IGN - Storytelling in Games, Part 1

[Dhruin]

Storytelling in Games Part 1 is the first of an interview series at IGN with various developers discussing the topic. Each develop answers the same question, which for this part is "How has storytelling in video games matured over the last decade or so? Has it matured?":

BioWare - Casey Hudson, Executive Producer:
Storytelling in video games has definitely matured a lot in the last decade. One way to look at the maturity of a medium is to look at how well the content makes use of the unique aspects of the experience. Just like early movies had not yet developed the sophisticated language of cinematic storytelling, early games had neither the features nor the content to really weave the emotional impact of great storytelling with the interactivity of the medium. And with games, interactivity is the core of the experience. The best contemporary videogames are doing really interesting things to bring storytelling subtleties and emotion into the interactivity.

More information.

 

[borcanu]

A bunch of lies. In the best case scenario the storytelling stood still, but i doubt it.
They think so highly of themselves these new game designers. It would be rather sad if you figured you contributed to the downfall of that aspect of games.

 

[holeraw]

I'm probably going to read this later today but, looking at the names, I see they've got only one person to represent adventure games, which to me signifies that it's not going to be very interesting, for a simple reason: storytelling in games is pure uninspired garbage, with only a handful of exceptions most of which come from adventure games. If they wanted to get serious views about storytelling in an interactive medium they should have asked people like Benoît Sokal or Ragnar Tornquist.

 

[Biff The Understudy]

Odd how many of them seem to think cutscenes were the only way a story got told 10-20 years ago.

 

[Arkadia7]

The stories in games I've played have been for the most part, mediocre. As a regular reader of books in fantasy and other genres, the storytelling in games remains at a low level in comparison to an average book. I do agree some adventure games are the place to look though for good stories, they can be an exception to the mediocrity rule.

 

[ChienAboyeur]

A number of self high fives, self promotion ("story telling has matured and our games do it best") and a few takes at the reality.