Why is Story so Important?

This question seems to have come up quite a bit recently within the community. It's been said that books, TV shows, or movies have better stories than video games and some have said story has no place within gaming at all. Well, I would have some very harsh words for those people, but I'm gonna be nice and explain why I feel story is a very important aspect of gaming. There is little doubt that books, shows, or movies have far better narratives than video games, but that is no reason to discredit them altogether. Stories presented in video games can provide a very unique experience those other forms of media could never replicate.

As I have said in previous articles, it isn't easy writing characters and a comprehensive narrative into the structure that is a video game. Even the most linear of games will have that one, always unpredictable variable: the player. After all, the player could be someone who stays within boundaries and just goes along for the ride...or they could be someone that jumps around during dialogue and attacks every NPC in sight simply to see if they can. There's also the fact the story and characters have to be limited by the technical aspects of the game and even just the fact a player's ability to interact with each environment is rather limited. Even with the limitations; however, there is one thing that will always make game stories stand out.

You see, when reading a book or watching a movie, the viewer is, well, just that. They are a completely separate entity that has no interaction with the world or anything that inhabits it. A video game, on the other hand, grabs the viewer and shoves them into the shoes of the main character. Suddenly, they are no longer a bystander, but an active participant within the story and the world. With that interactivity, comes a sort of attachment to the environment and the other characters. It's one thing to read about a group of adventurers slaying a dragon, and it's something else entirely to, in a sense, actually take part in that epic battle. That's the draw to video games; instead of just watching everything happen, you are actually experiencing it.

Let's use an example: Telltale's The Walking Dead. This game is probably on the forefront of most minds when this topic is brought up. Everyone heralded it as one of the best video game stories ever told and that's because of the way it was presented. Would this game work well as a TV series or movie? Sure, but I would argue the impact wouldn't be the same for the reasons I listed above. Telltale's TWD presents the player with several choices; some of which are pretty difficult to just make an immediate decision on. That difficulty stems from the fact we have imposed our own mindsets and morals onto Lee Everett. When making a decision, no one thought, “Now, what would Lee do in this situation?” even thought he had an established personality and set of morals. This is, again, something solely unique to video games.

Instead of just watching Lee make a decision, we make the decision for him and, by extension, we experience any consequences that come as a result. Instead of Lee making a bad decision and just watching him suffer, we suffer alongside him. When Lee succeeds, we feel a part of that success because of the role we played in making those outcomes happen. As just bystanders, would Telltale's game have that same emotional impact that rewarded it the nickname “The Walking Feels”? Those million voices crying out once TWD was over did so because they felt like they had struggled alongside Lee to keep a rag-tag group of survivors together while protecting Clementine. You could apply this same thought process to any game with decisions, dialogue trees, or even just well written characters.

Video games offer a unique facet of story telling by providing a degree of interactivity we could never experience anywhere else. It goes beyond just playing Skyrim and saying, “Oh cool, a Medieval Fantasy world. Lemme spawn in a million cheese wheels and see what happens”. Video games let you actually experience and take part in the universes and genres we have grown up just watching or reading. That is why video game stories are so important. It doesn't matter how much “better” or “worse” a particular medium tells a story, but how invested we become in it. By placing the player into the world, video games achieve a degree of immersion that ensures these narratives remain unique.