Ken Levine: Gamers are retards

[Tagaziel]

http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/03/24/ken_levine_on_story/

****in' bullshit.

And it really shows just how dumbed down Bioshock was.

 

[jimbo118]

'Storytelling In BioShock: Empowering Players to Care About Your Stupid Story'

Lol.

 

[KagePrototype]

Uh, I'm not sure you read the entire article before posting this.

 

[Sedako]

Some of the most highly regarded PC games in history had really deep stories, including System Shock 2 itself. Let's take Metal Gear as an example. It easily has one of the most complex stories of any game series to hit the market, but it's still one of the most popular around. Not that he's wrong about the current state of gaming, but Ken needs to get his head out of his ass and realize that Bioshock would have sold very well even with a deeper story. The people that don't care for the story can always just ignore/skip.

 

[taviow]

I would have loved it more complex. I felt it was missing characters with

Spoiler

only Tennembaum, Ryan, and Atlas/Fontaine.

I'm sad now that I know it was supposed to be better

 

[<RJMC>]

so let make it like lost where the player dont know whats going on

I havent played the game but he made some points

but at the ends is jut making the game more broadly comercial that making a improvement in games

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Well there were the intermediate like the guy who gives you the nade launcher, Cohen. I guess just few compared to the size of the game, then again who wouldn't be insane or have left at that point.

 

[Kadayi]

It's actually a really good read tbh. He makes some very pertinent points about how story needs to be integrated into your environments rather than being a case of traditional narrative.

 

[KagePrototype]

I think a few people here are grossly misconstruing what Levine's saying. He's not saying all gamers are retards and should be treated as such, he's talking about hot to reach as wide an audience as possible when telling a videogame's story:

Levine explained how BioShock was constructed to appeal to the widest possible audience, which he outlined in the three types of gamers. The first, he said, was the kind of gamer who loves Halo and Madden NFL titles and doesn't care about the story at all - they just want to shoot and blow stuff up. The second type of gamer includes people that enjoy a good narrative for their shooters, but don't necessarily want to follow complex stories with tons of plot details and character. And the third type of gamer is the hardcore fan who wants to go as deep as he or she possibly can into the story, extracting every bit of information there is about the experience. The trick is, Levine said, you can't let the experience for the hardcore gamer get in the way of the Halo or Madden fan that just wants to blow stuff up. So how do you accommodate both?

 

[<RJMC>]

so thats like saying that you find a character that says to you "you have to save the world" and you have to keep asking it to know more what is going on


I think this is just using the fame of lost and storylines where "you dont know"

the mystery should be what will hapen not what is happening unless the story is focused on that cuz is that is not the case then the player will not care about the storyline

 

[Gray Fox]

Why haven't the released the whole story of bioshock on the net. I mean the fans would love to know what was cut. Just post it on a blog or upload a pdf.

 

[Tagaziel]

I think a few people here are grossly misconstruing what Levine's saying. He's not saying all gamers are retards and should be treated as such, he's talking about hot to reach as wide an audience as possible when telling a videogame's story:

Which resulted in lobotomizing Bioshock. In short, treating us like retards.

 

[KagePrototype]

Which resulted in lobotomizing Bioshock. In short, treating us like retards.

...yes, he's treating us like retards. Let's not try to see things from his perspective, or try to take in or understand what he's saying, because it's just not worth the effort. As long as we keep playing the victim everything will continue to make sense and we can just bitch and moan all we like about why he's not pandering to our particular tastes.

Gee, I never saw things from this perspective before. It's all so simple now!

 

[Tagaziel]

...yes, he's treating us like retards. Let's not try to see things from his perspective, or try to take in or understand what he's saying, because it's just not worth the effort. As long as we keep playing the victim everything will continue to make sense and we can just bitch and moan all we like about why he's not pandering to our particular tastes.

Argumentum ad absurdum. And you failed to get my point.

He might be right at fe points in theory, but practice (Bioshock) shows he prefers lobotomizing instead of creating a proper, layered design.

It's already been done in HL2, better. Casual gamers can zoom through the game blowing shit up, regular gamers can follow the story, and there are a ton of little details for hardcore gamers.

Bioshock only caters to the first group, since even the story is simplified.

 

[Asknoone]

Good article. That said, I think Bioshock had a lot of problems. I agree with the fundamentals of what Levine is saying but he clearly didn't start Bioshock with the philosophy he has today regarding the market, casual gamers and appealing to a broader audience – arguably a starting point for how much the game suffered Apollo Square and onward.

 

[Ennui]

Read the entire article before posting ffs, Kage is right

 

[Tagaziel]

I've read it.

And still feel insulted.

One of the RPGCodex guys put it in a great way:

He left the audience with three points of advice. The first was respect the audience; don't force the story on all players and make the narrative in a way that can please a diverse crowd.

Good point, as long as you're wary that a narrative that is dumbed down for the purpose of being accessible can insult the intelligence of your players. Wait. It will insult the intelligence of your players, though many don't seem to care because they're used to it.

 

[KagePrototype]

Argumentum ad absurdum. And you failed to get my point.

He might be right at fe points in theory, but practice (Bioshock) shows he prefers lobotomizing instead of creating a proper, layered design.

It's already been done in HL2, better. Casual gamers can zoom through the game blowing shit up, regular gamers can follow the story, and there are a ton of little details for hardcore gamers.

Bioshock only caters to the first group, since even the story is simplified.

Bioshock employs the exact same methods for telling its story as HL2, and then some. It caters to the first group by supplying the minimal exposition neccessary for players to get to blowing shit up, same as HL2; it caters to the second group with mise en scene, same as HL2; and it caters to the hardcore with all the diaries littering the game. As for the business of cutting characters, this is more often than not because those characters are simply not needed to tell the story. That's not treating us like retards; that's the mark of a good storyteller.

Oh, and forgive me for missing any sort of hidden point in "Ken Levine is treating us like retards".

 

[Krynn72]

It will only insult the intelligence to those who see everything as an insult to their intelligence. Only a small percentage are frail enough to be insulted by it.

 

[Tagaziel]

Bioshock employs the exact same methods for telling its story as HL2, and then some. It caters to the first group by supplying the minimal exposition neccessary for players to get to blowing shit up, same as HL2; it caters to the second group with mise en scene, same as HL2; and it caters to the hardcore with all the diaries littering the game. As for the business of cutting characters, this is more often than not because those characters are simply not needed to tell the story. That's not treating us like retards; that's the mark of a good storyteller.

Uh, what?

Since when removing plot points and characters automatically become the mark of a good storyteller?

Also, you're confusing the groups. Straightforward storytelling in the form of diaries are what the middle, regular group needs, the hardcore are who inspect meticulously their surroundings.

Oh, and forgive me for missing any sort of hidden point in "Ken Levine is treating us like retards".

Remind me to place a giant, glowing sign with exposition of my point just for you.

It will only insult the intelligence to those who see everything as an insult to their intelligence.

So I'm somehow missing the deep philosophical musings in Bioshock?

 

[CptStern]

Which resulted in lobotomizing Bioshock. In short, treating us like retards.

man read the article, he's not saying that at all in fact he points out that by expanding choice in the delivery of narrative they can satisfy the three groups of gamers he identifies in the article ,,if anything he's saying that gamers determined what would be in the game


face it most gamers ARE retarded ..ok maybe I'm being a little harsh but we're not the sharpest tools in the shed, as a whole ..however that shed is large and there's varying degrees of sharpness

 

[KagePrototype]

Uh, what?

Since when removing plot points and characters automatically become the mark of a good storyteller?

Complexity can be just as big a detriment to a story as simplicity; any good storyteller will tell you that. If you over-burden the story, it will collapse under its own weight.

Also, you're confusing the groups. Straightforward storytelling in the form of diaries are what the middle, regular group needs, the hardcore are who inspect meticulously their surroundings.

No no, I'm not. The environment tells its story very simply; all you have to do is look at it (for example: seeing two soggy corpses embracing each other on a matress). Its the diaries you need to search and scrutinise the levels to find.

 

[Tagaziel]

man read the article, he's not saying that at all in fact he points out that by expanding choice in the delivery of narrative they can satisfy the three groups of gamers he identifies in the article ,,if anything he's saying that gamers determined what would be in the game

Being scrutiny's bastard, I found the game to be lacking. I'm the kind of guy that is able to sit at the monitor for half an hour trying to get into a place where something interesting might be hidden, a small clue or plot point.

Levine limited the storytelling to pretty much diaries and voice messages, satifying the first and second groups but completely ignoring the third.

Which irks even more as I KNOW that much more was prepared, but wasn't put in the game in as simple a form as a newspaper. A note. A book.

He worked on the goddamn Thief and System Shock 2 for ****'s sake.

face it most gamers ARE retarded ..ok maybe I'm being a little harsh but we're not the sharpest tools in the shed, as a whole ..however that shed is large and there's varying degrees of sharpness

...I'm gonna get the whetstone.

Complexity can be just as big a detriment to a story as simplicity; any good storyteller will tell you that. If you over-burden the story, it will collapse under its own weight.

Thief and System Shock 2 were chock full of complexity and little details, yet it didn't collapse under it's own weight, since they had a well defined plot, and all the little details and complexity weren't essential to grasp the basic plot, but were instrumental in gaining deep understanding of it.

Bioshock, unfortunately, heals a sore bump by amputating the limb.

 

[Asknoone]

Since when removing plot points and characters automatically become the mark of a good storyteller?

Since when was it the mark of a bad one? Narrowing your storyline increases focus, thus making it better.

 

[Tagaziel]

Since when was it the mark of a bad one? Narrowing your storyline increases focus, thus making it better.

Isn't a rule. Oversimplifying it leads to predictability and general boredom.

 

[Evo]

*ignores the big arguments present*

Another interview where the storyline in games is talked about - right here.

 

[Absinthe]

So he cut his story down from a bloated, decade-spanning epic into something more manageable for not only the player, but the developer as well.

He's not saying anybody's retarded. But many if not most people don't give a damn about a game's story. Think what you want of Bioshock's quality, but his point is nonetheless valid.

 

[Gray Fox]

if you don't hate jrpg's I would recommend xenogears to you grizzly

 

[KagePrototype]

Thief and System Shock 2 were chock full of complexity and little details, yet it didn't collapse under it's own weight, since they had a well defined plot, and all the little details and complexity weren't essential to grasp the basic plot, but were instrumental in gaining deep understanding of it.

Bioshock, unfortunately, heals a sore bump by amputating the limb.

I'm not saying complexity = bad, I'm saying too much complexity can cause the storyteller to lose sight of what they're trying to accomplish. This sort of thing leads to crap like The Matrix Sequels, with too many poorly-defined characters running about on screen that the viewer doesn't give two shits about. On the other hand, if you want simplicity in a story working wonderfully, go watch No Country for Old Men.

Who knows why these extra character and plot points were excised? You assume they were interesting and compelling; maybe they weren't. Maybe they were repeating themes and situatons other characters were better at expressing. In all likelyhood, they simply weren't needed and it would have been a waste of time to implement them.

 

[CptStern]

on the very surface the Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is a story about a man and a fish

underlining the surface it's much more than that


...at least they attempted to add that extra layer with Bioshock which cant be siad about 99% of fps who's basic premise is "Kill Mendoza" or some variation of that theme


Grizzly I too lament the watering down of video games but I understand that 1995 will never return; games are much more of a risk costing 10's of millions of dollars ..you cant invest even a fraction of that if only 1% is going to see it ..you must accept the new reality ..or just stick with small developers; they're more likely to give you what you're looking for but dont expect good graphics, high production values etc ...or wait for the few hidden gems that come out every now and then ..games will continue to be an expensive risky venture, that's not going to change ..and since it's all profit driven dont expect them to not go for the lowest common denominator ..it's literally the difference between profitability and closing up shop entirely

 

[Tagaziel]

So he cut his story down from a bloated, decade-spanning epic into something more manageable for not only the player, but the developer as well.

He's not saying anybody's retarded. But many if not most people don't give a damn about a game's story. Think what you want of Bioshock's quality, but his point is nonetheless valid.

But why oh why didn't he leave at least *some* of that intented story back in? As it stands, Rapture had no history before Fontaine.

I'm not saying complexity = bad, I'm saying too much complexity can cause the storyteller to lose sight of what they're trying to accomplish. This sort of thing leads to crap like The Matrix Sequels, with too many poorly-defined characters running about on screen that the viewer doesn't give two shits about. On the other hand, if you want simplicity in a story working wonderfully, go watch No Country for Old Men.

True that.

It boils down to what kind of game you are making. There are those kinds that reward simplicity (certain adventure games or shooters) and where simple stories easy to follow are a must.

But there are also those where a complex story is a must, and Bioshock should've been one of them, especially since it was hailed as heavily influenced by objectivist philosophy and challenging on a moral level. The end result is that the game is simply shallow, with a binary ending completely detached from the story or philosophical themes it tries (but fails) to present.

System Shock is a great example of a rich, complex game where the plot isn't destroyed by complexity, on the contrary, it was enriched by it.

While it did have a lot of characters, the game wasn't ever about characters - it was about reconstructing the events that took place on the UNN Rickenbacker and TriOp Von Braun. The characters were used to further the story, vessels of exposition one might say.

Bioshock doesn't even come close to the complexity and richness of SS2.

Where a ****ing pack of crisps had a proper description.

Who knows why these extra character and plot points were excised? You assume they were interesting and compelling; maybe they weren't. Maybe they were repeating themes and situatons other characters were better at expressing. In all likelyhood, they simply weren't needed and it would have been a waste of time to implement them.

While you are automatically assuming that the developer knows better.

Grizzly I too lament the watering down of video games but I understand that 1995 will never return; games are much more of a risk costing 10's of millions of dollars ..you cant invest even a fraction of that if only 1% is going to see it ..you must accept the new reality ..or just stick with small developers; they're more likely to give you what you're looking for but dont expect good graphics, high production values etc ...or wait for the few hidden gems that come out every now and then ..games will continue to be an expensive risky venture, that's not going to change ..and since it's all profit driven dont expect them to not go for the lowest common denominator ..it's literally the difference between profitability and closing up shop entirely

I try to keep tabs on small development companies (heard of Age of Decadence?)... and thanks for some true words Stern. I appreciate that.

Anyways, I'm calling it a day. See you later.

Last note: Tomorrow I'm leaving for a week, so I might not be able to respond in that timeframe.

 

[KagePrototype]

While you are automatically assuming that the developer knows better.

I think it's fair to say that Ken Levine is more talented and experienced a game designer than both of us combined. I personally think he made the best of the situation he was in, and that Bioshock tells an awesome story that just didn't know how to end effectively (I could argue the same about SS2, but I won't).

Can we at least agree that he wasn't calling you a retard? Surely you're humble enough to interpret what he said as something other than an attack on your intelligence.

 

[Steven]

I don't like the simplicity of most games but I guess making the masses happy is better than making the minority happy. I'll just keep buying the games that appeal to me and see what happens.

People who dumb things down like that were the kids who didn't really like Superman but pretended to because they got better reputation in the schoolyard.

 

[Fliko]

But why oh why didn't he leave at least *some* of that intented story back in? As it stands, Rapture had no history before Fontaine.

Levine explained how BioShock was constructed to appeal to the widest possible audience, which he outlined in the three types of gamers.

Why would he add all this extra of CUT story to the game, if it would only scare away the HUGE majority of gamers that would bring in money for this game. It sounds like he cut so much story that Bioshock isn't the original world it was thought out to be, but even if that so it's not a stab at your intelligence. Does everyone really have the patience or time to explore a world at extreme depths. If they don't they'll feel like they're missing something and didn't get the full experience, but they don't have the time or patience. In the end they feel like they got ripped.

Levine said, you can't let the experience for the hardcore gamer get in the way of the Halo or Madden fan that just wants to blow stuff up.

He tried to compromise a bit. This game obviously is aimed toward the good narrative, and total action gamers but it somewhat appeals to the hardcore gamer.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Mikael, I sincerely look forward to playing your game when it's released to Candyland in 2030, where things like time and money constraints don't exist, and target markets are secondary to true creative vision. Lollipops and kittens, hooray!





By the way, I was being sarcastic.

 

[Laivasse]

Interesting how the article itself is like a macrocosm for Levine's storytelling philosophy: grab the attention of the most attention-span deficient of your audience via some eye-catching tinsel (eg. an abrasive headline calling them stupid retards), then back it up with something thoughtful for the people who are inclined to take the time to read further.

While Bioshock had it's problems (it just didn't play as well as my beloved HL2 and I never felt the need to replay it), I'm personally of the opinion that none of those problems were with the story, at least until the very end. Honestly, I found it to be pretty complex. The audio diaries didn't always reveal things in perfect chronology, so I often replayed old diaries in order to better understand the timeline. This was further complicated by the fact that you were trying to keep track of the stories of maybe half a dozen significant individuals. Add in a couple of the most 'wtf...!'-esque twists you'll find in any game's story, plus the underlying themes about objectivism and the consequences of unfettered capitalism, and you have a plot that was surely complex enough for any FPS with a relatively limited amount of play hours... A friend of mine, unused to games that tell sophisticated stories, listened to as many audio diaries he could find but still couldn't keep track of exactly what had happened with who. He still loved Bioshock's story for those bits of it that were impossible to miss.

Given that I've heard Levine state that the trite ending sequences were elements that he did not personally wish to see in the game, I'd say that he's still well qualified to be lecturing developers on storytelling in video games. I've experienced lots of stories that have destroyed themselves simply because the storyteller is proud of their story and wants to cram in as many revelations, plot twists, cool developments and as much detail as possible - completely ignoring how the story should be paced, or the limited sophistication of the medium being used. The stuff that was cut from Bioshock sounds like justly trimmed fat. Considering that the story felt crowded already I can't conceive of how they could have fit another 60 years of timeline in there.

I only hope the people he was talking to didn't misunderstand his point like a lot of people here...

 

[Raziaar]

The article was quite good. Good insight.

 

[Zephos]

The story could've been deeper for sure (a few more diaries here and there); but the game was still an intellectual giant when compared to other shooters on the market.

 

[MultiVaC]

I agree with Mikael here to some extent. If you look at SS2 compared to BioShock there is no comparison in depth. In BioShock I could name off almost all of the characters from memory if I had to. SS2 had about the same number of main characters, but also a MUCH larger cast of minor characters. Each deck had wonderfully wide array of people that were all pretty interesting, and it felt like there was a real society there. I haven't really counted the audio logs, but I have the impression that SS2 had way more; you couldn't really go anywhere without finding shit loads of them. In BioShock I remember being excited when I found one, and most of them were from the same few people. In BioShock there wasn't much as far as items; ammo, food and drink, plasmids, invention pieces, Eve hypos, autohacks, medkits, Adam, money, audio logs. SS2 has all of those (except invention pieces) plus implants, armor, a booster hypo for almost every stat, maintenance tools, research chemicals, more plot items, a recycler, useless things, even a handheld gaming device, and each thing had a data file about it. There was so much to do in that game, it was unbelieveable.

Obviously, though, if BioShock had all of those things it would have alienated the majority of the gaming population. Ken talks about the three types of gamers that BioShock had to target; I would guess the Halo/Madden types outnumber the other types several times over. The development costs of BioShock are just way too high to make it another SS2. And I loved BioShock, it stands head and shoulders above the modern day competition. I think that for now, we'll just have to accept that the big time games are not going to have the level of complexity that they did in the late 90's. But we have games like BioShock and Mass Effect that are gradually bringing more complexity into the mass market and have been really successful, and that's a good thing. My hope is that gaming, and gamers themselves, are going to mature quite a bit in the future. Games are still the youngest form of entertainment, and there's lots more to come. If some of those things Alex St. John talks about in that other article that we have a thread about are true, raytracing and advanced physics can make development much more efficient, and maybe small developers will be able to make hardcore games without having to spend ten of millions of dollars on graphics tech. That's my hope anyway.

 

[Gargantou]

MultiVaC, I do not believe things like 'true raytracing' etc in any widespread use in games is likely, infact the most likely thing I can see in the future is some form of 'programmed' dreaming, there's alot of progress being made when it comes to studying the brain these days, and let's face it, it's hard to get more realistic than dreams, I've had countless dreams where I've experienced stuff and actually believed it was 100% real, I've also had two occurences of lucid dreaming, one a few years back and one in February.

Imagine that you could just attach a small device onto your forehead(nanoscopic so it doesn't have to have any huge holes or leave any scars), load up a 'game'(a programmed dream), and play.

Or perhaps a device that let you record other people's experiences then play them up for yourself as dreams.