Article written by Rob Wright.
 
Why are video game stories so bad? At GDC 2008, 2K Boston's Ken Levine went behind the scenes to explain how BioShock's award-winning story was cut and dumbed down, and why the average gamer doesn't care about "stupid" game stories.
 
http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/0 [...] _on_story/

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Travis Meacham
 

Just curious, but why did Ken Levine think this form of entertainment would be any different that current TV shows and other really stupid (aka 8th grade) material found on TV?
 
Some really obvious facts:
1.  Only 5% of the populate graduate College/University  
2.  Not many gamers are entertained by having to use their gray matter
3.  All FPS are reactive, not pro-active (zero creativity)
4.  Target audience of FPS gamers are statistically on the younger side (teens)
5.  cool graphics, blood, splat, gore, and sex sells, not clever plot twists and character developments
 
This is not new, if TV/Entertainment were aimed at a more educated audience, we wouldn't be seeing so many of these really brain dead "reality" shows, and some of the super simple jokes you find in many current day sitcoms, or the very predictable drama shows where one can usually finish the script before the show ends.
 
And when something new and fresh does come along, it gets overused -- like the now classic start from the middle or start from the end of a story and work backwards to the beginning.  Interesting when first used but now getting very over used and old.
 
And then we have the Political Correctness, so many not so stupid stories die a miserable death because they are not politically correct and would never pass US censorship.
 
So what we end up with is some amorphous blob of brain dead material.
 

And if the plot is good, the big audience or the big money does not understand the idea...
Firefly... dead before first season, B5 allmost dead many times, Grusade dead very soon after heavy mess up with original script (that was considered too complex ...  
 
Same old story...
I am happy, that we have HBO, that even tries some time... even they have ended soem good stories...

 
1) Starting from the middle (in medias res) was probably cliche even when Homer got around to using it when he wrote The Odyssey over 2,000 years ago. "Cliche" does not mean "bad", but they are very so often seen together that they may seem inseparable. Everything has been done before. The problem is merely one of execution.  
 
2) I am interested to see how "PC" "US Censorship" is killing good stories. Got any good examples?  
 
 

Bemoaning the lack of story needed in a FPS?  
He's just developing in the wrong genre.
 
Then again, I also agree that a realistic dramatic storyline would likely raise another storm in Congress with Hillary demanding more laws regarding video games.

In the "Leisure Suit Larry Collection", Leisure Suit Larry 7 was left out entirely because of ESRB issues.  

You could argue that Leisure Suit Larry isn't a good story, but this is proof that there are games and themes that you used to be able to buy, that you can't anymore.

Even a dumbed down bioshock was still smarter than almost any other game released that year, as far as story goes.  I've set aside money in the bacon fund for Ken's next game.  Assuming of course, that we don't have another  activation debacle.

Still waiting for a true successor to deus ex though.  

ganpachi,
 
No immediate good examples I could provide here without mod deletion.  But lets say "A Clockwork Orange" for example, banned in the UK -- would make a great FPS that doesn't have to follow the traditional path of kill millions of bad guys and be rewarded.  The social/pyschological boundaries could provide vast world in which to operate at a virtual level but the rewards would be far to risky and/or suttle and probably not be understood by the "average gamer".
 
Personally I'm a little miffed that my choice to experience such material (good or bad) is never making it's way to the public.  I'm a little more than over the "produce for the stupid" mentality that seems to be the only way to get anything published and/or make money.
 
"Everything has been done before" has it?  Do you or anyone feel they can validate such a statement?  It would be impossible to validate and easy to defunk -- new concepts/ideas do surface all the time.
 
There is a wealth of new ideas that have not been done before, but these ideas get killed before release.
 
And "Bad" is merely a judgement at a moment in time.

Well I guess I am not your average game player but I am still playing Oblivion and X3 reunion and the more detail and story I can get then the better and richer the game experience is to me  
Although I have to agree once you get cought up in the fast pace action of solveing helping and killing the bad guys you end up snow balling right through to the end of the game and yes you do miss the little things as in the games Halflife2 episode2 or FEAR persius mandate and then you look at the time and you have been at it for 6 hrs and your almost through or are at the end  
Short and sweet is the flavour of the month for the games comeing out now no big poduction ones like Crysis  
I realy did like Bioshock and would have craved more if it wasnt for that stupid program that got loaded into my system files to stop pirocy because im constantly modifying my com I used up all my starts just to play the game once no I refuse to play Bioshoke ever again in protest
its my computer not theres they dont have the right to play with my sys files

 
First off:
 
"Contrary to popular claims, this film was never banned in the UK. It originally received an "X" rating in 1971 and was withdrawn from distribution in 1973 by the film's director. In 1999 (the year of Stanley Kubrick's death), the film was released again and received an "18" rating." -imdb
 
And the books and movie are both readily available on amazon.uk.
 
I think the major drawback that games face is that they must be event driven. It is very difficult to maintain a character driven storyline (outside of the pervy world of high school dating sims) without boring the audience to death. Character development is more meditative and closely linked with story telling, whereas games require active participation. Anytime a character develops, or a player is induced to make a moral choice in a game (a la Knights of the Old Republic), it is always as a function of response to an environmental cue.  
 
Bad movies and books are often critiqued for being event-driven, but that is the very strength that drives most games.
 

Gaming at its infancy was all about just being able to show that you could blow things up. Hoolywood does three things : blows things up, blames everything on the corporate baddies, and assumes everyone wants this teeny bop ideal. So, being that games are much more of a personal experiance, gamers want more from their games. For the teens its all about better, wilder explosions etc. Thats a lucrative market for the gaming industry, as they tend to drag older or more mature gamers along with this type of game. Gaming is growing up now, been around too long for only one type of genre aiming. I think theyre missing the mark, tho no one wants to spend the money-take the chance of something better, only every once in awhile, which is just a shame

LOL... or maybe some subjects simply don't translate well into FPSes and the target audience is so very very wrong? LOL
 
If you want to attack objectivist epistemology maybe you'd have better luck making a manga style RPG?

Interesting article...
 
For me, the best bit about the Bioshock plotline was how the studio acknowledged one of the fundamanetal limitations of the FPS genre - the requirement that players hit key checkpoints to advance the "plot".  I mean, they really just took the limitation head-on and integrated it into the story.  Great stuff.
 
I'm hoping that one day in the not-too-distant future, it will be possible for small studios with real artistic inclinations to be able to produce "games" that give us category III types what we crave.  Sure they won't be making a 5-million seller, but at least some sort of vision could be realized.  
 

I would love to be able to read the original story for this game. I have to admit that I was a little bit dissapointed in the story after waiting for this game for so long, but I'm one of the gamers that would really like to be immersed in the game.  
 
I definitely would have had the game take a lot longer with a lot more story and characters to it. That would have been awesome.

In the interview, didnt he say that the past history was forgotten basically? Thats a shame. Even hollowood makes part deauxs. The more the history/character build, the deeper the realism. The reason Ive mentioned this just doesnt apply to the FPS genre, but games in general. If you look at a few of the current posts, youll see that people want more intense story, not just graphics ability or explosion/action

I think Levine is a moron.  Good stories in games are NOT stupid; in fact in some cases they're absolutely necessary.  Some games, like the Half-Life series, are great BECAUSE of the story.  I have had few emotional responses from good games, but the end of Half-Life 2 Episode 2 definitely elicited one.  Levine wishes he could do that.  His stupid Little Sisters didn't freakin' do it.
 
The whole "Would you kindly" thing ruined Bioshock for me.  That and becoming a Big Daddy.  Ugh.  It made me wish I'd pirated it.  I certainly won't be paying for the next one; hell I may not even play it.
 
Keep making your crap console games, Levine, and let people with half a brain enjoy good games.

 
Um....
 
Listen, you're not going to find a bigger Half-Life fan anywhere than me. But let's be honest, the series' storyline isn't exactly groundbreaking. Don't get me wrong, it's an extremely well-executed narrative. But the plot is fairly straightforward and somewhat formulaic. And Episode Two was too predictable -- did you seriously not know how that episode was going to end?
 
As for your pirating comment, how bout you just not play the next game instead of ripping it off? That way everyone will be happy.

I may pirate it just out of spite.
 
I'm not saying Half-Life's story is amazing, but the presentation, at least, was phenomenal.  Can't say that about Bioshock.  I cared when Eli died, but didn't feel a thing when I harvested a Little Sister.  Maybe if they hadn't wussed out and actually showed you impaling her...

 
Uh HL2 had a good story, didnt have to be groundbreaking, well it was to me since it did tell a decent story and not many games do that. So in a sense it was groundbreaking. Having Alyx added in the HL2 added a little depth, not a lot but hey they tell a better story than most games. I think Levine is an ID10T as well, the thing I would like to see more is a decent story. Heck I loved COD4 (except it was to short) since it felt like you were playing a movie and you experienced several perspectives (even as a president that got executed). The multiplayer bit in games is lacking as many  "normal" people have grown weary of the immature 12 year olds who either hack or play 12 hours a day and have "L337" skills... A lot of us regular folk would prefer to get with friends, play coop and play a great game with a great story...

did you actually read the article? because it looks to me like you just looked at the title saw "story" "game" and "stupid" and then posted - the tone of the article seemed much more positive, and pro complex story than you make it sound (i'm really only talking about the "why the average gamer doesn't care about "stupid" game stories" part, since he didn't actually refer to average gamers - just 3 different catagories, and it seemed to  be about trying to avoid conflicting those catagories interests)