Games are actually the worst way to tell a story for the following reasons:

1) A player's primary concern is not to immerse himself in the story.

It's all subjective, but I'm a big fan of good stories. Who cares what medium it takes? Video games are actually an evolving art form. You could almost say it was growing up quite nicely until it took a step back into infancy with the current console generation.

I like all kinds of games and if I was playing baseball on an old Intellevision I wouldn't expect much story. But sometimes I play adventures because of the story, not the puzzles or action or graphics.

Even Doom 3 gave a passable background story if you were interested and looked for it. Cutscenes, whether static or semi-interactive are one way to put that forward. I liked Quake 4 with the background talk, giving you a bigger picture of what was happening around you.

I think it's great that developers are putting time into this as it makes our virtual worlds that much more believable and immersive. I think Jerryk was just commenting on how he's read all the lore in the Daggerfall/Morrowind/Oblivion universe. Books are one way to do it, cutscenes are another. I'm sure we'll see many more creative ways to do it in the future. Many people here can probably think of great ways that it's already been used.

Writing a book or making a movie gives complete control to the story teller, the audiance is a passive onlooker. Video games come in all shapes and sizes from rail shooters to sandbox RPGs. It's always been a challenge to code code for all possiblities that a user might make, let alone write personal branches of a story for them that will ultimately make sense.

I think it'll be an interesting time for us gamers once people that can't handle watching a cutscene aren't the only ones developers are creating games for.

Hope that makes sense.

Wow, I'm surprised this Steam article didn't get a rise out of Riley/>U. Maybe he's too busy trying to actually get some work done.

yeah Blizzard makes some kickass cutscenes (not counting that WoW garbage) The Diablo 2 cutscenes were really world defining for me, (if you cared enough about the story that is though)

I really dug the cutscenes in starcraft. I looked forward to them quite a bit as I was playing through the single player, which like all blizzard rts single player seems like a glorified tutorial for multiplayer. I look forward to the starcraft 2 cutscenes quite a bit as well.

What an asinine article. 'Duh, I don't like cutscense so they should be eliminated.' What a dumbass!

Cutscenes help to truly define a game. Imagine Fallout without cutscenes? It'd still be a great game, but cutscenes elevated it to an art. Only idiots with ADD don't get or like cutscenes.


'The media says I use fear as a tactic. That doesn't even make sense. How do you use fear as a breath-mint?'
- Terry McGurrin as George W. Bush

Don Reisinger needs to pull his head out of his ass, if he wants constant mindless action them play diablo, don't complain about story based action games telling a story.

Gaming really started taking a hold in the 90s, so it took us at least 15 years to get to the point of Bioshock, his pentacle of measurement. Now he is standing in the corner jumping up and down throwing a fit about *how dare developers use cutscenes* to tell stories in a world culture where cutscenes are the norm, good or bad quality.

If Don really wanted to use his bully pulpit for something useful (instead of pimping Bioshock), try forcing developers to provide a *Skip Cutscene/Dialog* keys.

I agree with the article. Storytelling in videogames needs to evolve and take advantage of the medium, not mimic film. Film and games are two entirely different beasts. So different, in fact, that the roles in storytelling need to be reversed. As games are an interactive medium, it should really be the player who is telling the story to the game, not the game telling the story to the player. A good RPG does this to an extent and even Far Cry 2 looks to experiment with this concept.

Games are actually the worst way to tell a story for the following reasons:

1) A player's primary concern is not to immerse himself in the story. A game, by its very nature, presents the player with numerous goals at any given time. Kill this guy, collect that loot, jump across this ledge, get to that door over there, find the key, solve the puzzle, etc. As such, the players focus is constantly placed on these goals rather than trying to associate with characters or immerse themselves in the story.

2) Lack of authorial control. The storyteller in a videogame has minimal control over the protagonist (a.k.a. the player). If you force the protagonist to perform certain actions, either through cutscenes, linear levels or scripted events, then you are taking the play out of the game. In other, non-interactive mediums, the audience is captive. They have no control over the protagonist or any character so they have no choice but to experience the story vicariously through them. In a game, this is not the case. The protagonist is merely a pawn for the player to command, negating the need for personal association.

There has never been a videogame that could rival a film or novel in terms of storytelling because we still insist on sticking to traditional storytelling methods. It's time to think outside the box.

Dawn of War had the coolest intro movie ever, and then it was off to play the game. The rest of the story was told via in-engine scenes which I though worked very well.

I disagree with eliminating them - I believe cutscenes can be a very effective storytelling device.

Personally I think storytelling is way too limited if it's constantly from the player's immediate point of view.

Sadly, this happens far less often. The majority of cutscenes are "told" from a different perspective than the immediate point of view.

I like cutscenes, but only in certain genres of games.

I like most cutscenes too. But this guy is saying he doesn't like being taken out of the game's simulation of its reality by suddenly being put into a set camera, etc.

Personally I think storytelling is way too limited if it's constantly from the player's immediate point of view.

I generally like cutscenes if they advance the story or look cool.

If you don't like them, hit the <esc> key. Pretty simple, it's worked for like a couple of decades.