The Escapist: Suspend My Disbelief

The Escapist just released an issue dealing with emotion in games (or the
lack thereof). After reading on of the articles that talks about how games
aren't making the emotional connection, I gave it some thought and left
this comment on the website. Basically, though, the author and I totally
agree.

I think as far as games go, their are two parties that need to be willing
to invest some emotion for players to be able to get some back. There is
also one looming feature in games that will keep them from attaining
movie-like status. But first I'll start with the subject of the article.

Of course, the most important party in creating an emotional invironment
would be the developer. When your comparing games to movies, there are two
crutial elements that are drastically different: the actors and the
script. I just finished playing Black a few weeks ago and was really
suprised at thier use of real video and good actors. I think games have
come a long way from showing a graphic image of the character and an "All
your base are belong to us" to the full productions of games like Black
and Grand Theft Auto. The good development houses pay for the actors and
pay for the scripts.

This is where the second party comes in. If your not willing to sit down
and play a game as if you were controlling a movie, your not going to get
a good, emotional experience from it. If you run everywhere in GTA and
constantly steal cars and shoot people, your not really living in the
shoes of the character your playing. You have to be your own director. You
have to remember that you wanted to buy GTA because it was open ended and
you could play how you wanted...so if you want to play it real, you have
to make it real.

Now, that all said, games are also going to have to get away from
point-to-point modes of completing tasks. There does need to be better
structuring of the game to make transitions more smooth. The king of all
mission games, GTA, seems to be getting better, but in the end you still
know your playing a game and you know that in order to make things happen,
you need to press a button. You can call it "talk to people" or "steal the
briefcase" but it's still pressing buttons and loosing "health" and
retrying the same thing over and over again.

Games will never be like movies as long as there are infinite lives.
That's the key. You should either live or you should die. You should also
be playing in a virtual world that doesn't depend on whether you live or
die to move the story along. If we want games to draw us in to an
alternate reality, reality being the keyword, the most funamental
structure in video game history will have to go out the door: lives.

There. I said it. Pacman, Frogger, and Mario are all rolling over in their
ROM chips. How can a game be a game with out "lives". (o o) x 5. 1up. The
idea is ludicrous. Blasphemous. But is it really that farfetched? Wouldn't
the idea of a game where every decision you makes determines how long you
play the game? If you die, that's it. You start over? You throw the
controller against the wall?

Or do you sit back and morn the loss of your character that almost survied
a terrorist threat in his city. It was a good run, Bob. Butter luck next
time. Maybe you should have waited for the bomb disposal team instead of
pulling the red wire yourself. The security team was doing fine keeping
you from being shot at. There was really no danger for you at all. But
man, that was a fun game. You almost had it.

See, the revolution in gaming isn't graphics or controllers. It's the
game. It's the perception of what a game is and how it's played. Emotion
is tied to things that we know the best: life and death, critical choices
with grave consequences. We do it in real life everyday because we know
that life and death, while certain, aren't likely. We get upset with
things like co-workes and "PC LOAD LETTER" in the real world.

If we want realistic games that make us emotional, we need the same
problems to solve in our lives that we already get emotional about. Maybe
not printers and fax machines, but certainly like things we see in the
movies. We know the character isn't going to die 30 minutes into the
movie. They always find away out. Games should be the same way. We should
know they aren't going to die 6 hours into the game. There should be away
out somewhere.