Comments on: Why Game Narrative Still Sucks … or … Don’t Bank Too Hard on That New Ghostbusters Game Just Yet

By: themcp

themcp — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:28:03 +0000

Couldn’t find it with my web searching wizardry. Got a link? I’d be interested in reading that…

By: gb

gb — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:43:55 +0000

Entertaining Wired piece about the whole phenomenon of life imitating games this week, or maybe it was last. The one with the manga on the cover.

By: themcp

themcp — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:29:35 +0000

Last question first – by no means. I think gaming as a narrative form is where the first talkies were when they appeared. Since it still hasn’t risen above the “ooh-aah” techno factor, it still suffers from the same problems that cinema suffered from when it began. Many early movies were more about solving technical hurdles and showing off that great technology. Writers came later.

Also, I don’t think games should strive to follow the narrative conventions of literature, movies, and drama. I think it’s ok that we want our games to provided us with a steady stream of small successes. That’s what makes them fun!

Since games are games, there are only so many real meaningful setbacks you can throw at a player without making them feel like a puppet. In general, players want to be rewarded with new and interesting things (abilities, stuff, whatever) for all the hours that they spend playing the game.

An interesting thing about the whole games-movie phenomenon — for all the fanboyism in the active gaming community, gamers don’t actually much like these crossovers. There have been a couple standout exceptions (two that come to mind are both of Angelina Jolie’s breasts), but they’ve been more noticeable as exceptions. In general, gamers make fun of movies made from games and dislike games made from movies.

I was actually laughed at in GameStop for buying the Spiderman 3 game. And rightfully so, it sucked.

I think that’s just cross marketing, and it’s infecting the larger culture in ways that have nothing to do with movies or games.

By: JimPanzee

JimPanzee — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:07:36 +0000

It might get annoying but you could conceivably incorporate cut scene triggers into the play action so that…for example…if you were in a Superman game and stumbled across the kryptonite-gram sent by the evil Lex Luthor, that would act as your narrative setback, described above…and emphasized by a cut scene. the joy of something like this is that it would be random and triggered by the decisions you made as a gamer. However, it would also get annoying … and of course the possibility would remain that you would skip it (especially the 2nd….Nth times).

Also, that would hardly be the only obstacle that game designers would have to contend with. There incurable worship of horribly written action and sci-fi movies might deprive all but the best of them from ever achieving true story-telling greatness.

Also, now that games are making movies and movies are making games…how long before the charge that “Gaming will Eat Itself” ?

MCP–Is gaming over just as it really got started?