Are poor stories stopping us from finishing games?

What is it with developers these days. They spend millions on games, make them look pretty, sound nice, work well (mostly), yet the one piece of the puzzle to ensure players stick with a game from beginning to end, the ” story ” or narrative, is last on the list to be looked at.

[timmyp53]

Good gameplay is just complimentary. I have to have some motivation/incentive. Otherwise I get bored.

[PeaSFor]

poor gameplay stopped me from finishing Witcher3 which sad since everything else is great in the game...

gameplay is the most important thing (FOR ME) and witcher 3 combat/gameplay felt like straight up garbage after finishing BloodBorne.

[Peace_Love_and_FPS]

You're the only other person who I know that's felt like that, I hated the combat. Haven't tried BB yet, but I agree, however as timmyp53 said there has to be incentive there too, emotionally, or at least with single player games.

[Bimkoblerutso]

I don't think there's any "golden rule" for this stuff. I think if your intent in game design involves world building in any way, then a poor story can really drag things down.

On the other side of the coin, though, games like Super Mario have never had any kind of meaningful story, but they still succeed on the strength of their gameplay alone.

It all depends on what your gameplay is complimenting, and vice versa.

[Bassmint]

lol if you think the Witcher 3 has bad combat i wonder what you would have thought of the first one. I played that through and i surprised myself in that i enjoyed every second of the 40 hour playthrough. Not for the actual gameplay, but for the story and lore that i was diving into. It wasn't hard to overlook some shoddy combat to explore the world of the Witcher, same thing with 2 and 3.

[nix]

After Bloodborne I didn't bother picking up any games for some time because i knew it was going to ruin my experience. I was so so keen on getting Witcher 3. It was in my most wanted list higher than Bloodborne. I even read the entire Witcher series book to know about world. It's a great story btw (the books).

Sometimes i just don't finish games because it gets boring really fast. I didn't finish DS1 n DS2 because i didn't have time to just grind. I never finished the 2 NFSes because it had no soul like the old ones. I never finished gtaiv because it was crap as hell. Never finished Infamous because I had already spent too much time on it that i didn't bother about the story.

Nowadays as a precursor, i just look at games and assume what is it going to do till the end. How is it going to keep the gameplay fresh? If i see a game that's going to make me do the same thing again and again from the start to the end. I just skip the title.

Apparently only 24% of games are played from end to end. So I'm not the only one who's not finishing.

I personally feel everyone should play a game like Bloodborne, it engulfs you into the game. It takes control your emotions and souls. That game is just outright amazing. The euphoria you get when finishing a boss is out of the world experience. I can go on and on about it... So imma gonna stop.

[tmh3593]

Huh? Grinding in DS? Why would you need to grind anything in the dark souls games?

[AquarianKing]

I was thinking the same thing

[sullynathan]

I'll have to disagree with you. We are playing video games, not reading a book. You can have an incentive without a game telling a good story. When the game tells you to infiltrate a base or capture something or defeat a set of enemies and the gameplay is good then that is enough incentive.

A lot of "good story" games like The Witcher series hide behind their good writing and mediocre story to try to excuse their piss poor combat system and weak gameplay.

Gameplay shouldn't be complimentary, it should be at the forefront of a developers mind. The story should compliment the gameplay.

[nix]

Until Dawn is nothing but multiple choice.. I wonder why people are praising it. It's clearly not gameplay.

Personally if you want to look at things really philosophically, even mp games have stories you can write. Write not read. You can plan and execute it "beautifully" and talk about it later with the lads in the pub. q:

And since most are also talking length of the game, i think 12 hours average is the perfect game length I'm looking at. But that's my point of view considering i don't have much time. But I've finished games like Bloodborne so i don't know. It clearly depends on how strong both gameplay and story is. I was ok with length of Heavenly Sword and Order.

[BrandanT]

Of course it is.
Would you stop reading a book if it was bad?

[DoomeDx]

You didnt realy just compare a book to a game..

Games have gameplay. Books rely entirely on stories. Games do not.

[BrandanT]

Alright it depends. If you have a game that's incredibly story heavy and has that as its focus, like the rpg genre, then it's a problem.
If you have a game that's a game in the purest sense where the story mode is just a supplement, for a recent example Splatoon, then it's a completely different design for a video game.

I was just thinking about the story heavy rpg genre when I made my comment.

[ARESWARLORD]

It doesn't help that the market is just flooded with cheap good games these days. Constant steam sales an Xbox and PlayStation sales. I think the problem is these days the average gamer owns too many games for the amount of time that they have to actually play them. I know between my wife and my kid of my job I don't have near the time I used to play some games.

[Youngindy21]

The problem is not the sales themselves. It's the short development cycles for video games and the abundance of people making them. The development cycles in the older console generations seemed a lot longer; whereas now-a-days we get a ton of super long games every month. With time constraints, there is no way the average gamer can complete all the games that are being thrown at him each and every month.

[flyingwombat33]

Not just the story, but the pacing. Gta V had a pretty good story, but because of how long it was, it couldn't maintain the stakes. It makes me sad that gamers push for so much content. I think my list of favorite games is exclusively occupied by things that are under 20 hours long, right now, it feels like a game has to offer at least 40 hours of content to be considered a good value, and I don't like that.

[kneon]

The way the story is told is just as, if not more important than the story itself.

A great story is ruined if told badly. An average story can be elevated to greatness with excellent story telling. But nothing can really save a bad story.

[goldwyncq]

GTA V's main story doesn't hold a candle to GTA IV. Most disappointing aspect of the game actually.

[TeamLeaptrade]

There are a few games that I give up on because of story or just having to do a repetitive grind to get through. But, there has been times where I completely went through a game and never bothered to pay much attention to the story.

But I do believe a poor story makes a game fairly boring.

[on_line_forever]

for me the good story is very important .

and this is why i love metal gear 1 so much

its very deep with a lot of emotions

[sullynathan]

Funny you should say that since almost all video games have poorly written stories, maybe that's why most gamers don't even complete the majority of games they buy. Most of the games that people claim have "good stories" don't have good stories, they probably just have lots of dialogue or an interesting character, lore or setting.

Now going by this, I don't think most gamers even care about a story because looking at the history of video games, it's always started with gameplay. I just think gamers need a hook, something that will draw their attention and make them want to keep playing or even finish the game.

[Vegamyster]

A game can get away with it as long as both the gameplay & level design is good, at least for me.

[Bobafret]

When it starts feeling like a chore it's usually a crap story, at least in my experience.

[22CobraKing]

Without a good story the game is pretty wack. We need games with a unique story, gameplay, and extra is the graphics.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Nope. Consider MOST games don't even have stories. In some cases, I can understand, I stopped playing FFV because of its bad story, but LOVED its gameplay. Dat job system doe! It just really depends on the game. I've played games that had bad stories but redeemed themselves in the end.

[Bhuahahaha]

for me there where times that if the game is so good i dont want to finish it. lol

[Pintheshadows]

I am the same.

[Xbonewone32015]

Games being too long are what stop me.

Got bored with Witcher 3 after 40 hours or so.

Both gameplay and story got boring.

Im now 70 hours into dragon age inquisition (free with ea access) and surprisingly im enjoying it alot more than witcher 3.

Having said that, its still too long.

50 hours is the sweet spot for a good game at most.

[AstroCyborg]

nope gamers are just lazy look at the witcher 3 great story but how many completed that

[SegaGamer]

If i enjoy the gameplay, i will finish the game, even if the story is bad.

I can't remember the last game i didn't finish to be honest.

[cptblackadder1]

I'm the author of this article, and it's great to see so many varied comments about this subject.

The point i was trying to get accross was, yes some games have fantastic mechanics that never get dull, but others don't. If dev's put as much time and thought into a good story, it wouldn't matter as much if games were a grind as the story would pull you through the "grindy" bits, example Destiny.

Of course, it's all subjective to what the player was expecting from the game in the first place, and not everyone is buying games for their stories. It's also subjective to if a player likes the story or not, but MY point is i don't feel there is a much of a focus on the stories in games as there should be. Considering the amount of money being spent on making these games now, why not ?

We have A list celebrities now voice acting the games. Isn't it time we got A list writers to pen the stories too?

Example - how about if Stephen King was paid to write the Script for Until Dawn.

Example - how about Clive Cussler is paid to write the script for Lara Croft games ? Do you see my point ?

Its the one area in a new developing medium of games, that i feel is being overlooked at the moment.