Earlier today, however, a couple of friends basically asked “why does the dialogue in video games so often suck?  Don’t they have good writers?  Don’t the review the scripts/recordings before they go into the game?”  Having several friends who are professional video game writers, and I daresay, very good at it, I felt compelled to answer their question.  Here is what I said: think about it this way: haven’t you seen plenty of movies that have bad dialogue? Not being a movie person, I’m speculating here, but I suspect that this is often a product of the fact that the dialogue looks good “on paper” or seems good when it’s being recorded, but really doesn’t work when you cut the whole film together. At that point, it’s often prohibitive (for either logistical or financial reasons) to go back and reshoot those scenes.

In games, there are similar production realities. For any high-quality, narrative-focused, game today you can assume that a good writer has written a script that has been reviewed and revised based on feedback from several parties. The days of a designer just banging something out at their workstation at the last minute are largely behind us (correct me if you disagree, Cliff). After that script is written and approved it has to be cast, recorded, cut, implemented, and synched to animation before you really know what the finished product looks/sounds like. During that process, again, there are even worse bits that have been cut, re-written, and re-recorded. Now, realize that a game like Skyrim (which sparked the original question) probably has about 100x more dialogue content in it than your standard film; AND you don’t always have control over the order in which it’s going to be experienced, sometimes even down the line-by-line level. So, who is going to review all of that? On a film, there isn’t a single frame that makes it onto the screen that hasn’t been viewed and approved by the Director. That allows for a remarkable level of consistency of tone and authorship in the finished project. If that happened on Skyrim, I’d be very pleasantly surprised, considering the sheer quantity of content and the huge number of other tasks that a Lead Designer, or Producer is responsible for; not to mention the inherently more collaborative nature of game development when compared to filmmaking.

Oh, by the way, did I mention that when most of the dialogue was recorded it was probably done by individual voice performers working in isolated sound boxes, asynchronously from their counterparts in the same scene? Of course, there are exceptions, for games such as Call of Duty, Uncharted, etc., where the actors are able to rehearse and perform alongside each other in the same location. But this is generally a luxury reserved for the highest-budget projects and even then, generally only those that have relatively short, linear campaigns (see above examples). Admittedly, I’m highlighting issues with performances, not simply with dialogue writing, but look at how much of a film script gets tweaked and re-written during shooting when the director and actors are all in the same place and able to iterate multiple times on individual lines/scenes collaboratively and then think about trying to do that for 100x as many lines of dialogue.

Hopefully you’re starting to see the challenges that game performances face. I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve seen plenty of movie people acknowledge that a great script does not a great film make, and vice versa. In the case of games, this is at least equally true. So, just blaming the writers for bad dialogue in a specific video game is, in my opinion, a bit of unfair scapegoating without really understanding the production realities that project faced. While it MAY be fair and accurate, there are a number of other factors could, at a minimum, have contributed./rant

Part 1

It is a pretty well-established axiom, that “movie games suck.”  Contrary to popular belief, however, the explanation for this phenomenon is not a mystery.  Until very recently, the relationship between game companies and movie studios could be defined as a classic one of licensor/licensee.  This should not be surprising, given that twenty-plus years ago, when movie games were first being made, gaming technology was extremely limited, audiences were predominantly young children, and movies took far longer to produce than video games did.  (Not to mention the fact that game development budgets were a fraction of their movie counterparts, as were their revenues).

Given these realities, the film companies waited until they greenlit a film project for production and then sold the rights to create a video game, based on that film, to a game publisher (in much the way that any other merchandising rights are sold).  In fact, it was usually the same consumer products group that was responsible managing classic toy and merchandising relationships who found themselves representing the film studio’s video game interests.

For the film industry, this means that the only individuals with direct exposure to the game companies have been licensing professionals, usually far-removed from the actual film-creation process, and experts in neither game nor film creation.  These individuals, thus, are poorly situated to represent the filmmakers’  interests.  Moreover, because the film studio has limited, if any, profit participation in the success of the game, these individuals are primarily concerned with ensuring that nothing related to the game could possibly disrupt anything related to the film.

Similarly, because they have no long-term vested interest in the success of the film franchise, the game publishers simply hand-off the game development responsibilities to a team of developers whose top priority is to ship something in time for the launch of the film.  The publishers reserve their most talented teams for the intellectual properties that they own, instead giving the licensed projects to the developers with the best blend of dependability and affordability.

Given this working dynamic, it should not be surprising that there are relatively few individuals in either industry who truly understand the other.  The result is a series of tragic myths and misunderstandings that have formed on both sides of the business and creative relationship.  In the next two parts of this series, I will outline some of the most significant of these misunderstandings and try to help shed a little light on their origins.  Stay tuned!

Hello dear readers.  It certainly has been a LONG time since I updated my blog.  Work was incredibly busy in April and May, with business trips to San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, London, and New York, as well as a vacation to St. Thomas for a friend’s wedding.

Nonetheless, the real reason that I haven’t written in a while is simply that I haven’t had a topic come up that has compelled me to write.  Today, however, I was asked a question by a friend about game design/development-related degrees and university programs.  By the time that I finished responding to him, I realized that I had pretty much drafted something worth posting to my blog.  So, if the subject interests you, please read on…

When it comes to game development academic programs, I believe that the most well-respected (or at least the one’s that I’ve heard the most good things about) are, in no particular order:

• · USC’s Department of Interactive Media
• · Digipen
• · The Entertainment Technology Institute at Carnegie Mellon
• · Full Sail University
• · The Guildhall at SMU
• · Savannah College of Art and Design

I also did a quick search and found this site, which lists several more. Also, the Game Career Guide would probably be a useful resource for someone considering a game degree.

Personally, I think that the bigger question is whether or not a person should pursue a professional degree at all. If the individual is thinking about a graduate degree, then I would say “skip it,” and go get a job making games, unless they have tried and failed or are really interested in games on an academic level.

If we’re talking undergrad, I think that there are pros and cons. On the positive side, these degrees generally DO help improve someone’s chances of landing a job in the industry. They show potential employers that the candidate is serious about a career in games, they help the candidates create a portfolio of work (which is increasingly important these days), and they probably do actually impart some useful skills/knowledge about game development (though, precisely how much, is debatable).

As someone whose father spent their career as a university professor, I have the utmost respect for academics. That being said, I also believe that these types of (often) for-profit programs can be places where the adage that “those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,” most applies. Of course, there are exceptions to this, as I know at least one very successful, respected, experienced game designer who is currently teaching at Savannah College of Art and Design (Brenda Brathwaite). Still, a person will learn more about actual game development in a year at a game company than they would in 2-4 years at a game college (IMHO).

The real downside to this sort of degree, however, has little to do with game design/development programs in specific and everything to do with undergraduate professional degrees in general. Again, this is just my opinion, but I believe that people are best-served as undergrads by a broad, liberal arts, type of education. Very few people at that age (18-21) really know what they want to do with their lives and what one ends up majoring in as an undergrad really has very little bearing on what their options are or what they will become. (This game producer has a BA in Economics).

Meanwhile, that same age range is a crucial one for “training the brain,” and learning about the world. In my opinion, college is not just about setting oneself up to get a job, but about learning how to be a productive and healthy member of an increasingly complicated and diverse global society. For this reason, I strongly believe that most people would benefit both personally and professionally (game designers in particular) from a broad cultural education that includes everything from math and science to history, politics, language, culture, and the arts.

So, I guess what I’m saying is this. If the person in question is just getting out of high school, I suggest that they go to the best traditional college that they can get into. By all means, they should still take relevant classes (computer science, digital art, etc.) and focus on learning about game development in their free time, as a hobby, but they should also try to get the best education that they can. This will be far more valuable in the long-run. If the person is older (particularly if they already have a BA) and has been trying to figure out what to do with their life for a while, then a professional degree might make much more sense. Finally, if the person is considering a graduate degree in games, I’d say that it should be because they want to pursue games as an academic subject or have already tried to get a job in games for some time without success.

Hope that this is more helpful than it is pedantic…

My good friend, Jason Fredrickson, forwarded this article to me earlier today.  It was with great bemusement that I learned that legendary game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto, seems to have filed a patent on behalf of Nintendo that basically describes the “Movie Mode” game feature that I proposed all the way back in July, and again via GameDaily, in September.  Inexplicably, sites like Gamasutra and Kotaku seem to think that the idea is more noteworthy when it comes from him than from me. 

To be fair, according to the article, Miyamoto-san filed his patent 2 days before I published my blog post.  And, unsurprisingly, there are some differences in terms of the specific implementation of the feature.  Nonetheless, I will take this as a validation of the basic elements of the idea. (I’m rather proud of myself, in case you couldn’t tell…)

I’ve been to two GDC’s in the past. The first was while I was employed full time at a studio, the second was as a curious onlooker.

In 2009, I’ll be attending my first GDC as full time freelance Game Designer/Writer-guy and although I think I’m pretty decent at networking, I’d love some good advice on how to make the most of my time there outside of reconnecting with current clients and touching base with ex-coworkers.

Thanks,
Ed

I ended up writing a somewhat lengthier response than I had intended.  By the time I was done I thought to myself, I ought to go ahead and put this up on my blog, in case it could be of use to anyone else.  My response references comments from two other people.  First, from David McGraw:

I’m sure this may ring a bell, but if not, Darius Kazemi has written a lot on networking in the game industry. He has a two part guide specifically oriented around the GDC ( http://tinysubversions.blogspot.com/2006/02/effective-networking-gdc-guide.html ).

From my perspective, the parties and events will be far and beyond the premium time to conduct networking. The IGDA party was probably my best night this year for networking. I had a chance to meet a lot of great people and I still keep in touch with some of them.

You SHOULD do networking while waiting for sessions to start, during breakfast/lunch, and during session breaks (people sitting next to you, round tables are really nice) and after (meeting with the presenters). As far as I’m concerned, this is just a warm up for the late night events. Your best time to shine will be through the events, by far. The people you run into in these sessions, will likely be at an event later. Good time to fill gaps if you didn’t get to talk to them enough/ask questions earlier.

My number one advice is to not spend too much time networking with people you know. Meet up with friends, hang out and enjoy yourselves, but once the GDC doors open, split. Focus on meeting random people having lunch or waiting for the session to start. Focus on talking with some presenters. Just be assertive.

And just have fun with it. Understand that people are naturally curious to an extent and they are interested in you and what you’ve done/doing.

Good luck!

I also appreciated this feedback from Noah Falstein:

Sadly, the “one central” bar advice is no longer true – since it came to San Francisco the GDC has not really had heart like the Fairmont Bar in SJ or the wonderful Santa Clara bar in the really good old days, when we complained that 1000 people was way too big… The Marriot bar on the 2nd floor was pretty good, but then last year it was being renovated or had already been phased out, I’ve forgotten. The W bar is too small. With 18,000+ people you just can’t have one central spot anyway, but there are LOTS of parties as well as the normal networking in the halls. Ed, I know you already have a lot of industry friends/connections, so certainly hitting the parties and bars and getting introduced by mutual friends can always work. Beyond that, one trick I would recommend is going to round tables where people who might hire you are likely to show up, and in the process of discussion mention who you are and what you do – then don’t be in a rush to leave, as you may well get someone who was lurking in the room come up to you and ask you for a business card. It can also work to ask a smart question in a larger lecture that serves to introduce yourself, but that is obviously harder to count on and can easily come across badly if you are not subtle about it.

Here’s what I had to say:

Ed,
There’s a lot of great advice here. I particularly think that Noah is right with a lot of what he says. I have to disagree a little bit with Mr. McGraw, however. When I was first getting into the industry, I found that the kind of “random, introduce yourself” networking that he describes is pretty-much your only option for beginning to build a network. And, to be fair, I still have great relationships with several people that I met that way.

Now, however, I have to recognize that such an approach is incredibly low-yield, for several reasons:

1. By its very nature, it’s “random.” This means that there it’s very unpredictable as to whether or not the people that you meet that way will really be of any use to you, or vice versa.
2. The more influential and experienced someone is, generally speaking, the less likely they are to be sitting alone at a table and/or randomly wandering the conference. They will likely be with friends, presenting, or in meetings.  So you are biasing your efforts toward people who have less experience and influence, and fewer connections.
3. These kinds of introductions bring no “context” with them. The person really doesn’t know “who you are,” aside from who you say you are or what your business card says, and the same is true in the other direction. You are not being introduced to them by someone that they know and respect and you come with no real “credibility.”
4. These kinds of conversations are usually very superficial, covering a standard set of questions (name, title, employer, titles shipped, current project, etc.). This “generic” factor tends to make them fairly forgettable. I can’t count the number of business cards that go straight into my trash can when I get back from GDC simply because I have no recollection of the person who gave them to me. (To avoid this, I recommend writing notes on people’s business cards if they say anything you think would be worth following-up on).

For all of these reasons, I think that you would be well-advised to focus on tapping your existing network as a way to get some valuable new connections. You’re not a college kid trying to break into the industry who doesn’t know anybody. You should be setting up time to reconnect with people like myself, Noah, Dave Grossman, Eric Nofsinger, Brenda Brathwaite, and anyone else that you’ve worked with since HVS. These are connected, respected, influential people (with the exception of myself, of course). Keeping these relationships strong is probably far more important than creating new ones.

I’m talking about more than just “reconnecting,” however.  These people will be able to provide introductions that will be much more likely to yield the kind of results that you’re looking for, because they don’t suffer from the shortcomings of the random intros that I listed above. Consider doing a little homework here on LinkedIn to see if any of the people that you know are connected to folks that you’d like an introduction to. If so, ask for it, and use GDC as an opportunity to meet THOSE people face-to-face. I spend hours setting up my GDC schedule in advance, and I try to leave as little blank time on my calendar as possible. That’s networking.

None of this is meant to imply that the random encounters, parties, group gatherings, and sessions aren’t worthwhile. I have never come away from GDC without some new and valuable connection that just kinda came out of nowhere. But I think that your most productive time, in the long-run, will be spent by tapping the network that you have already developed. Of course, that’s just my 2 cents, and you get what you pay for.

Hope to see you at the show!

Ben

It’s been a while since my last blog post.  That fact is due, in no small part, to the significant amount of time that I spent in the frozen tundra of northern Alberta in the last few months (3 trips and a total of about 3 weeks in the last 3 months).  In specific, I was in a town called Grande Prairie: population approximately 50,000. 

In case your Canadian geography is a little rusty, this is where Grande Prairie is located:

View Larger Map

(The states just off the bottom of the map would be Washington, the Northern tip of Idaho,  and Montana).  Here are a few interesting factoids about Grande Prairie:

• Upon my first arrival to Grande Prairie, my host described the city as “the Northernmost edge of civilization.”
• With a little luck, you can see the Northern Lights when standing outdoors at night. (I was not lucky).
• Grande Prairie can be quite pretty:



The building in this photo is the most prominent landmark in the area.  At 14 stories it towers above everything else in the city and is, as I’m told, the tallest building in Alberta north of Edmonton.

• Grande Prairie also has some extremely nice, albeit somewhat quirky, people:

(In defense of Grande Prairie, the chap on the right is from Newfoundland, I believe).

• Due to Grande Prairie’s latitude, the days are very short at this time of year.  This image was taken at about 10:30am, on my way into the office:

• At this point you’re probably asking, “so, why does one go to Grande Prairie?”

Well, the most common answer to that question is: “for money.”  Apparently, Northern Alberta is swimming in crude oil and Grande Prairie represents the staging-point for a tremendous amount of oil drilling activity in the area.  The province is booming, with a multi-billion dollar budget surplus and a staggering manpower shortage. Eighteen year-old high school graduates moving to the area regularly earn more than $100,000 a year working in the oil fields.  Workers are so hard to come by that service industry companies also pay astronomical wages (as much as $17/hour for a job at Starbucks, I’m told).  The unfortunate byproduct of this wealth in an otherwise inhospitable land is are depressingly high rates of methamphetamine addiction, prostitution, and gambling.

I, however, did not venture to Grande Prairie to seek my fortune as a leatherneck and while-away the cold nights with drugs and loose women.  I was drawn to this desolate land by the potent combination of classic 70’s disco music and modern technology, in the form of an iPhone game called:

Saturday Night Fever: Dance was developed by a small team based in Grande Prairie by the name of Evolv3r Inc. and published under my direction by Paramount Digital Entertainment.  I am very excited to announce that, as of today, this game is now available for download from the iTunes App store (for the bargain price of $4.99).  I’m very proud of this project.  While the core gameplay mechanic is pretty heavily “inspired” by Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS, I think that we made some subtle but significant improvements and produced an extremely polished and full-featured iPhone application in a very short amount of time. 

The music lineup is fantastic, including Master recordings of YMCA (Village People), Shake Your Groove Thing (Peaches & Herb), Carwash (Rose Royce), and Love Machine (The Miracles).  I really didn’t have much of an appreciation for disco music before working on this project, but after seeing the film (which I highly recommend…it’s really not what you expect) and working on this game, I think I’m something of a fan.

So, if you’ve got an iPhone or an iPod Touch, or you know anyone who does, I definitely encourage you to give the game a try.  I have very high hopes for it.  If you enjoy it, please help spread the word. 

I was tremendously amused by Simon Parkin’s Gamasutra article “Fallout 3 – I Kill Children” and the ensuing discussion. In the article, Parkin asserted that the decision by the team at Bethesda to restrict the killing of children “admitted video games’ ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities.” Several others chimed-in with comments complaining that “allowing people to kill adults but not children implies that there is something more wrong about killing children.”

It is worth noting, for those unfamiliar with the game, that Fallout 3 is a Mature-rated game intended for adults that is graphically violent.  Recently released, it has been met with strong early sales and generally excellent reviews.  When characters are killed they are often shown up-close in high detail as limbs are severed and blood flies in slow motion.

Presumably, Mr. Parkin is advocating that players should have been allowed to kill children in the same way.

The gist of his argument is that because the game is set in a harsh, morally-ambiguous future, where such actions might actually happen, the decision to prevent the killing of children in this way represents self-censorship and compromises the game’s artistic integrity because it implies that the developers were unable to design appropriate consequences that would have disincentivized and “punished” this kind of behavior.  Ironically, there would likely have been little, if any, actual consequences for this type of behavior in the bleak future that the game envisions.

The reality is that society absolutely thinks that there is something more wrong about killing children than adults. This is so obvious that it I am surprised that people were even asking the question. Generally speaking, the younger the victim, the more horrific the crime seems; the more outraged the public reaction. The most surprising thing to me is that there are people who were surprised that killing children was restricted in the game, considering the countless other video games in which you can kill adults but not kill children. Even film, a medium that is allowed a much wider degree of artistic freedom than games, rarely tackles the subject of child murder and, when it does, it is universally done in a way that is less “in your face” than some of the people on this comment thread seem to be advocating.  Can anyone point to a commercially successful film that showed graphic, realistic, murder, including gushing blood and dismemberment, of a child? The fact that Mr. Parkin’s article, as well as some of the comments, actually seem to be advocating this for a video game in our current political climate borders on the comical to me.

We can argue all we want about the artistic compromise that this decision may have been for the game, but that conversation is ultimately irrelevant. I was not privy to the actual conversation on this topic, but I’d bet just about anything that Bethesda made this decision for very legitimate business/financial reasons. Had they allowed players to graphically execute innocent children, resulting in their dismemberment and enormous spouts of blood, the game would almost certainly have gotten them an Adults-Only (AO) rating, effectively killing the game’s retail potential. Even if it had not, it would probably have quickly become the biggest games industry PR nightmare since Hot Coffee, with unknown but very likely negative impacts on sales as conservative retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart rushed to pull the game from store shelves in the face of a public outcry.

Video game development, at least the kind that Bethesda is engaged in, is a business. People should be neither surprised nor upset when companies such as Bethesda make decisions that are in the best interest of their business. Sure, they could have allowed the graphic killing of children, but in so doing they would have created a massive risk of seriously hurting their product’s sales. Games of the scope and ambition of Fallout 3 cost a lot of money ($20 million and more) to make. If games can’t recoup their costs (and then some) they don’t get made. Is that what Mr. Parkin and those who agree with him really want, just so that they can applaud the game’s “internal consistency” of allowing players to murder children in horrific and gory ways?

It is the failure to acknowledge the out-of-game consequences of what he suggests that I think most undermines Mr. Parkin’s argument. As he AND his “eloquent” detractors have pointed out, there were certainly ways Bethesda could have made the consequences for this atrocity severe enough to disincentivize most players. I seriously doubt, however, that being able to say “afterwards, you are haunted by the child’s ghost and your character has a hard time sleeping,” would have done much to quell the outcry of millions of disgusted and offended parents. Ultimately, the decision to omit child killing in the game is far less of a concession to Bethesda’s abilities as game designers than it is to society’s sensitiblities.  So, in other words, we have only ourselves to blame (or thank).

So, I was really very disappointed when I realized that the agreement that this article refers to seems to be in reference to a completely new game developed by Harmonix and will not make any Beatles songs playable in Rock Band.  This decision seems to me that it was probably dictacted by some business/financial factors, as Harmonix has done an excellent job of promoting the concept of Rock Band as a “platform,” and the Beatles seem like a perfect fit for that platform.

Obviously, I don’t know what the two companies have in mind that would make a stand-along Beatles game make more sense, but I’m willing to wait and find out before passing judgment.  I just hope that it doesn’t turn out to be some sort of shameless cash-in opportunity that would have been better if it were just part of Rock Band.

As my latest “summer of unemployment” draws to a close (I’m starting a new gig as a Sr. Producer at Paramount Pictures in their new “Digital and Interactive” group next week), I’m forced to reflect on what I “accomplished” during the last 2+ months of “down time.”  Sadly, the answer is, “not very much.”

When my unemployment began, I delighted in telling people, “I’m actually looking forward to having some free time to focus on some things that I’ve been wanting to do more of.  For example, I’d like to spend some time on my blog, and try to get through some of the great games that came out in the last year that I haven’t had time to play.”  It was an exciting prospect and I certainly meant it when I said it.  In fact, I even tried to follow-through on it.

I especially wanted to spend some quality time with the highly-lauded Grand Theft Auto IV.  After all, I had read reviews that compared the game to Coppola’s Godfather films and Doctorow’s Ragtime.  Others made equally bold claims (which were later effectively, and wisely, retracted).  It was described as the game that could finally, conclusively, demonstrate that games are “art.” (Don’t worry, this post isn’t about the “games as art” debate.  While I think that GTA IV was certainly an impressive accomplishment that serves to advance the “art” of video game creation, I think that it fares very poorly when compared to works such as these).  It was my obligation, as a video game developer, to play this game.

Regardless of the apples to oranges problems with such a comparison, I can at least say that I didn’t have any trouble watching The Godfather to completion.  GTA IV, on the other hand…simply lost my interest.  At around the 12-hour mark, the game ceased being “fun” and became a chore.  My overriding emotions were frustration and tediousness (I’m not 100% certain that’s technically an “emotion,” but I think you get my point).  In fact, I realized that I’ve basically had this reaction to several of the “best” games released this generation.

In particular, I’m thinking of GTA IV, Bioshock, and Mass Effect.  All three of these games have received stellar review scores.  All three of them were particularly praised for the quality of their story.  And all three of them I found difficult to finish, despite the fact that I was, in fact, engaged by their stories.  Two of them (GTA IV and Mass Effect) became so mind-numbingly tedious to me that I couldn’t force myself to go on.  I managed to complete Bioshock, but I played-through the second half of the game begrudgingly, mostly so that I would be able to engage in an informed conversation about it with my friend Matt Sakey.

While playing all three games I found myself thinking at times, “god, I really do want to find out what happens…but the actual ‘playing’ part is killing me.  I wish that someone out there would take the time to just record all the interesting bits, boss fights, cut-scenes, and stuff and then post them up on YouTube or something so that I could watch them.  Just cut-out all of the basically repetitive, mundane, “filler” that’s required in order to meet the 10-20 hours of gameplay/”not a rental” requirement.  I’d happily devote an hour or two to just watching the story.”  (For the record, someone may have done this. I haven’t really checked YouTube, but that’s not the point).

I think that there is probably an awfully interesting philosophical conversation to be had about what this realization implies for the direction that games are headed.  On the one hand, it seems to support the assertion that narrative is a dead-end for games.  That, as games get better and better at narrative, they get closer and closer to films (a medium to which they still pale in comparison) and that the interactive elements only serve to detract from the narrative experience.  On the other hand, one could argue that this is a sign of how effective games are becoming as narrative devices and that there’s no reason that compelling stories and genuine “fun” should need to be mutually exclusive.

These questions are really best left to game designers and philosophers, however, and I am neither of those things.  I’m a Producer.  My concerns tend much more toward the pragmatic and, as I mentioned, I’m about to start a job managing the creation of games for Paramount Pictures.  So, regardless of the outcome of that argument, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be asked to help make some games that contain narrative.

And here is where I think that my experience with these games may have led me to an actual, honest-to-goodness, genuine, game design innovation.  (At least, if someone has already thought of this and implemented it, I’m not aware of it).  I think that the time has come for “Movie Mode.”  I am firmly convinced that story-based, narrative games ought to allow “players” to experience their stories without having to actually, actively, “play” the game.  If your game’s story is interesting enough that someone would be willing to sit beside me on the couch and watch me play it (I’m thinking of YOU Portal, Zelda, Halo…the list goes on), then why should it require ANYONE to actually play it?

Now, I realize that this is probably virtual heresy for many game designers/developers out there.  I can hear the cries now, “but the fun comes from the challenge!” and “it’s no longer a game!” or “it’s not even interactive anymore!”  Please, take a deep breath, and try to remember that the alternative is the status quo, a reality in which most people who buy your games NEVER actually finish them.  Next, set-aside your technical concerns.  For most games, it would be technically doable, if not trivial, to record a default, scripted, play-through that could be played-back in real-time, as if being controlled by a player.  (Sure, there might be some complications, but I challenge any programmer/engineer to explain why it would be impossible for more than a small percentage of games.)  Now, try to think about the possibilities…

Players like myself could play a game as long as they are interested, set down the controller, and “watch” the rest of the game.  Wouldn’t such a player be much more likely to say to themselves, “hey, I know that I eventually got bored with Mass Effect’s pathetic text-box-based excuse for exploring the galaxy, but I really did enjoy the story, and I’m sure that they managed to figure out that alien planets should have some sort of trees on them, that every gang of bad-guys in the galaxy probably doesn’t hang out in one of three generic bad-guy base layouts, and that a good RPG requires more types of loot than guns, bullets, and armor.  Maybe I’ll go ahead and get the sequel, if for no other reason than that I’m curious to find out what happens in the story…”

Or, players (also like myself) might say, “you know, I’m kinda interested in this Metal Gear Solid 4 game.  I realize that everyone says that it’s mostly just for people who are already fans of the series, though.  Maybe I’ll go ahead and get the first 3 in the discount bin and watch them on Movie Mode so that I can be ready for the new one when it comes out.” (Feel free to replace all MGS 4 references in the previous hypothetical with Diablo III references).

Or, players (also like myself) who get all the way to the last battle in Fire Emblem only to realize that their strategy of protecting their main characters from permadeath by always keeping them out of harm’s way and thereby crippling their level progression would make it literally impossible for them to beat the final boss because those are the only 2 characters in your party who can damage it might say, “screw it.  I’ll just watch this boss battle on Movie Mode,” rather than discarding the game with disgust and hesitating to ever buy another Fire Emblem game again.

Or, players (that I certainly would have been one of)  might get bored/frustrated with the Library level in Halo: Combat Evolved, and put it into Movie Mode only to watch the game get to a later point where the action picks back up, or a new mechanic is introduced, or a particularly exciting boss appears, and then grab the controller back and say, “wait!  Maybe I do want to play this after all!” (I’m also convinced that this “jump-back-in” functionality would be technically possible for a significant percentage of games).

I think that the list of benefits goes on, but hopefully you get the point.  I hope that I get the chance to explore this idea with an actual, commercial, title sometime soon.  If not, however, I hope that someone out there that’s making one of these great games that I’ve had such a hard time forcing myself to finish will read this and think it makes some sense.  In the meantime, I’ll spend my few remaining days of unemployment playing WoW and Civ IV.  They may not be the industry’s greatest narratives, and I may wind up with less to show for this down-time than I had originally hoped, but at least I’ll be having a lot of fun.

“…as we get closer and closer, it’s like ‘Oh, there’s these last few things that’ll just make it perfect,’ and ‘Oh, we’ve got to get this in.’ Things become visible to you toward the end of the process. Design opportunities that weren’t obvious before, and so they weren’t part of your schedule, but then you uncover these possibilities, and it’s like, ‘Oh God, I don’t want to leave that on the table. It would be so painful to do that.’ So that’s probably the overall reason why the game is taking so long.”

It’s nice to know that even the greatest game designer in the industry acknowledges that it’s impossible to know everything about your game at the end of the design phase.  The process of “discovery” as you develop is inevitable.  Therefore, leaving time in your schedule to incorporate these discoveries is critical if you want to allow your game to be all that it can be.

The full article/interview with Mr. Wright can be found here.