Games aren’t inherently bad at storytelling, it just has to be handled differently than a movie or show. You couldn’t make a movie like Outer Wilds or a TV show like The Stanley Parable.

Even something like The Last of Us which has sometimes been derided as a “movie game” takes advantage of the medium by letting you naturally build a relationship with Ellie and explore the setting. You can see that it the show; as good as it is, Ellie and Joel’s relationship progression is a little more abrupt simply because it can’t be done as slowly and thoroughly as the game can.

I think the answer of this is just “It Depends”

Some Games are very good at story telling and making a compellint narrative

Others are genuinely awful at ir

But thata just like any piece of consumable media, not all of it is good

No, they’re not. Hell, I’ve played games that have better stories than many movies & TV shows.

Games can get away with bad stories because sometimes it’s more about the gameplay. But games in no way inherently have bad storytelling.

Nobody says this.

Most of them. Lore and story are two different things, as are characters.

I disagree completely, games can be far better at storytelling since their story doesn’t have to be squeezed into 1 and a half to 3 hours, and being the player yourself you’re far more engaged with the plot.

Metal gear solid has to be one of the craziest, most convoluted stories ever and I was 100% down for every moment of that crazy shit. Mgs4 had me crying seeing old snake in the cemetery, knowing full well he was gonna die soon. I can’t remember who but think it was Otacon that offered him a cig at the end and he’s like “nah, those things will kill you.”. Yeah it was Otacon. Had to Google it. Also who can forget the cow things?

I wouldn’t remember this shit all these years later if the storytelling was whack.

Have these people ever played a Videogame? I doubt it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRmc9IPGmiA

I personally think they are. But that’s coming from someone who reads books more than i have time to play video games.

At best, stories in video games are very short stories. If you just write down the story, it’s not going to take you even an hour to read the whole thing. This doesn’t leave you any time to tell a really good story. Games rely on the player to make up the difference in the storytelling through their actions.

Some games do better than others, but they’re never going to tell a story as well as an actual novel would be able to tell that same story.

It’s definitely like that with current day games, barring a special few obviously. I hate that gamers can’t accept when games have dogshit stories but then claim it’s skyrimesque( cough elden ring is complete dog shit story cough)

I don’t think they are bad. They are just slow in telling the story.

No, people are bad at paying attention. They get all wrapped up in the game, what comes next, what do I do now, etc, that they don’t stop and listen. They just have to go go go, and then complain that they don’t understand the story. Maybe take time and slow play instead of trying to beat everyone to the end. It’s more fun that way.

I don’t play games that try to force a huge narrative on you. Those aren’t games, they’re things created by people who were not good enough to get their story told in traditional media and not good enough to flesh out a decent game in and of itself.

Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.

- John Carmack

In other words, set up the setting of the game and then for the most part, stop telling your story and let the game speak for itself. What a concept.