The Great American Video Game

The following originally appeared as a set of twitter posts from @jmarquiso under #gamesareculture. It will be expanded in the near future.

We constantly compare "the best" video game writing to "the best" film writing or "the best" TV  or "the best" novels.  It's a comparison I see a lot, and it's false. Do we compare it to the best music narrative as well?

Action games should be compared to an action movies - writing to the economy of Die Hard, and the minimalism of Fury Road In fact, both are excellent models for game-style narrative, as is the Odyssey. The Odyssey - the foundation of the Hero’s Journey as we know it. THE Hollywood formula, after all It has a very basic structure - Odysseus must go from A to B. Obstacles keep him from doing so. Can you name a game that follows this? Most all of them perhaps? It dates back to classic Super Mario Bros.

Fury Road is praised in its simplicity as "one long chase scene" - of course it's more than that, but that's the structure. Games can, and should, be compared to movies that do action really well.  One of the best features of the Fury Road is its dependence on acting, sets, art direction to sell lore and backstory.  As much as I don't like Bioshock: Infinite, it manages to achieve this establishment of tone and lore in the early stages.  However it's trying to say something about american exceptionalism as much as Fury Road takes on misogyny. It's subtextual

The Odyssey's subtext is alternately interpreted as Odysseus returning home to his son, his wife, or his family - each different.  There's a very patriarchal reason for his return to his son, to pass on his lessons on life, and traditions of his family.  His wife is turning down suitors which are eating Odysseus's family out of house and home.  It's up to the interpretor to see if that's referring to his wife as possession, or his wife as caretaker, etc. The narrative point of the Odyssey is the journey of Odysseus to his home. His motivation changes based on subjectivity.  This is obviously not due to "poor writing" when it comes to the Odyssey at all, the tale endured & outgrew its own culture.  If anything plenty of game writing is overwritten in an attempt to make deeper points where deeper points need not be made.  The Odyssey endures to this day as many different iterations of the "road movie" up to and including Fury Road.

So let's go to the "original" "road game" - Mario. Obstacle storytelling. Fantastical mushroom world with no explanation. It's largely all surface. What minimal writing there is exists even today as memes. Yet, from Mario to Call of Duty... ...that Mario narrative structure has changed little. Character must get from A to B. Complicated by obstacle course.

So should we compare the best movie writing to the best games writing? Context, genre, style, counts.

Citizen Kane was written by a radio producer using multiple elements of the sound film as an early art film. It flopped. It's now recognized as one of - if not the - greatest film ever written, despite most of its inventions being cliche (at this point in time, of course).  

The Odyssey is an epic poem that's perhaps the greatest influence on our modern conventions of storytelling. It's about a guy trying to get home.

Will we have a game with such standing?

While many gamers complain about the cinematic influence on games, it's interesting to note video game influences on film Inception has multiple "levels" of storytelling, each needing to be complete to escape dreams - snow level, city level, etc The Matrix stole ideas about "cheat codes" and "hacking" and applied it to a narrative about a collective game state.

It's no coincidence that @moviebob described Castlevania as "Die Hard in a castle against dracula"

It's a rule of screenwriting to be as economical as possible, to trust actors and directors to provide subtext.

Games should do the same with their players