- RECON828
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- Fabled Heroic Member
Posted by: SorrowSlaying
Posted by: RECON828
I think gaming's too limited to become true art. Gaming has to always, always put gameplay first and plot second. Other media like film and literature don't have this restriction.
So, let's look at gameplay and what it has going for it. When you make a film, it's perfectly acceptable to not have a single action sequence for the whole thing and for that not to affect the quality of it at all. With a game, the audience constantly has to be doing something. Sure, you can throw in cutscenes and in-game dialogue, et cetera but that can only do so much to tell a story.
Even with games like Bioshock and Red Dead Redemption, which are both among my favourite games and often regarded as the pinnacle of in-game story telling, they still don't come close to the likes of The Godfather and all your other classic movies. They're too limited by their nature.
I think that this is true to an extent. Right now, the rule, as you said, is "gameplay first, writing second." What if that changed? What if a game focused entirely on the plot, and you just made every decision for the protagonist? Those games suck me in. Sure, there needs to be a balance, but I think too many developers haven't seen the power good writing has yet.
If you stop prioritising gameplay, you start making an interactive movie or, at the very least, you're sacrificing what makes it a game.