14 DAY TRIAL // This year's Game Design Conference in San Francisco saw many interesting presentations from established game industry veterans, as well as presenting an opportunity for independent and aspiring game makers to hone their craft.
Tom Abernathy's "plot is highly overrated" statement is one such interesting opportunity to learn more about what happens behind the curtains and how developers work their magic in order to present us with compelling titles.
Tom Abernathy is Riot Games' narrative lead, responsible for creating back stories and flavor text for the popular multiplayer online battle arena game League of Legends' extensive roster of champions. He worked at Microsoft and was involved in the development of Halo: Reach, and he pointed out that both internal as well as externally conducted research proved his point.
During the course of his presentation, he pointed out that the plot itself didn't resonate with a majority of players the way characters did, stating that they were responsible for hooking players, and not the actual plot, contrary to popular belief.
He was joined by Microsoft Game Studios' Design Lead Richard Rouse III, and the two gave an insightful speech titled "Death to the Three Act Structure," talking in depth about game narrative in successful productions such as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Fallout 3, Portal and The Last of Us.
They revealed that when players were asked to tell the plot of their favorite movie or TV show, they were able to talk at length about it, but not so when it came to their favorite video game. The data shows that game characters, on the other hand, were consistently remembered, as were gameplay events tied to the plot.
This reveals the fact that players are more than just mere observers, and the interactive nature of the medium causes them to be involved in doing stuff than on following complex plots and stories.
Additionally, the two unveiled that statistics showed that most players didn't finish the games they played, and that the numbers proved that, on average, only a third got to the end of any given title, with the number growing to around half in narrative-driven games such as Mass Effect or BioShock.
Their conclusion is that plot is highly overrated, as far as games go, because players don't remember it and the majority of them won't even get to experience a finely crafted third act that solves an intricately constructed plot, therefore making so much work superfluous.
In the end, the two mentioned that players remembered characters and their own experience while enjoying the games, recommending that designers should focus less on the intricacies of storytelling and more on the really important things, such as well-built characters and an engaging experience.