The number one goal of any corporation, especially those involved in the creation of entertainment media, is to make money. For interactive entertainment media, primarily video games but also including other industries like film that require a certain amount of effort by the consumer, they have the added responsibility of making sure the technology that pairs with their product works well and is easily accessible to the consumer. Often times, especially given the rapid evolution of video game technology in the last 10 years, game developers get caught up in the technology and world building and fail to create genuinely interesting characters or plots. In the modern day and age allowing something such as lack of plot to kill your game is extremely inexcusable.
Some games write several plots that allow a consumer to get absolutely lost in a game. Take The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for example; I personally have sunk over 40 hours into various play-throughs of that game, and I’m gearing up to do it again as the HD remastered version prepares to launch. That game allows you to craft your own unique character in terms of physicality, but it also does a good job of allowing the player to make in-game decisions with vastly different outcomes allowing the player to play the game their way. The plotlines, from the main (Dragonborn) storyline to even the simplest side-quests, give the player either difficult or fun tasks to complete, enrapturing most players in the world. The gameplay is fun, and the controls are generally responsive with sensible menus and HUDs (despite occasionally running into the Bethesda “I must jump up this mountain” dilemma). Another game in which I have found a willingness to sit and play over and over again is the second of the Batman: Arkham trilogy, Batman: Arkham City. The gameplay is fun, the art is amazing, and the controls have a 99% success rate (every once in a while some camera angles get weird and interfere with the required gadget). The story employs previously established characters and a plot build-up and climax that simply cannot be beat. Batman, as a character, is an interesting study in terms of building a plot.
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Often in film or television a consumer must employ what is called “willing suspension of disbelief”, or the ability to believe that not everything in the constructed world will mirror established laws in the real world in order to construct an engaging environment for the plot. Generally, when discussing the age-old “Marvel vs. DC” debate I take the stance of “Batman is my favorite superhero, but Marvel is better than DC overall”. I still maintain that stance and let me explain: DC writes better characters. These characters have depth and history and intertwine with one another often creating several different stories, but these stories often involve layers of time travel and get highly convoluted. Marvel might have slightly less interesting characters, but they are put in situations which force them to make compelling decisions yielding significant, plot-altering consequences. I don’t care how great a character is written or developed, if you put them in a boring or confusing situation I will lose interest without a doubt. The desire to know what situation a character is going to find themselves in next is what keeps consumer attention, and there are very few situations where it is only the visuals or the gameplay mechanic keep a consumer entertained (example: the new Ghostbusters; that’s a conversation for another time).
Many potentially good games have been lost in the technology process. The game Uncharted 4 spent most of its advertising boasting no loading time between cut scenes and realistic art/character models. Having played approximately 13 hours of the game I will give it the credit of delivering on everything it promised (looking at you, No Man’s Sky), but failed to deliver a compelling story or, at the very least, interesting dialogue. The game offered nothing new in the series and every level felt just as repetitive as the next. I lost interest halfway through the game and don’t think I’ll be going back to finish it any time soon. This is heartbreaking considering that series was developed by Naughty Dog, the firm behind hit title The Last of Us, a game so genuinely moving with its relatable characters and intense, moving relationships.
Without a good story, interactive media can only go so far. Newer ventures into even deeper interactive media such as Virtual Reality get a pass on storytelling (for now at least) considering the technology is so new. Breaking ground with technology isn’t enough to base an entire game on. Video game developers often get lost focusing on the technology and forget that the reason interactive media is interactive is the potential to get lost in the story.
