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Why do so many stories always start with "You wake up..."?

That's a very good question. I'm guessing because it eases the transition into the character's perspective, so you're not suddenly joining their POV when they're in the middle of something. But that's just a guess.

Eternal didn't start like that.

Its hard to throw people right into a world, gotta take baby steps!

Unless your going to be throwing the baby in. Then it would be a sport. :P

Eternal is a good story, but even then I couldn't *feel* the beginning because I had no idea who was talking at first.

Thats the mystery!
Your young, and dont know things!
THE PEOPLE TALKING DONT EVEN MATTER! 
THEY JUST HINT AT THINGS.
I LOVE IT

Admittedly, I'm with Danaos, I don't like playing storygames with such ambiguity because the chances are, some important details will come up at a really inconvenient time. +

It typically feels like you are going around, furthering the story, and you decide to, say, read a book to some children, and then the script decides to tell you after you sign up that you are BLIND and the book is not in braille!!!

It's that sort of leaving details until later that is worrisome. Revealing plot details should be left until later, not parts of the core structure!

... Okay... Uhh... We get that you like Endmaster, but Danaos didn't say every game started like that. He said that lots of games start like that, which is true. Not sure why you felt the need to give an example there.

Like if someone said, "Why are there so many Warrior Cats games?" You don't need to go, "Eternal's not about Warrior Cats!!!" 

Eternal isn't about warrior cats.

Don't know what any of them are talking about as far as ambiguity/mystery is concerned with that story though. I pretty much explain everything at the beginning of it. 

Anyway, if you want to start a story with "You wake up" I don't see what the big deal is. Go ahead and do it, it's not like there's some law saying your story is going to suck because of it.

True, fairly certain BZ's zombie game started with a 'wake up scene'. And... It was featured :P

Madglee's Mommy story begins with "you wake up" as well.

I don't know, probably because starting and ending a story are the hardest parts. (at least for me)

Me too. My story starts with "you wake up", too. Darn. I didn't know that it was overused. Here's a tip: Don't make too many endings!

It's in homage to most of the Zelda games, where Link usually starts out asleep or gets KO'd.

Link to the past

"Hey I woke up"
Five minutes later
"SAVE THE WORLDDDDDDDD"

Twilight Princess was the only 3D game where Link didn't start out asleep, but he went to bed shortly after the cutscene was over.  I guess it's because he never sleeps for the in-game month or so it takes to kill all the evil shits. (Which is probably why things slowly weirder get as the games go on...) Although he did sleep for seven fucking years once, which SHOULD make up for anything he missed over the course of all 10 or so games.

Give or take.

That's considered one of the clues that the writer is not very experienced. At least it is if you ask stuffy, middle aged, former English and Creative Writing teachers.

... But... What if it's secretly allegorical?

Of course, that could always be the excuse...

Or, in the case of TOR, it's a clue that the writer was too lazy to think of an interesting back story. 

Games that start with "You wake up" don't annoy me so much as the games that start with "You wake up", then give you the option to go back to sleep... And if you go back to sleep, you die. 

Your frustration was very clearly expressed in Kill Aman's Mustache. 

It was ^_^

Because the character waking up is a safe starting point to a story.

What do you mean by "safe"?

He means you are not spontaneously dropped into some action where you have no idea what on God's Earth is going on.
It does happen sometimes and is excruciatingly annoying and incredibly befuddling. You don't know what your ideal options are until it's too late.

e.g. You are dropped into the middle of a BATTLE, you think that perhaps you should stand and fight, rather than run away and get stabbed/shot in the back.

SUDDENLY, after you decide to fight, the Narrator cheekily tells you that you are an anorexic unskilled unarmoured unarmed child, and you die.

I hate that!

"Safe" starts let you wake up and eat breakfast or whatever while you find out whom your character is, and what they are capable of.

Yeah Pcgenie.