"Video Games Better Without Stories? - #CUPodcast"

[kane_magus]

Watch on YouTube

"Are video games better without stories? An article from the Atlantic argues that games don't need narrative."

---

Here is the article to which they are referring: "Video Games Are Better Without Stories"

Ah, yes... that old "video games don't need/shouldn't try to have stories" chestnut, yet again. So banal. Without going into much of a long-winded, tiresome rant again, I'll just say that I agree with Pat and Ian here, and mostly disagree with the article in question.

If you took a game like, for example, Planescape: Torment and removed the story, what you'd have is something vastly inferior. So yeah, to say that video games (as though all video games are some sort of homogeneous, monolithic entity) are better without stories is a rather asinine declaration, in my opinion.

"All literature is just fanfiction of The Epic of Gilgamesh." I don't know who originally said that, and I'm not sure I agree with the statement, but still, that's what I kept thinking of every time the guy in the article kept going on about how video games just restructured stuff from older games (i.e. Gone Home coming from BioShock, etc.) and such.

Also, the guy talking about "teen fare," as if literature intended to be enjoyed by a younger audience is somehow innately inferior, is a rather noxious premise as well.