What is your definition of more sophisticated?

Good question. For a rough definition, I would say that a sophisticated story is one that is subtly and purposefully meaningful and thought-provoking when taken as a whole.

Plenty of games have stories. Plenty of games offer thought-provoking scenes. Very few games, if any, could be said to be subtly and purposefully meaningful and thought-provoking throughout. Bioshock, for instance, explores some interesting themes about the moral and practical implications of Objectivist philosophy, and offers a plot twist that forces us to question how certain philosophies and assumptions pervade the underlying mechanics of nearly every action-oriented game we play, often in questionable or problematic ways. It’s more sophisticated than other shooters, but, taken as a whole, it’s still nowhere near as subtle and thought-provoking as what we see in other media. This isn’t because Bioshock is a video game, and games can’t be sophisticated, but because market pressures led the developers to conclude (perhaps quite rightly) that this game would only make money if it was a shooter first and a cultural commentary second. As I’ve argued elsewhere, however, I believe Bioshock would have been a much more sophisticated story—the kind I’d point to as evidence that games are as artistically relevant as any other storytelling medium—if the splicers weren’t just targets to shoot every time you see them, and if the gameplay in the second half of the game had changed radically to follow through with the implications of its big plot twist.

Also, some stories tend to lend themselves to better mediums.

I totally agree, but we might disagree over what this should imply. As I’ve discussed in some earlier posts, I think that the best stories are those that take advantage of what their particular medium has to offer. Games like Shadow of the Colossus (which I can’t shut up about around here) work because they offer purposefully limited interactivity, not in spite of this. And, of course, this goes the other way; Hamlet (especially with its whole “play within a play” thing) loses a lot when you make it not a play anymore. I’d similarly argue that Watchmen lost a lot when it was shoehorned into a movie. You have to play to a medium’s strengths.

I say we might disagree over what this should imply, though, because I often see people saying that stories work differently in different media as an explanation for why games have been so narrow in the content they’ve addressed. The narrowness of content in video games is not a formal or technological issue; it is a cultural and industrial issue. Once upon a time, people argued that comics were inherently only suited to producing childish content because cartoons are less serious and meaningful than other visual arts; and I think that’s been pretty roundly disproved to critics and markets alike. Hamlet might make a lousy game, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t ever have a game that explores existential crises and madness without a fight scene every 30 seconds.

I would rather have a fun and compelling game, then have some sort of “Sophisticated” story trying to be a game.

That’s fair as a personal preference, but I don’t see why this has to be an either/or situation. I’d rather have access to both, and as I argue in the above post, making more sophisticated games doesn’t mean that the stuff made for pure entertainment has to take a hit.

Also, some stories tend to lend themselves to better mediums.

I don’t think I would want to play through a game of “Pride and Prejudice”, or “Hamlet”.

I would rather have a fun and compelling game, then have some sort of “Sophisticated” story trying to be a game.