Ok, i'm the first one to say that 99.9% of videogames have shit stories, however, let's not just simplify that issue calling the writers hacks.
Sure some of them, or even most of them probably are, but there are other fundamental problems at play here.
A big one being a structure that doesn't lend itself well to traditional, linear storytelling, like literature and film do.
And an even greater one, is how incredibly focus tested and pre-screened and pre-approved by clueless marketing suits etc etc, every game is.
Sure this happens in Hollywood, too, but in film's case, there's a far smaller divide between an hollywood mega monster and a "normal" film.
In videogames the step is greater, from AAA to self published little indie thing.(although things are changing)
It's not as easy as just having a good story to tell.
EDIT: This was aimed at Doc Seuss.
I could do a better job than most people in the industry even with the limitations imposed by marketing.
In a studio that seems to empower its writers like Bioware, I could write
significantly better stories than they could.
And yeah, I realize that sounds amazingly arrogant, but understand--I'm just a film student taking screenwriting classes. I'm no pro. I'm nowhere near as excellent as the writers and artists I idolize.
I feel I could do better than most people in the games industry because most of them are abhorrently bad. Yeah, that might be offensive, or mean, or whatever, but... why not demand better than what we're given?
I don't believe this is the case in regards to this article necessarily but you do see this. I believe it comes from the fact that it is applauded that someone is willing to write an article that they sadly know a war will be waged against it. Just the act of writing about a controversial subject, no matter how flawed the analysis is becomes something of a noble action worthy of praise and recognition.
This is outside of what is happening in this topic. At least, I believe so. She made a point about how her problem with this situation was the pause before the director cut in being too long.
No, I don't think it's the case in regards to this article--but I've seen the response to some of the things Ellison's written in the past, with a few journalists taking what she's written and just... running with it. Turning it into a big ball of Twitterjerk.
I feel like the same thing might happen here--you're going to have people going "hey, don't buy Hotline Miami 2, booo, we won't support a con that supports Hotline Miami anymore, we're rethinking our relationship with Devolver," and a bunch of other stuff because of the immediate emotional response that they have to Ellison's piece.
I think that criticism of pieces like this (for instance, earlier in this thread, I posted my interpretation of the moment, based on the context and my understanding of Hotline Miami) often gets a response like "well, even if it isn't good, she's still bringing the issue to attention, and that's worthwhile..." but honestly, I think that's problematic. Kinda gets back to the whole 'some criticism is harmful to its audience' thing; bringing an issue to attention doesn't inherently mean the method used to do so is inherently good--for example, flinging animal blood over people to raise awareness about animal abuse is vile and will turn people
away from the cause, if anything.
I feel like people are defending bad criticism that promotes flawed understanding of a thing because it's on the right side. It's deeply troubling.
You are entirely correct.
I guess what I meant was every thread of this type goes back and forth between, "What about freedom of speech?" and "Oh YEAH, but what about the critic's freedom of speech?" Everyone can offer a critique, and that's good. But that doesn't mean every critique is valid, as you're right to point out. And, as I said, nobody has to give a crap about any of the critical discussions either. (From example, I ignore most threads about subjects like this because I know from experience that they generally amount to and accomplish nothing.)
It frustrates me that more people don't do in-depth critical discussion. The film buffs I know just absolutely go to
town on fascinating discourse over their beloved field... but with games, it's "lol you think too much and are trying too hard," or "well, it's good someone's bringing a problem to light, even if it isn't relevant," or something like that. Game discussion often feels so hollow. :|
I know this is off-topic, but I have no idea how you derived this idea from the
article in question. I mean, the only quote with "Flagon" in it is as follows:
Bissell's criticism of Skyrim was that the bulk of its narrative comes from incredibly clunky and poorly presented one-sided cutscenes about stuff that barely relates to the adventures you're actually doing. In contrast, the writing in Dark Souls (whose tone is "faux-Shakespearean", suggesting style, not quality) is pretty much only concerned with what is directly relevant to your adventure, letting the environments and encounters tell the story themselves.
That could be a poor criticism (I haven't actually played Skyrim, so I can't really answer that), but it's nothing like what you're portraying it as.
That's me misremembering poorly. As I'm reading this, I actually feel like an entire paragraph or two of what I read is missing, but, hey, it's probably just my memory.
He's basically arguing that the problem is more about the words and the portrayal than the story itself and the way motive works. Yes, Skyrim delivers its story poorly, but that's not really the problem with it, not by a long shot. Better production values and more concise language isn't going to make the game any better. To make such a laughable comparison as this:
Incompetence is a strong word, and I use it in a considered manner. That is, I use it in light of what happened to the RPG between the release of Oblivion and Skyrim, which was the appearance of From Software's Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.
...is just... it's entirely senseless. I mean, reading what he's written, it's all very nice, grammatically, but he's comparing very, very different games, with very, very different narrative and gameplay goals. It's not to say that some of what he's written there isn't worthwhile (exposition dumping is a huge problem in most games writing--many bad writers are obsessed with lore and undervalue drama), but he's completely missed how stories function, and reading other stuff he's written only cements my belief in this. While lore is a problem in Skyrim, it's not the problem that makes or breaks the game in the way Bissell paints it, and to suggest that Skyrim's storytelling is incompetent because the Souls games delivered their lore differently... it's just senseless.
