CHAPTER

Thirteen

The Argument Against the Supremacy of Player-Driven Storytelling

Supporting more traditional, less player-driven stories doesn’t seem to be an overly popular position among members of the video game industry. At the very least, the pro-player-driven storytelling crowd is certainly the more vocal of the two by far. However, the pro–traditional storytelling side has many well-respected supporters of its own, and they have a strong set of arguments to back up their position. Although you can’t really deny the superiority of player-driven storytelling if it’s assumed that what players want and enjoy most is to become an active part of the story, whether those assumptions are actually true is highly debatable. In this chapter, we’ll go over the key points of the pro–traditional storytelling arguments:

• The fine art of storytelling

• Time, money, and player interest

• Keeping the story interesting

• Loss of impact

• The illusion of control

• Giving the players what they want

The Fine Art of Storytelling

As we discussed in the previous chapter, it can be argued that traditional storytelling long ago reached its peak as an art form – especially considering that many of what are considered to be the best stories were written hundreds or in some cases even thousands of years ago. But even if that’s true, is it such a bad thing? As anyone who follows video games should know, it’s often not until a product (be it a game console, hardware device, or software program) has reached its peak that developers are able to utilize its full potential. Once all the bugs have been worked out and every aspect and feature is fully understood, developers know exactly what can and can’t be done and how to best take advantage of every aspect, while avoiding the research and the trial and error process that filled their earlier projects, to bring out the best in the device or program. For a simple example, games that were released near the end of a console’s life cycle (like Kingdom Hearts II) show an enormous technical improvement over those released early on (such as The Bouncer).

Why shouldn’t storytelling be the same? It can be argued that traditional storytelling has survived so long in its current form not because humanity lacked the inspiration or technology to create more player-driven stories, but because traditional storytelling is a finely tuned and highly versatile form and is in fact the best way to tell most stories. And because the art of storytelling is already perfected, modern writers don’t need to waste their time and energy chasing vaguely defined goals such as “evolving the art form” and can instead focus on what they do best: creating good stories.

Time, Money, and Player Interest

The Added Time and Expense of Creating Player-Driven Stories

On a more practical level, creating highly player-driven stories isn’t easy. As we’ve talked about in previous chapters, doing so takes a lot of time and money. And, in the game industry, those things tend to be in short supply. Say we have a game using interactive traditional storytelling that has about twenty hours of gameplay. Now let’s say that we want to take that basic game and change it to a branching path story with three main branches and numerous minor and moderate branches along the way. All of those additional branches are going to need a considerable amount of writing and design work. They’ll also require additional programming, art, animation, sound, and testing. Although some elements can be reused across branches, the change from an interactive traditional story to a branching path story has probably doubled or tripled the workload. Changing that branching path story to an open-ended story would increase it even further.

Now, extra work means that the game will take longer to develop and may even require additional employees for the game to be completed within any sort of reasonable time frame. Those extra employees and working hours cost more money, and the longer the game spends in development, the longer it is before it actually ships and starts making money of its own.

Games using highly player-driven stories simply aren’t very cost-effective when compared with those using more traditional forms of storytelling. And although a few developers and publishers can afford to spend several years and tens of millions of dollars working on their next game, most can’t – especially when it’s in no way guaranteed that the game will sell well enough to make that investment worthwhile.

Adding Interaction at the Expense of Other Elements

Because adding extra branches and types of interaction takes additional time and money, one way to try and make up for it is to cut costs in other ways, which often means removing or cutting back on other things in the game. As I mentioned in the earlier chapters, it’s quite common for endings in multiple-ending story games to be rather short when compared to games using interactive traditional stories. Similarly, the main plots found in open-ended stories tend to be rather short and simple when compared to those using less player-driven storytelling methods. Although story elements are the most common things to cut out, optional quests, mini-games, and gameplay features can also be cut.

Consider our sample game, which – when using interactive traditional storytelling – took an average of twenty hours to complete. However, in order to have more time to work on all the extra content when it switched to a branching path story, it might become necessary to cut out some of the characters, story scenes, and quests. What started out as a twenty-hour game could now be a twelve-hour game. Of course, with three main paths of twelve hours each, the total play time is significantly greater than the original twenty, but it’s quite possible that without the eight hours that got cut, the story simply isn’t as interesting or well paced as it was before. Plus, there’s no guarantee that players will play through the game multiple times.

To save time without cutting content, some developers reuse as much material as possible between their different branches. Although this approach can reduce the need for cuts, it raises problems of its own. Once again looking at our sample game, let’s say that instead of cutting content, we decided to reuse as much material as possible. In the end, reusing material saved so much time that very little had to be cut and we’ve got our three main branches, each with about eighteen hours of gameplay. However, because we reused so much content, each of those branches has the player visiting the same areas, meeting most of the same characters, and completing many of the same quests. Although we didn’t cut much, we didn’t do a whole lot to differentiate the three main branches, either, which probably isn’t going to provide a lot of incentive for players to replay the game. This was a common complaint about the game Saga Frontier. It featured seven unique heroes that the player could choose from, each with his or her own unique story. However, those stories featured many of the same towns, dungeons, enemies, and allies, as well as the same collection of optional quests, which made playing through every character’s story highly repetitious, even though they all added something new to the overall plot and mythos of the game.

Making a game always involves trade-offs, though that fact can quickly become more obvious when trying to create a complex highly player-driven story. Sometimes these trade-offs will improve the game and other times they’ll hurt it, but it’s a very delicate balancing act and something that developers and publishers need to keep in mind when they want to keep adding additional content.

Who Is Going to See It All?

Let’s say we decided to bite the bullet and spend the extra time and money necessary to complete our branching path story game with a minimal number of cuts and content reuse. This leaves us with a game with three highly unique main branches, each with a set of minor and moderate branches, and a total playing time of about twenty hours per main branch. But now that our masterpiece is complete, the real question is whether players will notice and appreciate all the extra work that went into it.

Although there are hardcore players who will play through a game dozens of times to uncover every last quest, conversation, cut-scene, and item, they’re a very small minority. It’s a rather unfortunate fact that many players play through a game only once before moving on to something different. Some don’t even complete most of their games at all. This means that, disappointing as it may be, most players aren’t going to play through our game three times to explore all of the major branches, much less the six or more times that would probably be required to see all of the minor and moderate branches. Furthermore, depending on how the branches are structured (their content and decision points), it’s quite possible that the most players will devote their single playthrough to the same major branch. If that’s the case, was it really worth so much extra time and money to create all those branches and extra content, when the vast majority of players will never see them?

Keeping the Story Interesting

Now that we’ve covered the points based on artistic merit and game development, it’s time to focus on the heart of the matter: specifically, whether highly player-driven forms of storytelling create better and/or more enjoyable stories. Because games are made for the players and their enjoyment should be one of the key concerns, this is naturally a very important issue. If players really want and enjoy games with highly player-driven stories much more than those with more traditional stories, production costs and arguments about artistic merit should be less of an issue. But does the ability to interact with and influence events really make a story more interesting, engaging, and/or enjoyable? Let’s look at some reasons why that may not be the case.

Story Structure and the “Ideal” Chain of Events

Let’s start with a what-if scenario. In the bestselling novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry’s parents were murdered by an evil wizard when he was a baby, leaving him to be raised by his nasty aunt and uncle. This continues until shortly before Harry’s 11th birthday, when a man named Hagrid appears, tells him of his wizard heritage, and presents him with an invitation to study at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While there, Harry makes friends and enemies, starts learning magic, and finds out more about his past. In the end, he even survives an encounter with the evil Lord Voldemort, the wizard who killed his parents.

Now let’s pretend that we changed it to a branching path or open-ended story. What are things that the player might decide to change? The murder of Harry’s parents certainly isn’t a pleasant event and leads to Harry’s miserable life with the Dursleys, so that seems like a good place to start. But then what would happen to the rest of the story? If Harry’s parents survived, he would have grown up with a loving family and known about magic, witches, and wizards for his entire life. He also wouldn’t have his iconic scar or be known as the only person to ever survive Voldemort’s killing curse, making his reputation and status in the magical world considerably different. In the end, the entire story would be changed in significant ways. Would it still be a good story? Maybe. But then again, the loss of Harry’s unique position as a newcomer to the world of magic and his fame for surviving Voldemort’s attack would likely rob the story of much of its wonder and conflict.

Moving on, Hagrid’s sudden and decidedly odd appearance – not to mention his shocking declaration that magic is real and Harry is a wizard – naturally left Harry rather confused and suspicious. So it wouldn’t be too surprising if players suspected some sort of trap and had Harry turn down the invitation to Hogwarts. And then what? Following Harry’s “adventures” at boarding school and with the Dursleys probably wouldn’t make for a very exciting tale. At the very least, it would be a completely different story than the one that has captivated tens of millions of people worldwide. Then again, let’s say that the player did allow Harry’s parents to die and had Harry attend Hogwarts. Near the end of the book, during their confrontation, Voldemort offers Harry a chance to join him. In the book, Harry refuses, but what if the player said yes? Perhaps the player wants to see Harry become evil, is trying to stall for time until help arrives, or thinks that pretending to join Voldemort will give him a good chance to stab the dark lord in the back later on. This too would drastically change the rest of the story, and probably not in a good way. Although a story with Harry as the villain may be interesting to some, it would certainly have much less appeal than Harry as a hero. Considering Voldemort’s character and motivations, it’s also quite possible that he’d still try to kill Harry regardless.

The choices players make won’t necessarily lead to a more enjoyable story. In fact, the opposite is much more likely. If you pay attention to story structures, you’ll notice that many stories are interesting only because a very specific series of events takes place. If even one of those events was missed or handled differently, the hero would die, reach a dead end, or find himself following a much less interesting path. Even worse, it’s often difficult to tell which choice is the “correct” one. Some can be fairly obvious (most people will probably realize that joining Voldemort is a bad idea), but others are less so (such as saving Harry’s parents). This is especially clear in branching path stories such as the Choose Your Own Adventure books and visual novels like Fate/Stay Night, in which a very large number of the possible choices lead to a sudden bad ending. And although some of these bad choices are fairly obvious, others initially appear to be perfectly good courses of actions.

The Problem with How We Think

So what are the odds that a player will make a poor choice over the course of a story? From a purely statistical approach, when there are two options, the player has only a 50 percent chance of making the right choice. If there are three options, that drops to 33 percent and so on. Of course, that would hold true only if players make their decisions at random, but that’s not the way things work. Players will use their intuition, common sense, and personal preferences when making decisions, so that should significantly increase their odds of making a good choice, right? Actually, no. In fact, when faced with a decision, people usually try to avoid things like danger, tension, and conflict. In real life, that’s usually a good idea, but in a story it can make things pretty dull.

To demonstrate, let’s think about a generic slasher/horror movie. In this movie, our generic bunch of stereotypical teenagers is camping out in the haunted woods when they stumble upon an ancient graveyard and remove the magical seal on one of the graves, accidentally reviving an evil serial killer. He then proceeds to chase them through the woods, killing them off one by one until the last couple of teens somehow manage to defeat him once and for all (or at least until the sequel). Now let’s imagine what the player would do if this were a player-driven story of some type. It falls to reason that any player with half a brain would be smart enough to realize that camping in the haunted woods is a bad idea to begin with. He or she also would probably have the heroes steer clear of the graveyard, or at the very least leave the magical seal alone. Even failing at all of that, the player would certainly have the heroes stay in a group so that they could fight off the killer, rather than splitting up so they can easily be picked off one by one. After all, the player doesn’t want the heroes to die. It’s all common sense (something the characters in slasher movies tend to completely lack) and would certainly lead to the “best” possible ending, with all or most of the heroes surviving. But the resulting story certainly wouldn’t be a slasher movie and would probably be pretty boring. A movie in which a group of teens think about camping out in a haunted forest but realize it’s a bad idea and go bowling instead wouldn’t be very exciting. Even if the killer did get free, having the heroes stay together and think about their actions would likely allow them to defeat him quickly and easily. In the end, the player is left with a story that, despite his or her careful control over the events, is rather boring and certainly not the bloody and spine-tingling thriller the player was hoping for.

Although not all story types rely on the hero’s stupidity the way many slasher films do, it’s quite common in storytelling for a mistake or failure on the hero’s part to be a key element without which the rest of the story would change drastically or even collapse. Unless players use a strategy guide of some sort, the chances of them making all of the right choices throughout a game are extremely low. And because most players complete a game only once, the chances of them ever seeing the “best” path aren’t good, especially if the less than ideal paths continue on for a long time before ending. Although following the advice in previous chapters and trying to ensure that only the most interesting and enjoyable branches and options make it into the game can help, the more choices and control you give to the player, the more difficult it becomes to create a unique and interesting branch for each possible decision he or she could make.

Trying to Correct a Mistake

It’s highly unlikely that players will make all of the best possible choices on their first playthrough of a game using player-driven storytelling. So what happens if they make a wrong choice? Well, that depends on the game. In some games, such as Fate/Stay Night, the majority of wrong choices lead to a sudden bad ending. Naturally, there’s nothing better than a “game over” screen to tell players that they did something wrong and need to try again. What really matters is how easy it is for them to go back and correct their mistake.

In branching path stories, the decision points are usually very obvious, so it’s easy enough for players to reload from an earlier save file, go back to the decision point, and try another option that is, of course, assuming that they didn’t somehow save over their file while on the wrong path, leaving them with no option but to restart the game. It can also be problematic if they didn’t save their game recently and need to spend a considerable portion of time getting back to the decision point. Both of these issues can be blamed on player error, though a well-implemented autosave system can easily solve them. Many visual novel games even include a feature that lets players rapidly skip over previously completed sections in case they do find themselves replaying a considerable portion of the game just to get to a specific decision point (a solution that can work well for many types of game that are made up of clearly divided levels or scenes).

But it isn’t always so easy. Some decision points aren’t very obvious to the player, especially the ones that are based on general actions rather than specific decisions. Things like the relationship-based ending system in STAR OCEAN: SECOND EVOLUTION and the various behavior-based branches in games such as Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 2 are somewhat hidden from the player and can be hard to fully understand without the use of a strategy guide. This can make it very hard for players to determine exactly what it was that they did that caused the story to turn down an undesirable branch, making it very difficult for them to go back and fix things, especially because doing so often requires replaying a significant portion of the game.

Things become even more complicated when the consequences of a decision aren’t made immediately clear. Even the results of a very obvious decision point can be difficult to identify if a large amount of times passes between the decision and its consequences. For example, in Fate/Stay Night’s Heaven’s Feel branch, players will be unable to achieve the best ending unless they make certain specific decisions much earlier in the game (specifically, those that improve Shiro’s relationship with Ilya). However, there are no immediate consequences if Shiro distances himself from Ilya early on, and should the player fail to befriend her, she simply won’t show up to help Shiro near the end of the game. This leaves the player with no hint as to the important role Ilya plays in the best ending and how vital it is to get on her good side. Many decisions in Heavy Rain operate in a similar fashion. Important decision points such as whether Ethan becomes close to Madison or whether Jayden finds certain vital pieces of evidence about the Origami Killer’s identity aren’t made obvious to the player, with the game continuing normally regardless of the player’s actions, but have a very large impact on the final parts of the story. Without the use of a guide, it’s very easy for players to miss those pieces of evidence or make the wrong decision with Madison and never realize how much the story changed because of it. And even if they decide to replay the entire game, there’s no guarantee that they’ll realize the importance of those points or make the correct decision the second time around.

Although fixing a mistake can at times be difficult enough even with clear decision points where the consequences are immediately shown, it becomes far more challenging in games that use more open and natural forms of decision making. Having a very large number of decision points and branches further complicates matters, making it even harder for players to determine exactly where they went wrong – all of which is hardly conducive to an enjoyable experience.

Loss of Impact

Highly emotional moments in stories have a tendency to lose much of their impact when the players know that they can always go back and choose a different outcome. As an example, let’s look at a moment from FINAL FANTASY VII that is frequently cited as one of the most shocking and emotional scenes in gaming history: the death of Aerith. Aerith is a flower girl living in the slums of Midgar who befriends Cloud early on; she also happens to be the last surviving member of the race known as the Ancients. Aerith is a very sweet, kind, and friendly girl and plays a large role in the story. She also proves to be an extremely useful party member, with excellent magic skills and some of the best limit break abilities in the game. These traits combined to make her a very popular character and caused many players to give her a permanent spot in their battle party. Her sudden murder at the hands of Sephiroth approximately halfway through the game shocked, saddened, and enraged players. That scene cemented Sephiroth’s status as one of gaming’s most infamous villains and started a seemingly endless chain of rumors and speculation about ways to revive Aerith (of which there aren’t any, by the way). Her death is still talked about now, more than a decade after FINAL FANTASY VII’s release, and as I said before, is often considered one of the most emotional moments in gaming.

But if FINAL FANTASY VII had used a branching path or open-ended story, would Aerith’s death still have had the same impact on players and the game industry as a whole? The answer is a resounding no. The very fact that there was no way to save or revive Aerith is what makes her death such a moving event. Just like in real life, death has a huge impact on people and society due to its finality. Had FINAL FANTASY VII used a branching path or open-ended story, instead of agonizing over Aerith’s death most players would have merely shrugged it off, loaded their last save, and kept choosing different branches until they found one where she survived.

This loss of impact can be seen as a serious flaw in player-driven storytelling. How is it possible to tell a moving emotional story when the player can always backtrack and undo decisions that don’t turn out the way he or she wants? Death, failure, mistakes? None of that really matters as long as there’s a way to undo and avoid them. You could, of course, have a player-driven story that simply doesn’t allow the player to avoid certain events (such as Aerith’s death), but in many ways that defeats the purpose of player-driven storytelling. Players will be left wondering why you gave them control in the first place if you’re not going to let them do anything about the moments they most want to change. Putting a very long gap between the decision point and the event can help, as many players won’t realize the connection or won’t want to replay so much of the game in order to change things, but that can frustrate players and lead to the problems described in the previous section. Some branching path games such as Fate/Stay Night and Heavy Rain manage to pull off fairly deep and emotional moments while still allowing for a moderate degree of player choice, but in both games those moments come more from the situations the heroes find themselves in rather than “changeable” events such as a character’s death or a failure on the hero’s part.

The Illusion of Control

It can be argued that players may often enjoy feeling like they’re in control of a story, but – for the reasons we’ve just discussed – actually giving them a large degree of control can significantly detract from the story in many ways. Because of this, it’s better to give them a strong illusion of control instead of actual control. This illusion of control can be created in many ways. A lot of games using interactive traditional storytelling create this illusion by giving the players a large amount of freedom outside story scenes and providing optional quests they can participate in. Even most branching path stories give players an illusion of control far greater than the actual amount of control they possess. Heavy Rain provides an enormous amount of player choice, though as discussed in its case study, most of those choices have little to no effect on the main plot (although this isn’t immediately obvious to players). Similarly, despite all the decision points and choices available in Fate/Stay Night, there are only three major branches and a very large percentage of choices quickly lead to a bad ending.

Skilled use of the illusion of control will let players feel like they’re in control (at least to a certain extent) while still allowing for a carefully structured and meaningful story. Because of this ability, you can argue that there’s little reason to endure the expenses and difficulties required to give players a significant amount of true control.

Giving the Players What They Want

Once again, as we discussed in the previous chapter, it all comes down to what the player wants most. Although supporters of player-driven storytelling say that what players want most from a story is to become an active participant and control it, supporters of traditional storytelling argue that what players want most is simply a good, enjoyable story. Both sides agree that players won’t be happy with a story that they don’t find entertaining and/or interesting. But although a large degree of player control could conceivably allow players to ensure that the story follows the path that they’ll enjoy most, it’s far more likely that most of them will make a mistake somewhere along the way and end up stuck on a less desirable branch. Therefore, because most players play through a game only once, it makes more sense to use traditional storytelling methods so that players can be sure to see the best possible story progression and outcome. Meanwhile, any desire the players have to change and affect the story itself can be satisfied by a strong illusion of control, giving them a lot to do without any risk that their decisions will detract from or derail the main plot.

Of course, once again, this brings up the question of what it is that players really want most. Is it control, or just a well-written story? Although it’s easy to assume that the answer is one or the other, assumptions – no matter how well reasoned – aren’t always correct, which is why we’ll cover this issue in depth in the next chapter.

Summary

Though not as vocal as the pro-player-driven storytelling crowd, traditional storytelling has many supporters of its own, and they have some very strong arguments backing them up. First, it can be argued that because storytelling is such an old and well-developed art, it has already reached its perfect form, and chasing vague ideals such as evolving the art form is a waste of time. Second, the added amount of time and money required to make highly player-driven stories can quickly become a serious concern, especially when it’s taken into account that most players will play through the game only once and never see most of the branches and extra content. In addition, most stories are interesting only because of the occurrence of a specific chain of events. If players are given control, it’s extremely likely that they will eventually make a wrong choice and steer the story in a less interesting direction, no matter how hard they try to avoid this outcome. And after they discover that they’ve made a mistake (assuming they notice at all), it can be very difficult and/or time-consuming for players to find the place where they went wrong and to go back and change it. Player-driven storytelling also makes it difficult for highly emotional scenes such as a character’s death to have much impact, as the players know they can always go back and change things to get a different outcome.

As a result, it can be argued that giving players a strong illusion of control (through things like the gameplay and optional quests) is much better than giving them actual control over the story. This allows players to get what they want most – an enjoyable story – while still letting them feel as if they have an important role to play. Whether this is actually what players want most is debatable. In the next chapter, we’ll look at what players themselves say in an effort to discover what it is that they truly want.

Things to Consider

1.  Do you think that traditional stories are superior to more highly player-driven ones? Why or why not? Has reading this chapter changed your opinion on the matter?

2.  Briefly summarize your own thoughts on the key points covered in this chapter.

3.  Can you think of any additional arguments that could be used to support the supremacy of traditional stories?

4.  Do you believe that most players want a well-written and enjoyable story above all else? Why or why not?