I'm not sure how to break it to you but with movies, it's not really different. Even books more often have a pretentious story than an actually good one. So, no Mr. Vogel missed the mark completely.

Except that we see cases where a later game in a series has elements that are targeted at players who *don't* like that particular type of game.

For example:
* Final Fantasy 7 is filled with flashy cutscenes, and more importantly, action minigames. We also see FF15 going full action, and 11 and 14 aren't even in the same genre as the rest of the numbered games (to the point where I consider those games to be a spin-off sub-series rather than part of the main series). We even see this as far back as FF6, which abandoned the job system that made FF5 so great.
* We also see the later Ultima games (starting with 7) getting more action-y, when previous games of the series were at least mostly turn-based (aside from the odd element in 1-4 that violates this).
* Then, in the Mario series, we see some different titles with the Mario title, like Yoshi's Island (which, while a 2D platformer, doesn't play like a Mario game), Super Mario 64 (which, even if you ignore the change to 3D, doesn't play anything like earlier Mario titles; there's a health meter, for one thing, and no fire flowers or similar (the time-limited power-ups don't count)), and of course there's Super Mario RPG and its spin-offs (and don't forget what, to my understanding, Paper Mario has morphed into).
* SaGa series also had a big change; the Romancing SaGa games are nothing like the early games in the series, particularly with the lack of science fiction elements and the lack of races that play differently.
* They even tried to do that with Dragon Quest. Ignoring DQ10 (which is Japan only and is also in the same situation as FF11 and FF14), they were going to make Dragon Quest 9 into an action game, and only changed their mind because of massive fan outcry.

Edit: Thought of another big one: The Fallout series. To my understanding, Fallout 3 is *drastically* different from prior entries in the series, to the point where it likely isn't even in the same genre anymore.

To be fair, spin-offs are a fair game for introducing radical changes. After all, they aren't the main series, so core fans can safely avoid them. There is no reason to complain about some experimental off-shoot unless it tries to replace the main series (see JA: Rage!)

So, first of all, lets just get this out of the way. I'm not Jeff Vogel or his spokesperson. His opinions are his, mine are mine. I was very specific about saying I agree with the general sentiment of Jeff's list. I'm not endorsing each and every word he puts to paper.

How I see it, videogames are an interactive medium, so a truly great videogame story should be a story that the player engages with as he plays the game and not in between gameplay sections.

The game I have played that better pulls this off is the first Portal. Everything that the player does in Portal is part of the story. There is no moment where the player is asked to play dumb and just roll with it. The gameplay and the story are 100% coherent. AND the plot is thought provoking, the dialogues are very well written and the pace of it all is kept in a remarkably competent way. So it's not just one thing, you see. There's a bunch of moving parts and they all work together to make a truly memorable game story.

It's clear to me that even the folks at Valve didn't fully comprehend what was achieved in that game since so much of what they added to Portal 2 is fan servicy and ultimately make it lesser.

I haven't played Disco Elysium or Planescape Torment (yet), so I can't speak about those. Among RPGs, the best story I've experienced - following the same criteria I used to justify my evaluation of Portal - would be Gothic. So many RPGs suffer from irreconcilable ludo narrative dissonance because of the very nature of the genre. You are the white knight in shiny armor tasked by the Gods to free the land from evil, but in order to complete your main quest you have to commit mass murder, become a kleptomaniac and generally do the very things the hero should be combating. Gothic manages to escape this conundrum with incredibly smart writing. It's hero is not a hero at all, his quest is essentially a quest for his own survival and anything else is really up to the player. This alone fixes a bunch of the problems most RPG stories have. It's a RPG that is truly free of the typical good vs evil juxtaposition that is omnipresent in the genre. And the way they structure the events and the subplots and the branching paths really gives the player an illusion of being an active participant in this story and not just a hamster on a wheel.

I'm making a point of talking about Gothic because Vogel's thing are RPGs and people should keep that in mind.

I hope this answers your question.

I could mention Celeste as a game that does the "tell the story through gameplay" quite well, particularly with a certain chase sequence (Chapter 2) and a certain boss fight (Chapter 6). (I've mentioned this before, but I don't remember whether it happened in this topic.)

Undertale is another interesting case. While most RPGs gloss over the killing of normal enemies, Undertale does not; a certain character will refuse to date you if you've killed *anything*, I believe. It's also worth noting that the game never forces you to kill anything unless you're on the Genocide route (and if you are, you're asking for it).

Sure, that goes without saying. Thanks for taking the time to write down your personal thoughts! I think they show that we're more or less on the same page, since e.g. Gothic too is a game that doesn't have such a great story in terms of plot but has very immersive story-telling where everything fits together (and admittedly a bit more consistently than in Mass Effect). I think the discussion of how well story-telling is integrated into and conveyed by the gameplay is still slightly different from the "great story vs. any story" discussion, but those are all good points.

It still forces you to fight though, just under different names. So while it does something a bit new and interesting indeed, the differences aren't all that big, at least from what I've seen. There is some clever but also rather gimicky stuff going on there, yet in the end it felt more like a cop-out to me, in the vein of "these guys aren't dead, they're just sleeping" (replace "sleeping" with "pacified", "happy again" or whatever here).

Yeah, I realized that you were joking :) I have grown used to pretty much being confronted in most games by impossibly beautiful women. It was just at the time I was looking for horses to ride and I thought that was so funny. It helped that I bought the game and actually liked it, though it could have been better.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, I might have liked Invisible war more, without the stupid universal ammo. That is the huge failing to me. The other two entries, I do like, but as said, they aren't really deus ex games, just games with the same premise.

But yeah, sort of derailing the convo :)

There is one thing that you sort of forgot: When they change the game drastically, such as the fallout series, (going with that, as I haven't played any of the others) they lose people as well.

The people who loved the original fallout series, because of the game play, hated fallout three. I tried fallout 1, and while I don't mind the game play, the interface was so clunky, I don't think I ever managed to fire a shot at a rat, at least deliberately (think I did once accidentally and still don't know how), but I love Fallout 3 and the later ones.

There is also that people do have varied tastes. People who loved the isometric gameplay of the originals but hate first person RPGs, probably didn't play beyond fallout 3. Those who love the first person (or close third person) RPG but hate isometric top down views (my brother...) love fallout 3+ but has no desire to play fallout 1 and 2. I personally like both styles of gameplay, so tried both series, but as said, due to how clunky the interface on fallout 1 was, I stuck with the later entries.

There is, however, another element: name recognition. Which again has pros and cons. For some, they will always buy a fallout game, because they love the franchise. For others, they love the franchise, but will get so disgusted by what a developer does to the franchise, they will 'rage quit' and not buy another title.

Each game/publisher is still targeting specific users, but they are trying to 'expand their userbase' while relying on that franchise recognition to 'carry' them. Sometimes it works. But, sometimes it doesn't.

I think this can be somewhat better seen in movies, where they will make a popular book a movie, hoping to pull in the people who loved that book, as well as getting people who have never read the book involved. Sometimes the movie does so poorly, usually because they upset the fanbase of the book so much they refuse to see it, that they can't do the sequels. Sometimes the people who never read the book outnumber those who are upset, and the movie series takes off.

(oh, I also realized that you haven't played the fallout series? IF not, yes, fallout 1 and 2 were isometric top down games, more like baldur's gate. Fallout 3, new vegas and 4 are more like Morrowind and Skyrim, where you are following a single character and 'looking over their shoulder')

Edit: Basically I am saying that things are much more nuanced than 'game has good story! buy!' or can easily be brought down to 'basics' make the statements Vogel did.

There is also the idea that the majority of games you mentioned have big enough companies behind them that they can afford to 'experiement' with future entries to those franchises, because they are likely still making money off of older entries.