Why the Quest for Story in Video Games Will Fail
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I believe that this is a key reason that the quest for "better story" in video games is doomed for failure. Not spectacularly, but on the route the industry seems to be taking, I don't think we'll ever have our "Citizen Kane."Spotted on RPGWatch.
(Which I think is kind of a silly comparison, as I don't believe Citizen Kane was recognized as such a landmark in cinema when it was first released, and it certainly wasn't a commercial success. And I gotta ask... where's the NEXT Citizen Kane going to hit the theaters? Have things been all downhill since 1941?).
In some ways, I think game developers are trying too hard. They are over-applying the rules of linear storytelling to a degree that it distracts from the point of a game - to be interactive. The stories need to be interactive, too. Maybe not on the level that Chris Crawford is trying to achieve, but on the level where it invites the player's imagination to participate as a co-author. Instead, the player is too often forced to disengage their active participation so they can be force-fed a cut-scene. The result is a disjointed feeling where the player has two juxtaposed stories he's trying to reconcile - the one he or she is imagining as they play, and another one thrust upon them that may not jibe with how the game is playing out in their mind.
