense of ‘why’. As in ‘why should I play this game’?
The intro to Warcraft 2 is answering the question as to WHY you should be playing Warcraft 2 (even if you played Warcraft 1). In Warcraft 1, Orcs did not build ships of war to travel across the sea. The Humans did not have allies with the dwarves and elves. Therefore, you must play this game immediately!
The above is not a ‘story’. It is telling the player WHY he must play this game. “But I already played Mega Man 1.” Ahh, but Wily has created 8 new robot masters. And Mega Man’s job is to stop THE EVIL DESIRES OF DR. WILY.
Now this is a most elaborate intro complete with cutscenes. But note how it still revolves around the WHY. As in ‘why you should play this game’. The intro isn’t a first act in an opera. The intro does not go into character exploration. The intro just talks about ‘why’. In this case, the ‘why’ is that Einstein went back in time and killed Hitler. But instead of preventing World War 2, he created a more horrible future with a powerful Soviet Union trying to take over the world. This alternate timeline is one of the most fascinating ‘whys’ for a video game I have ever seen.
This is an interesting example. Since this is an established series, the intro starts off explaining WHY you should play even though you played Warcraft 1-3. “The world is at war once again.” OK. And then it shows clips of adventurers doing adventuring and later fighting. You don’t see character monologues. This is not the first act of an opera. It is to entice the player to enter this game. It is saying, “Why should you play? Because the world is at war again and it will be like… THIS (showing off the adventurers fighting and exploring).”
While it sounds silly to ask, but what is the point of video game music? It is to make the game more interesting. What is the point of video game art? It is to make the game more interesting. It is nonsense to say video game music should be made for music’s sake or game art should be made for the sake of game art. No. They service the game. The game is the North Star, the place where all other elements have their compasses point. Everything leads back to the game.
The ‘story’ should lead to the game and be nothing but the game. We’re in a period where people are forgetting this.
A ‘bad’ game story is a story that can exist without the game. The problem is that everyone is trying to make ‘good’ game stories which means stories based on being stories, not stories aimed at elevating the game. The story is aimed at elevating the story. This is why they are horrible to video games.
People referring to story and the game as separate entities is a new phenomenon. This is caused by people trying to make the story ‘good’ by making the story point to itself. It shouldn’t be doing that. The story should point to the game. If the ‘story’ has characters where they have soap operas, that ‘story’ needs to go. It is not servicing the game. Get rid of it.
When I say “get rid of the story”, this is what I mean. In the case of Zelda, I do not mean ‘get rid of the Triforce’. I like the Triforce. It gives a ‘why’ answer to Link going to all these dungeons. What I am referring to ‘story’ is the recent trend of making the story point to itself. It would be something like a soap opera where Link talks about his ‘paternal instincts’.
Usually, when developers talk about the story without having to bring up the game, that is a bad, bad sign.