Jeff Kaplan: preference

Transcript context

…From a designer/creator perspective, ’cause you don’t know what the players will create, so that’s fun to see. You, you, you lay out the chessboard, you lay out the world, and then you get to watch what they create together. That’s true. I struggle because sometimes people call me the anti-story guy in games, and that really hurts me because, like, I actually love story in games, and I counter that I’m the anti-shitty story guy. And what I mean by that is like, A, the most magical stories that I’ve ever heard come out of video games are player stories about, you know, the time I gave Barfa a potion and then I met him in real life. Like, that’s better than any video game writing that I’ve heard in a long while. The player story is so much more interesting. You know? “Lex, why do you like the cow level so much?” “Tell me about some goofy time-” “… like a loot goblin drew you into the most danger.” “And… But there was another player there, and then…” You know, like, those are the stories that I think are more interesting from games. There are some exceptional writers in video games and some exceptional games at story. You know, I’ve mentioned Naughty Dog, like they’re kind of on another level. But Valve has amazing writing. The writing behind Half-Life 2, Marc Laidlaw; the writing behind Portal- … and Portal 2. I think it was Erik Wolpaw, who is hilarious, just amazing, and Rockstar. Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and that’s a game where you can see the expertise and mastery of the game design and the narrative design, and the fact that you can have those player stories of just the goofy shit. Like, I remember… ‘Cause the controls are a little awkward in Red Dead for a PC player who’s playing on console. Like, I always get confused about, like, taking out my gun and putting it away, and what’s, you know, the L1 and L2. Like, as a PC gamer, I’m just like, “Let me bind this stuff to where I want it.” And so like, you know, a guy in town rides by and he’s like, “Howdy, partner.” And I go to, like, give him the Arthur Morgan, you know, “Hey, what’s up?” back, and I just whip out my sawed-off shotgun and, like, blow his fucking head off. And then the whole town is like… Suddenly I’m, like, under… I’m wanted and I’m being chased, and then there’s a train that, like, takes out the posse, and- Yes.…

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