"Storytelling" in games, Continued

The Star Ocean series, and quite a few other Japanese Role-playing Games (J-RPGs) I've played, have poorly conceived and/ or written stories. They are often unnecessarily convoluted, overly melodramatic, and terribly edited. I get the impression from watching the story scenes that developers try to cram as much garbage as possible into the games cutscenes because they have some mistaken idea that more content equals better content. Thus, unnecessary tripe that should have been edited out of a games story, isn't.

What's really frustrating, though, is that I feel that the developers aren't even trying. After all, why bother getting creative when you can spoon-feed your audience the same tired crap you fed them before, and your audience gobbles it up regardless? We need writers and developers who don't mind getting creative with the stories, and don't mind trimming the fat down just enough to keep us wanting more, and not forcing forty minutes of dialogue and cutscenes down our throats. Characters who resemble the archetypes of the genre, but through their actions and speech and mannerisms, are as complicated and interesting as the genre will allow.

To hell with petitioning the developers. Writers unite! We can crap better stories than they can dream!