Looks like the General Gaming forum is what most people go to these days

[darkchrono]

You sure you know what you are talking about. Books come from professional writers and storytellers. Video games come from professionals at making graphics.

You think games are on an equal level as books. Think of a popular video game whose story is on the same level as a popular book (not including xenogears since I mentioned that that was the only one I could think of already).

And if you think about it if somebody was so good at creating stories why in the world would they stay in the video game medium where the vast majority of the audience is silly 16 year olds. When they could go into the adult writing business and reach a much wider and mature audience.

....The people who make the graphics AREN"T the same people who make the story. There ARE professional writers writing the story lines for video games.

And adult writing business? If you pay attention, a lot of these games have many deep and mature concepts. For example, even some of the older SNES games had amazingly developed stories. The Lufia Games, Breath of Fire II come to mind. Then theres Earthbound, and while the overall plot was somewhat basic, the individual stories that were found throughout may not have been that deep, but they were packed with humour and very well placed cultural references, not something some amateur writer came up with.

Then of course games like Xenosaga, which employed heavy christian Symbolism, unique characters and concepts. Lets not forget the political overtones that filled games like FF XII and Wild Arms 4.

There are a LOT of very well done stories in video games, they are simply forced to present them in a different fashion then in books. To say that video game writing is by default lower quality, with the exception of the story you so happen to like, is an insult to all those who put so much effort into their art.

.

Sorry but if you included some of the final fantasy stories and Wild Arms stories in that list then I'm not sure you have a real good grasp of what a good story is.

The final fantasy stories while they are fun to play they are very childish at the same time. Let's look at ff7 (which many people consider to have one of the best stories if not the best story within the entire series).

Try to sit down and think about what took place within ff7. When you think about it the only thing that happened was that Cloud met up with a group of rebels. The rebels tried to save the city by blowing up the reactor. Then the rebels find out about a person named Sephiroth and virtually spend the rest of the game finding things out about Sephiroth. That's it. That's all that really happens story wise. What made ff7 so interesting was the things you were able to find out about the main characters along the way. But plot wise the game was rather mediocre.

Basically most video game stories are all the same. Overyly young characters go out on an adventure and end up trying to save the world.

So please tell me where you hear that video games have professional writers writing for them. Because I have a very hard time believing that if they are really all that great at their art that they would seclude themselves in a genre full of people who can't appreciate how talented they really are.