Why Video Game Stories are "Stupid", I beat Mole to it! w00t Options

[RicoSuave]

From: http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/03/24/ken_levine_on_story/

Why Video Game Stories are "Stupid"
Rob Wright
March 24, 2008 11:11

"If you want people to follow your plot," Ken Levine told the audience, "it has to be really f---ing stupid."

His words weren't exactly eloquent, but the creative director and co-founder of BioShock developer 2K Boston got his point across: video games stories aren't valued very highly. "The bad news is, for storytellers, nobody cares about your stupid story," Levine said during a packed session at the recent Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.

Sadly, Levine learned this lesson the hard way with BioShock and admitted that most of the award-winning title's compelling, highly original script was left on the cutting room floor. The cut material included about a dozen characters as well as major plot points. In addition, the time frame of the narrative was shortened significantly - from decades to just a single day. For a game that was almost universally praised for its story, it was surprising to hear how much of it Levine and his development team were forced to cut.

Levine's presentation was ironically titled "Storytelling In BioShock: Empowering Players to Care About Your Stupid Story" Speaking in front of a large audience, he described the up-and-down process of crafting BioShock's complex narrative and offered some advice and lessons learned about writing stories for games. "The audience has no reason to be predisposed [to liking a story]," he said. "How do we seduce them to care about it?" Using some early gameplay footage and concept art, Levine took the audience behind the scenes of BioShock's creation to illustrate how the game's story evolved from early concepts and mammoth scripts that bear little resemblance to the best-selling game we know today.

Let Your Game World Do the Talking
Levine showed early gameplay footage of BioShock during his presentation, and it looked much like Rapture's dark, damp corridors that we see in the finished product. But something was missing - none of the art deco design or colorful utopian billboards and signage was on the screen. As a result, the demo's visuals were dull. "What is this world saying to us?" he asked. "Not very much." So Levine said the development team scrapped the build and started over to help make a more compelling environment that better illustrated the Objectivist-dystopian world. Levine's point was simple - since the environment is what the player spends most of his or her time looking at, developers need to make it say something. Having a rich game world to explore, he said, will reduce the need for cut scenes and plot details that could slow down the game.

The Devil is in the Details
One of the first lessons Levine offered was simple: details drag you down. Too much detail in a game's story will confuse players. Levine described how the original outline for BioShock's story spanned 60 to 70 years and included dozens of characters and major turning points like civil wars. "It's really painful to chip away," he said. "As time went on, we made our game simpler, simpler and simpler. In 2006, we basically took a knife and killed a bunch of major characters." In addition to eliminating characters, 2K Boston also removed crucial events from the narrative. For example, players never actually participate in the New Year's Eve riots in Rapture but instead see the aftermath and hear first-hand accounts of the disaster.

Appealing to the Masses
Levine explained how BioShock was constructed to appeal to the widest possible audience, which he outlined in the three types of gamers. The first, he said, was the kind of gamer who loves Halo and Madden NFL titles and doesn't care about the story at all - they just want to shoot and blow stuff up. The second type of gamer includes people that enjoy a good narrative for their shooters, but don't necessarily want to follow complex stories with tons of plot details and character. And the third type of gamer is the hardcore fan who wants to go as deep as he or she possibly can into the story, extracting every bit of information there is about the experience. The trick is, Levine said, you can't let the experience for the hardcore gamer get in the way of the Halo or Madden fan that just wants to blow stuff up. So how do you accommodate both?

One way that BioShock's development team achieved this was by making characters and plot points optional by way of the recorded messages. Players don't have to access the voice recordings littered throughout Rapture; they can choose to zip through the game focused on the action or they can stop to soak up the storyline and delve into the mysterious background of Rapture and its inhabitants. "We gave players the opportunity to opt out of a lot of our story," Levine told the audience.

Keep it Simple
While BioShock's game world and concepts (Objectivism, for example) are quite different than your average action first-person shooter games, the plot is fairly straightforward. Like a lot of games, the playable character is mostly anonymous and shrouded in mystery, and in the case of BioShock specifically, the main character has no memory of his past. The game's narrative is structured into three simple parts. The first act involves players searching for a way out of Rapture. The second act focuses on the player's mission to kill Rapture founder Andrew Ryan. And the final act deals with players confronting and defeating the treacherous Fontaine. There are some twists and turns along the way, but the basic approach is simple and, most importantly, comprehensible to the gamers that have no interest in the details of the story. Levine referenced "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to describe this approach. "If you stop Indiana Jones in any scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and ask him what's he's doing, he'll say he's looking for the Ark," Levine said.

Let the Story Evolve
Levine showed a few slides during his presentation that provided some insight into how BioShock changed over time from the earliest sketches and storyboards to the final product. For example, the "Little Sisters" weren't originally genetically mutated girls running around with over-sized syringes. Instead, they were glowing, slimy sea slugs (which produce the super stem cells for genetic mutation known as "Adam"). But as Levin explained to the audience, the Big Daddy-Little Sister relationship made no sense. Why would the Big Daddy feel the need to protect a little sea slug? So the design team shifted gears and came up with a new Little Sister, which was a mutated dog with wheels for hind legs. The idea was to make the Little Sister types more sympathetic, but the early sketch of the mutant dog elicited laughter from the audience. "It is what it is," Levine joked. Fortunately, the development team for BioShock team finally settled on making the Little Sisters young girls, which helped simplify the relationship with the Big Daddies and also made the players' moral choices - harvest or save the Little Sisters? - much more difficult and emotionally affecting.

Don't Sacrifice Gameplay
Throughout the development process, Levine and the 2K Boston/2K Australia teams constantly revised and reduced BioShock's story to help the narrative and plot better fit the gameplay. In fact, Levine said the third act of BioShock failed on a story level; but on the other hand, the third act had some of the best gameplay of the entire experience (thanks to the player using a Big Daddy suit). Levine indicated part of the reason BioShock's story faltered at the end was because the twist regarding Fontaine, Ryan and the main character was revealed and the mystery was solved. At this point, Levine emphasized how presenting players with questions was more fun for them than forcing the players to answer them. "Think of "Lost"? What is their entire stock in trade? It's asking questions they don't answer," Levine said. "What is "Cloverfield"? It's Godzilla with less information."

The Story Should Come Late
Levine's final and perhaps most important point was that video game stories should come late into the development of the game. In the case of BioShock, Levine said the final story for the game didn't come together until about eight months before the title's launch last August. And part of the process involved letting the gameplay dictate the narrative. Levine said it was crucial to be open to new ideas and to let the game's design tell him how the story should go. "If you feel the narrative of BioShock is successful," he said, "then it's because we were able to make these changes so late in the game." Therefore, delivering a script for a game ahead of the game's development will cause problems because the two won't be integrated.

In the end, Levine said game narratives are a new medium and that writers need to be flexible in the way they approach the story. He left the audience with three points of advice. The first was respect the audience; don't force the story on all players and make the narrative in a way that can please a diverse crowd. The second was trust the mystery; not all questions have to be answered. And the third was to empower the gamer to experience the game and its story the way he or she wants. "[If] you give him that little bit of trust," Levine said, "he will give it back to you by engaging in your story, and engaging in your game world."

[njpaul]

Didn't read the whole thing, but it is interesting to hear. I think it is for the most part true. However, I think the Resident Evil series has done a fine job putting a rather large story (something like a 50 year time span) into their games. The RE series main gameplay only covers the major plot points...stuff that you absolutely should know. To complement that are many files that you can read, all of which are entirely optional, except for the ones that contain clues to puzzles. They've always kept a small cast of characters within the gameplay, but introduced many in the files. This opened up the way for many sequels based on the events surrounding the other characters.

[RicoSuave]

Yeah, it is incredibly long (I didn't read the whole thing either). I'm so bad.

[Jerky]

I didn't read it all either, but I think its a great topic to make a discussion. This is also something that I've noticed, but again I think it falls under the results you are after.

Where are the days where the RPG'ers were a small tight-knit group? Where are the days when games were made for small, more targetted (or niche), markets? Based on observation, these days are waning, and may go the way of the dodo.

Look at WoW, as our example, or even Bioshock, for those who have played it. These are games that have taken things out that could have made them "deeper", and have instead replaced these features with ones that are supposed to have broader appeal. SWG was arguably ravaged by the same powers that have done this.

The first thing we are keeping our eyes out for is the evil "corporate entities" which force designers down paths they never intended. Then, what's even worse to me, the designers somehow get brainwashed into thinking that this is what is most appealing to do!?!?!?! Heaven forbid we put EXCLAMATION MARKS OVER PEOPLES HEADS!!! Rue the day my friends, rue it!

Unfortunately publishers, who control the paychecks, want the broadest appeal possible. Unsuspecting developers sign into deals to get published, and are then either powerless to change the course or buy into the spiel of the publisher's monkeys. While these monkeys throw phrases around like the ones found above ("[Appeal] to the masses"), the designers are forced to comply. What does this mean? Compromise!

I feel like this topic in particular strikes home hard, as I try to envision the many possible futures for PW. The best visions include some sort of release, which probably includes a publisher of some sort. Publishers be warned, I'm on to you! /me shakes fist

[Brotoi]

Well, I did read the whole thing.

Levine is an idiot. He sat down to write a novel then got mad when it turned into a game.

The first mistake he made was misunderstanding the nature of a story and how a story entertains. The immersive quality of a good novel cannot be replicated by immense text blocks, numerous cut scenes, and complicated plot lines in a fast-paced FPS. The ease of reading, the visceral nature of highly detailed descriptions in crisp prose, these are what draw a reader into a novel and make the novel feel fast-paced even when it runs 5-600 pages long. If you put those same qualities into an FPS-style game, the player will wonder why they have to stop and read so much.

The second mistake he made was assuming an FPS requires the same design paradigms and structures as every possible form of computer/console game. An FPS has a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is a definite conclusion out there somewhere. No one alive (that I know of) really wants to spend 12-18 months working their way through an FPS. If it takes more than a month to reach the end, most players will abandon it. A MMORPG such as we are making, on the other hand, is an entirely different game. It is intended from the point of conceptualization to be a virtual world that players experience and explore for at least a year, and preferably several years!

That does not mean a MMORPG has the ability to bury a player beneath a flood of words. The primary focus still must be on the player's interactions with the world itself. On the other hand, because we have their attention for a longer period, we also have the freedom to introduce dozens, and possibly hundreds of characters both major and minor. The key is to always keep in mind that the characters we create serve to enhance the illusion of reality not replace it.

We fill the player's head through bits of disparate dialogue that only have meaning on deeper reflection. We surround the player with signs and landmarks, scattered books, NPC discussions overheard apparently by accident, and then we immerse them in the nature and goals of the many quests we have them run. These are the tools we use to tell our story and it is important to realize that "tools" is all they are. If the reality we are trying to create does not appeal to the audience there are always two possibilities: we have misused our tools, the story we are telling does not appeal to this individual.

Will Wright recently said that games are not stories. Ken Levine now says games don't need stories. In my opinion both of them are wrong. The kind of games we play on consoles and computers are in and of themselves a kind of story. The difference is, in a game the story is determined by the choices and actions of the player, not the plot machinations of the writer.

A MMORPG, unlike either an FPS or a simulation, is a long running story that changes every time a player logs into the virtual world. The world itself does not change (or at least not often). What changes is how the player approaches the world on any given day.



Taking a different tack now, let me touch on the role of publishers and backers. The people who invest money getting a game to market do so with the sole intention of making more money. Anyone who believes that ignoring their opinions is a good idea is as foolish as a self-referential starving artist living in a loft or basement and using their welfare checks to buy paint. While it is indeed true that many people whose sole interest in the game industry is making money do not understand (and do not care) why people play games in the first place, it is equally important for the rest of us to always remember that for a venture capitalist, the market is the only game worth playing.

There is no "mass market". It exists only in the minds of people too narrow-minded to grasp the simple reality that when 10 million people enjoy something they enjoy that thing for 10 million different reasons. Trying to lump them all into a single pile and claim that idea A or idea B is the only reason those 10 million people bought game C is foolish. Everyone who spends money on something does so for reasons related to how they plan to use that item, what value that item holds for them, and how possession of that item compares to their desire to possess something of equal financial outlay. Every individual approaches a purchase from a different perspective. There is not a 15 or 20 million person game market. Rather, there are 15 or 20 million individuals who for reasons of their own have decided they would rather spend $50 on a new game than on something else. Any attempt to formulate the perfect game that will appeal to every single one of those people is destined to fail.

On the other hand. It is possible to study how people use games. It is possible to recognize that patterns in game buying do exist, while at the same time it is important to remember that those patterns only exist in the mind of the observer. "A PKer", "an RPGer", "a powergamer", a "min-maxer", etc. These are artificial categories that do not exist in reality. Most people who play computer and console games regularly will at one time or another fit into each and every category we can dream up for them.

A player wants to be entertained. The nature of entertainment they are seeking changes from day to day for each and every one of them. In a very real sense it does not matter how you make a game. Some people will love it, some people will hate it. The very best we can hope for is to make a game that allows for and encourages a wide variety of play styles. Diversity is the key to broad success. Always has been, always will be.

There's no such thing as a bad game. There are games we individually do not enjoy, there are games that attract very few loyal players, and there are games that fulfill the needs of small numbers of people, but there are no bad games. It might be bad for you, it might be bad for me, but somebody, somewhere loves that game.

[Jerky]

That's one of the posts of yours which I agree with just about everything. It totally agree that Levine and Wright are off their rockers. Heck, Mark Rein (who always is saying something heinous and incorrect) and Cliff Belinski (who recently said, and later retracted, that PC gaming was dead) are also a couple of self-indulged egos that speak just so they can hear their own glorious voices. Just as you mention stereotypes of players are nothing more than catch phrases that rarely, if ever, actually tipify a player's motivations, these people from the industry do not represent the whole. There are plenty of designers, writers, developers, artists, etc. who are working on things they truly believe in. They are crafting stories without complaining because their expectations weren't met.

While I am completely aware of, and understand the need for publishers, that doesn't mean I cannot prepare myself to make sure PW stays PW, whether we need a publisher or not. I also know that we would be naive and stupid to not listen to our publisher's suggestions, assuming we get one, but the only way to blaze a new path, is to actually blaze one. As I said above, that envolves compromise, which may be something I am unwilling to do to ensure that PW is the project we all want it to be.

[RicoSuave]

Well, I read it now... AND all of Brotoi's post (it was a slow day). I am so glad that (thus far) everyone here disagrees with Levine. I'm searching his article for any grains of truth, or at least something I can filter and purify until I can get to a nugget of truth.

I think the first point made in the final paragraph, "don't force the story on all players and make the narrative in a way that can please a diverse crowd," can be boiled down simply to us not forcing a certain path upon all players in the community. If we look at his statement as such, I think most all of us can agree that we don't want any player forced into any path... except obedience to rules and established regulations. We should allow everyone to choose which path to take (or to take no path at all).


I'm just trying to find the "good" bits.

[Ethan]

Well, this is not that long... Brotoi's post has almost the same size.

I don't really like the article and I agree more with (most of) the ideas developped in your post, Brotoi. Except about the fact that there is no bad game, I would like to think it but that's not how I am feeling it.

That is a game is not a story seems quite obvious, that's a different media. Complaining about the story not fitting in a game is like complaining about a movie which didn't render well a story! Different media offer different tools for expression.