As a philosopher who teaches aesthetics and a gamer, I find questions about games and art interesting. As I have argued elsewhere, I take the intuitively plausible view that video games can be art. However, even if this is considered settled, there is still a rich vein of philosophical issues to mine.
One topic that I and many other gamers find interesting is the importance of story in games. John Carmack, who knows a bit about games, once said that “story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” Folks who delight in story driven games disagree. For the sake of this discussion, I will be assuming that games (specifically video games) can be art. I have argued for this over the years but will not repeat my arguments here.
Obviously enough, there are games that have no story at all and are still good games. To use some obvious examples, Tetris and Asteroids are story free, yet great games. Naturally, these are not the sort of games that people debate about when it comes to whether story is important. However, it is worth noting these sorts of games because they provide relatively pure context in which to present two relevant points.
The first is that game mechanisms (the purely game aspects of the game) are reasonably seen as being distinct from the art aspects of the game (the game as art). After all, while all games are games and some games are art, not all games are art. This can, of course, be disputed. However, it does have enough intuitive plausibility that it is well worth considering.
The second point is that even the art aspects of a game that is (or contains) art can be distinguished from each other. For example, while Tetris and Asteroid do not have plots, they do have game artwork and sounds (which might be dismissed as mere sound effects rather than having any status as art). As another example, the music and visual art of Halo can be distinguished from each other in that one is music and the other visual art.
The importance of story is most interesting when it comes to games that do, in fact, feature a story. Obviously enough, the story (or plot) of games has varying degrees of integration into the game. For games that have a story, on one end of the spectrum lives the games whose story has a minimal role in the game. One excellent example of this is Serious Sam: The First Encounter. The game does have a story: an evil alien threatens earth and you, as Sam, must travel in time and kill wave after wave of monsters. That is pretty much it. Despite the limited story, the game works amazingly well as a game and it is fun to play. On the other end of the spectrum are games that are heavily story driven, such as the classic Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur’s Gate 3. These games are, not surprisingly, role-playing games. In these games the player takes on the role of a character and spends considerable time talking to non-player characters, making decisions and experiencing the plot unfold. As might be imagined, the story in such games is much more important than in the typical first person shooter. In the middle are games like the Halo series which have well-developed stories and unfolding plots, but do not have any role-playing elements. For example, in Halo games your choices mainly revolve on what gun to use to kill which alien in what way.
As might be imagined, the significance of the story would seem to be proportional to its role in the game. After all, a first-person shooter whose plot is lacking or poor would suffer less than a story-driven role-playing game whose plot is lacking or badly done. That said, it could still be argued that plot is important.
It is tempting to compare a game with a story to a movie and, obviously enough, plot seems to be somewhat important to a movie (although Michael Bay, some might claim, has long endeavored to prove otherwise). The idea of plot being the most important aspect of poetical works (broadly and classically construed to include theater) dates back at least to Aristotle. To steal his argument regarding tragedy, the following argument can be given for the importance of plot in games that have a story element.
Games are not an imitation of humans (or elves, aliens, or dragons), “but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.” It is, of course, the actions taken by people that “make them happy or miserable.” As such the “the incidents and the plot are the end of” the game and “the end is the chief thing of all.” Thus, the story is important, at least on the key assumptions made by Aristotle.
For Aristotle, a key part of having a good plot is ensuring “that the sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity permits a change from bad fortune to good or from good to bad.” In more general terms, the plot must be such that the events make sense and fit together to form a coherent whole. In my own experience as a gamer, I have consistently disliked games in which the story fails to meet that basic requirement that events play out in a way that makes sense (except for games that are supposed to not make sense). After all, if you are running around in a game doing things that make no sense for no apparent reason that leads to nothing, then that will tend to be a disappointing gaming experience (although it would be a fair approximation of life).
The obvious reply to this is that there are games that are weak in stories that seem to be great successes as games, thus helping to support Carmack’s claim. This seems a consistent aspect of the top tier first person shooters as they tend to be marked by weak, implausible or otherwise lame plots but are top ranked for game play, especially competitive multi-player. As I once jokingly put it while playing one of the Borderlands games, “I don’t really care why I am killing, I just care about whether I’m enjoying it or not.” That, I think, nicely captures the view of most gamers.
This view often extends into games in which story would seem important, such as role-playing games. While some people do enjoy going through all the dialog and getting into the story, my experience is that the main focus is on the game-play rather than on the story. This even extends to my experience in traditional role-playing games, like AD&D and Pathfinder: many players are far more into roll-playing (that is, simply killing monsters in combat) than role-playing (that is, talking to the monsters before killing them).
Getting back to the claim that the game aspects of a game are not art, this does seem to suggest that the story is not as important to the game as the game aspects of the game. Alternatively, it could be argued that the game aspects of the game are still art, but they are a different sort of art than a story. After all, the name of the game is, well, “game” and not “story.” In the case of a first-person shooter, the game is (obviously enough) about shooting things from a first person perspective. Story is thus secondary. Even in role-playing games, such as Pathfinder, all the actual game mechanism are about rolling dice, usually while trying to kill monsters who are blatantly and shamelessly holding the loot that rightfully belongs to the party. While the game can be augmented by art (acting, beautiful maps, and well-crafted stories) the core of the game is, it can be argued, the game mechanics. As my friend Ron has said, “if you are not rolling dice, you are not playing the game. You are just sitting around the table talking.” Those who enjoy role-playing would, of course, disagree.
The idea that a game should be focused on the game is also consistent with Aristotle’s view: “each art ought to produce, not any chance pleasure, but the pleasure proper to it.” But story is fine, too.
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