Why Player Agency In Games Is A Declining Bet

Storytelling in video games is unlike that in any other form of entertainment. Its interactive and potentially branching nature means games can evolve with the player’s choices, giving them real agency in a way other media can’t.

Yet, despite ever-improving hardware, games that focus on branching and personalised stories haven’t as readily evolved as the rest of the medium. There’s good reason for this, and as unfortunate as it might be, a lack of player agency in the future is only likely to become even more common.

The Money Equation

The expense of building choice games comes from two avenues, development cost and franchise potential. Development cost in gaming is an issue thanks to how complicated and costly it can be to engage new gaming systems to their limits. Adding branching paths and multiple options in these titles can balloon development costs for elements players might never see, so it’s not considered financially viable.

On the other side of this spectrum, consider how smaller games tend to be extremely customisable in how they operate. Online casino games like the Fishin Frenzy Jackpot King slot let players fully customise their bet and their paylines. Whether playing on mobile or desktop, players have full control thanks to how easy implementation in these relatively simpler titles can be.

These streamlined systems are also able to deliver additional features like the Jackpot King progressive wins via this avenue, operating as far from the complexity of AAA video games as possible. It’s this same token that allows these online casino games to experiment so much, while AAA games increasingly play it safe.

The other part which holds many AAA video games back from investing in player choice options is their emphasis on franchise releases. Rather than creating single self-contained games, many developers want to release titles that span many sequels and generations, like the Assassin’s Creed games.

If players can choose how the story evolves in these titles in a real and important way, they make it impossible to determine one canonical story. Without a solid basis, sequels are forced to start in positions that confuse and frustrate the players who didn’t pick a specific path.

Finding a Middle Ground

Without an infinite budget and unlimited time, there’s no way for big-budget games to realistically deliver an especially flexible story with a satisfying conclusion, as Mass Effect 3 can attest. Games can try to find ways around this challenge, however, with often middle-of-the-road results.

Deus Ex, with two main series, goes the route of assuming that an odd combination of all endings is equally canonical. Though players can’t choose to take this route at the end of the game, it means no ending is ever really wrong, they’re just never perfect fits. Instead, the choices which do fully carry over are the smaller ones which are easy to work around. In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, for example, you can choose whether or not to save your pilot, which grants you a gift in the sequel if completed.

As AAA developers deliver bigger and more expensive titles, the odds of player choice becoming a backbone of major and closely linked titles is essentially nil. Some games set far apart in time and location like the Elder Scrolls series might be able to sidestep this complication somewhat, but for most, it’s a part of gaming that will always persist. At least there are plenty of options in the indie space that break the mould, in a part of the market which often paves the way forward.