RE: [Fwd: Gamasutra article]

["Brandon J. Van Every" <vanevery@3DProgrammer.com>]

Apologies for the earlier truncated e-mail.  Blame it on Outlook 2000.

>   http://gamasutra.com/features/20010914/littlejohn_01.htm

Not to paint a dim picture of the future, but mightn't the following claim
be met with skepticism?

"Game developers are beginning to realize that mindless, violent action, and
fantastic special effects supported by ever advancing hardware will not hold
the interest of core gamers forever. After certain point, advances in
resolution and sound won't be enough to increase sales. The added effect
will be negligible."

If we are to look at Hollywood for evidence of successful business models,
clearly, the special effects go on forever.  Especially when combined with
mindless violence and gratuitous sex.  This sounds suspiciously like a
"paperless office" arguement to me.  Is the keyword supposed to be "core"
gamers?  If so, who cares?  "Core" gamers aren't much of a market.  Anymore
than truly wacko independent films are much of a market.  Arguing that
there's some kind of economic imperative for high quality stories is silly.
Connisseurs might be displeased, but noone else will be.  Hollywood has
proven that the quality of narrative necessary to please a mass audience is
*exceedingly* minimal.

I just think it's important to proceed from the right motivations.  Like,
that one recognizes sucky drama, and that one's personal elitist valuation
of drama is at stake.

I'm not pleased with breaking humanity down into desires for response,
recognition, adventure, and security.  Although a convenient categorization
for creating an article, or even a software library, good stories require
the complex linkage of the creative parts of the brain.  If you conceive
your material in reductive terms, you are doomed to wooden themes.

Does save/load/save/load give one the "rush of victory after a battle that
would be much too dangerous in real life?"  Something more is at stake than
dramatic priniciples.  Like, the game design, the rules, the mathematical
formulae that determine action.

I don't begrudge the author his article as a set of creative materials, but
as a logical framework, it answers nothing.

The attraction of Lara Croft is big tits.  Why is he bringing this up?

A passage that I think is important, but whose imperatives I question:

"Since drama is a form of communication, and since communication must be
concise in order to be forceful, we must end reliance on busywork side
quests and such to fill out a game, and instead develop dramatic activities
that are not only exciting, but which also continually support the main
theme without being repetitive. Puzzles should arise out of the plot
complications rather than being artificially forced upon the action because
"a puzzle is needed here". In general the total structure of a well wrought
dramatic work depends on a very delicate balance of a multitude of elements,
all of which must contribute to the total pattern, and all of which are
wholly interdependent."

I agree that busywork in games is generally bad and annoying.  However,
doesn't this miss the point that a lot of people enjoy it anyways?
Producing an amazingly subtle coupling of characters, plots, and player
actions that the author proposes is a Herculean task.  Especially in an
interactive title where you don't have a linear straitjacket to force the
player through - or at least you shouldn't.  How real world is this subtlety
of concoction for an interactive entertainment product?  Are there going to
be 3 people on the whole planet capable of crafting such a work?  And will
they be financially rewarded for their expertise?

I don't really go to every movie expecting an Oscar performance.  Nor do I
necessarily expect much out of an Oscar-awarded performance, since the film
industry is self-congratulatory.  People consume the bulk of computer games
the way they consume potato chips.  It's salt.  It's grease.  It feels good
when you're in the mood for it.

Games might be better thought of as satisfying basic appetites than
high-brow drama.  For instance, the appetite to kill.  Or to torture.  I
think it's very important for games to let you torture the computer, to show
the computer how stupid it is.  I call this "The Lemmings Principle."

I agree that "This has been only the briefest overview of drama and a few
beginning ideas of how drama might be applied to the interactive realm."

Returning to the quote at the beginning of the article, I think a more
correct imperative would be "Game developers are beginning to realize that
their games mostly suck, and that the developer/publisher/brick-and-mortar
business model is fundamentally broken.  Rather than clone endlessly,
smarter people are realizing they must throw *something* at the problem to
improve the artistry and profitability of their titles.  When only 10 titles
in any given year make money, clearly there's an imperative for frustrated
people to innovate."

Could be drama, could be tuning your gun settings better with more
playtesting.


Cheers,                         www.3DProgrammer.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.