Why do stories not matter anymore?

I'm pretty sure, this won't get me a lot of friends now, but the way I see it, is that - just like in the movie industry - there's basically two types of game designers and has always been: visionaries and contractors.

Visionaries will make a game based on their own judgement and their own perspective. Those games might often not be perfect for the market, they will often not generate as much of a revenue, but in many cases they're just great games and in some cases, the innovations they create - especially if unconventional - lay the fundament for a franchise. Usually those people put a strong focus on story, just like on everything else, and won't ship, before they believe, the game is near perfect.
An example of this, I think, would be a game like Metal Gear Solid. Who would've bet back then, that a game that has almost more cutscenes than actual gameplay would be such a success, yet it created one of the bigger franchises.

Contractors on the other hand create games based entirely on marketing aspects. Nothing about the game is important, if market analysis doesn't show, that it can help grow the community and increase revenue.
I think the best examples for this kind of aproach are modern MMOs. I'm not even gonna go into the story/narrative quality of those...

That said, I believe when the know-how on game development was harder to find and market analysis was much more expensive due to the lack of internet, the latter group of designers was simply outnumbered by the former, who would likely accept losses, if they could just make their vision happen.

Today however, I believe that with know-how available at low cost and with market analysis much easier, contractors are simply flooding the market, having a better knowledge of what players want. They are more successful admittedly, because they focus more on what the large communities want to have. They certainly produce more and their games are more targeted. Yet if it's not an AAA title though, I still feel, that stories/narratives are always coming short here.

I hope, I won't have to read a flood of posts about how dumb I am now, but that's the way I feel the industry has developed.

 

It's not all black and white in my opinion.

 

you're quite right i think...
but cemeteries are full of forgotten geniuses...often...
and if you are SQUARE, fine you can take a risk... when you are john Doe , you may want to give yourself a little chance of success.
Like @Martin_H said, it's not binary, i feel the success is all in a smart balance of both aspects.

 

I absolutely agree, so I guess I am dumb too.

Look at Minecraft? A game everyone, including game developers, never thought would make it. My college son did a paper on Markus and my high school daughter read his biography for school and shared some of the information with me. Amazing! He took a risk and it paid off for him.

However, large companies can't do that because like so many other types of corporation these days, they are beholden to their stock holders. They must produce profit and lots of it or the entire company fails. So I get why they produce games that appeal to a massive broad audience. I also get why they copy successful games, over and over again.

But I too miss the days when an exceptional game would come out of a small company...although more often than not, that small company was eventually swallowed by a big company and those exceptional games because less and less exceptional.

I always thought the indie gamers would pick up that ball. I have written in many posts how many of my friends are forsaking the big games for indie games. Unfortunately though, I see more and more indie games just copying the formula and they seem to be successful doing this, just like the big companies. And since success is based on numbers and money, not artistic quality, my guess things will not change. Sooner or later, some indie developer will create a great game and then everyone else will rush to copy it.

Exactly. Success for most people means making money. That great indie game probably won't come out of people who can't take risks. It will come from someone who has nothing to lose, who scrape together a budget to make a game that appears innocuous and might even be bashed here on the Unity forums but captures the imagination of a group of players who spread the word by mouth.

Maybe it will come from someone here, although it won't come from those that need the income. It will come from someone who makes games for the love of making games.

 

I've clocked almost 360 hours on Skyrim. Most of it has been wandering around and getting myself lost in the environment and I've loved every minute of it too. I've never even beaten the main story line nor have I seen all there is to see.

 

Yeah, that is how I play games. lol I love to just explore and find all those little things that probably few even see in an open world game.

 

When they say 400 hours they probably mean including all sidequests and grinding out all achievements. I bet the main story can be finished in way shorter time if you push for it. But who does that? I'll play a bit of story to unlock stuff and mainly explore the world till I'm bored. Then I'll finish the main story.

 

Yeah, Skyrim is a bit of a disappointment with how small it is

 

I think they also include sandboxing. In sandbox games, and MMOs similarly, it's much easier for the player to make their own stories. I spent dozens of hours wandering Fallout's wasteland doing my own thing outside of the authored storylines.

But I think the OP was lamenting the perceived lack of authored stories in modern games. The distinction is fuzzy because even authored stories need to be somewhat interactive, which means they're malleable by the player. But I think we've provided plenty of examples of great authored storylines in modern games, many of which get lost in the flood of non-story games, especially casual mobile games. The perception is that mobile games need to be playable in 5-minute chunks with no continuous narrative thread. But even with mobiles there are story games like Republique.

I do worry that games are going the way of movies. A lot of movies dumb themselves down to appeal to global audiences by removing quirks and expectations particular to any culture, and by replacing complex dialogue with easily-understandable visual spectacle.

 

Skyrim is the odd one out, it's based upon exploration and most interesting when you avoid playing in a linear fashion. Some of the best story's and engagement came from exploration "like the dark brotherhood". The main quest was meh.!

But it's a very fine line, without constant different content to break it up said games can become either a walking simulator or a game you just wish would end.

Also by keeping quests in a relatively short chunk, you retain interest. Witcher 3's main quest dragged because of it's format. It became long and drawn out, excellent game sure.. Too big and too long? Definitely.

If anyone can pull off a 400 hour game it's Bethesda, but one design oversite and it'll become a monotonous drag of a game. We'll see...