That is their (and obviously yours) take on it, and transferring that way of thinking on other areas (to make everything instantly approachable and accessible on the spot), the basis of all that dumbing down that is happening right now in computer gaming.
It is more an assessment of the situation and the constraints going with it than a take.
And that is not dumbing down because there is no alternative.
I kinda disagree you see. I believe that gamers would indeed appreciate something deeper, persistent and reasonably polished and in striving to reach a sort of wide audience
Players'demands are phony. Players do not want to live up to their expectations. This is what they show.
TW2 is a good study case. The studio came with a hard line like reviving the time when players read manuals, were able to figure things out by themselves, were ready to invest in discovering a complex story.
The studio delivered and the reception of the game showed that while players claimed they want this or that, it is better to say they love having the thought they want this or that because when it is delivered, they do not like it.
When it comes to conveying stories through video games, the main question is what the player knows of the story.
For a book or a movie, it is fairly easy to answer: the knowledge is proportional to what the reader/watch has read/watched. At that page, movie moment, the reader/watch knows everything that has happened before, according he or she watchs or reads everything before. This is indeed an ideal case but fairly common because there is no structural opposition to it.
If a reader behaves normally, he reads one page after another, a watcher watches minute after minute. The entirety of the information is conveyed to him. And through one activity: reading, watching.
For a video game, it is totally different. By structure, a player might know only 70 or 80 pc of the story content, even though the player plays normally.
Another point is that the story is conveyed through multiple media: reading, watching and playing the game itself. And players have a different approach to them: some read all the written content, others skip the cinematics etc…
At any moment in a video game, the question is how much of the story the player knows.
Even better, I remember an external link on here to a review of TW2 with the same blame: the story is not properly contextualized, he could not understand it, he could not get into it.
I could not understand it because I experienced very differently, the story was well contextualized and I knew enough of the intrigue to anticipate it. I was in active stance as it makes me want to progress through the story.
It happened the player had reviewed the TW1 and I read it to try to understand. The answer was there: he played 30 pc of TW1.
Lets rescale it on the ground that averagely, players are exposed to 80 pc of the story content.
In the end, he knew something like 20 25 pc of all the story content. And he demanded that TW2 story had to be accessible to it. How do you want to build a complex story line accessible to players like him?
Can it be imagined that in a book/movie trilogy, somebody who watched/read 20pc of the first movie/ book and say later he cant contextualize the story in 2 and therefore it is poorly done?
Not every player finishes games. How do you want to convey a story or more, a complex story when you dont know what the player knows of the story you are telling?
Even with disciplined players, the delivery through the video game medium comes with a loss.
With a movie, you know where you are with watchers who watch from start to end. Same for a book.
With a video game, even with a player who play from start to end, you know much less. You can force narrative go through points but you are left with a quantity of material that is similar to foot notes, side notes etc
In addition, you have to keep in mind that access to missing bits is hard in a video game.
I do not recall having indicated that I am particularly hang up in story heavy games to the exclusion of gameplay (I am a gothic fanboi after all
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The quoted point does not address you specifically. It just states that delivering stories through video games is a pipe dream and therefore should be abandoned in favour of gameplay, which can be delivered.