Will Wright thinks games aren't the right medium for telling stories

[A Black Falcon]

And doesn't like playing story-based games like the MGS series. Considering the kinds of games he has made throughout his career this isn't exactly surprising, but I thought the article was interesting enough anyway. :)

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadg...l?hpt=Sbin

The article mostly exists to talk about why Will Wright is doing an upcoming TV show on Current TV. He decided that to tell a story he'd rather do television than videogames. I think that games can tell stories well, but it certainly is true that they usually don't. till though it is possible, even if it is true that there's usually a conflict between story and the primary reason games should exist, gameplay. Games that manage to combine story with gameplay effectively, such as Torment, are few and far between to say the least...

[Great Rumbler]

Half-Life 2 combines gameplay and story really well.

[Weltall]

How silly. Any medium can tell a story, and effectively if those who attempt it know what they're doing.

I don't think Wright is any kind of authority on the subject, anyway, and the article makes it plain that he doesn't like story-driven games, so no bias there, I guess. He thinks all games should be like his games.

I don't generally care much for most movies, but I won't deny that the medium has obvious benefits when it comes to conveying a story over other mediums, as well as its own shortfalls.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, Will Wright's games aren't the kinds of games that tell stories, but that certainly doesn't mean other kinds of games can't do it pretty well. Still though, it is true that if you game is all watching cutscenes it's not much of a game, I've never exactly been an MGS fan...

Half-Life 2 combines gameplay and story really well.

Yeah, something like that's a much better way of doing story in games than something like MGS.

[Great Rumbler]

Will Wright hasn't made a game worth spitting on in a decade, so whatever.

And don't say Spore, because Spore wasn't worth spitting on either. It was ultimately bland and forgettable, saved only by the final segment managing to be kind of fun [but only in relation]. Biggest disappointing of the decade, even beating out Fable. Will Wright should have made Minecraft. It's a simple game that focuses on doing one thing really well: placing blocks on top of one another. Spore tried to do everything and it failed hard.

[A Black Falcon]

I haven't played Spore, it didn't sound very interesting so I never seriously considered getting it. Still though, it's at least somewhat original, that should count for something... though going by opinions it clearly didn't live up to what it was supposed to be, just wasn't as good as hoped for from a Will Wright game, or something along those lines.

[Great Rumbler]

It's original only in that no one has ever tried to staple five different [and very, very shallow] games together before. Every aspect of the game is simplistic and brain-dead easy. The microbe segment is fun, but not much different than that free flash game that came out prior to Spore. The creature segment is really slow and really not fun at all. The two Civ segments are an utter joke, destroyed on every level by Civilization and Populous. The space segment was the best, but still just basically Galactic Civilizations, only simpler, with some sort of neat action parts tacked on. Didn't really help that your ability to interact with other civilizations was incredibly limited.

I got more enjoyment out of the free creature creator demo than I did the full game.