“This is not only a failing of the series, which mimics its source material too closely, but of the source material itself which, stripped of its interactive components, doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny.”

think of a game as a series of spaces waiting to be filled with meaning - some of that space is filled with interaction. when you remove interaction from a game then there’s a void of meaning which needs to be filled by something else in order to have a similar experience

this binary of game & story, narrative & mechanics needs to be binned. the mechanics, the effects of agency, the specific affordances of each particular game - must all be regarded within the aegis of narrative. the story of a game includes & must be responsive to its form

which is also to say - to adapt a video game for another form without considering what will replace the pleasures of agency & interactivity is to misunderstand storytelling at its most fundamental

a good game story then, will necessarily be a terrible movie / tv show / book unless it is creatively transformed, because a good game story has different ambitions, possibilities, values, unfoldings than a good story in any other medium

unfortunately vast swathes of our industry - particularly execs - value the rubrics of cinema, and so games are cursed to narratively emulate & be judged against a schema built for an entirely different medium which cannot recognise the extraordinary possibilities of our own

thank you @lewis_gordon for your piece but also I resent that it was interesting enough for me to have public thoughts about the TLOU adaptation

many people wanted functionality to print their 80 Days playthroughs as novels - but as @joningold perspicaciously said, "it would be a shit novel". and it would be! 80 days works in the playing of it, reading the outcome devoid of the interactivity would be DULL

that doesn't make 80 Days a bad story and therefore a good game, but rather that its story works *as a game* - the fact that it wouldn't be an interesting read without the ludic aspects isn't a failure of storytelling, but a recognition that story & game are inextricable