There are a few things I have been thinking about lately with storytelling in general. Depending on the medium you choose, you have to accept certain limitations. Sometimes, the medium works out really well for the story you want to tell, but other times, it can hinder the story's progression.
For examples, you can look at lots of movie adaptations of novels. In order to tell the full story, lots of details have to be cut, resulting in the loss of subplots to focus on others. Often, the screenwriters also take liberties with the story itself, and sometimes, the "movie version" shares little in common with the book as a result. This is part of the storytelling medium; books allow lots of disposition on world details, character relationships, and internal thoughts that often cannot be communicated effectively in a movie. On the other hand, movies do really well with action, and can put a picture in your mind... well, by putting a picture in your mind. You can tell the same story in both, but each has its quirks that can either be exploited or make themselves nuissances.
The same thing goes for video games. It has some properties that really make it nice for telling a story. Before even getting to replay value, there are a couple things that have started to stick out to me, but one I would like to talk about in particular is pacing.
Lots of stories involve characters traveling relatively large distances in order to get where they are going. Fantasy is a big offender where the time taken to travel can get really long, and that is not something the reader usually cares to read about. Because, well, walking is boring. As a writer, one can only do so much with it. At the same time, lots of stuff could happen while the adventurers are going where they need to be. How does one split the difference?
Well, a lot of times, in writing, we pick out the good bits and skip the rest to keep the plot progressing at a steady rate. But in games, we can let the player figure that out.
While going from Point A to Point B in a game, the characters often have to face various challenges. Not necessarily huge challenges, but stuff like random encounters crop up in lots of games. Otherwise, or in addition, there are usually things that the player can choose to investigate--side quests or dungeons, random things sitting on the ground, etc.--that break up the monotony of lots and lots of walking. In addition to providing opportunities to advance the character's abilities with these, or to practice skills that the player will need later, it lets the player read in some story of his or her own.
Furthermore, adventuring like so allows the writers and/or developers to present a lot of information on the world that might have been difficult to squeeze into the story or gameplay. For example, a few well-placed, exploitable plants say a lot more about a world than you might expect; it can tell you the climate without the characters having to whine about how hot or cold they are all the time, what people are eating in this world, and so on. That, among other things, contributes to immersion. Some games are even mean and make it hard to find your way to the next destination unless you listen to the dialogue for your directions, forcing you to look out for important landmarks to get your bearings.
So, what are the benefits of telling stories with games? The truth is, the obvious benefits of presenting the story itself lie somewhere between what you get with a book and a movie. While aesthetics can be brought up to near the point of a movie, you also get a lot of breadth that a book can present. Furthermore, games can provide a depth of experience not available to either, by way of letting the player decide the pacing, letting them stop to sniff the flowers or beeline to the next plot point as fast as they can. While a game can give you a lot of information, it does not have to force it down your throat.
A common saying I hear is that life is not about the destination, but the journey. In no medium is that more true than in games.
