In a crowded GDC Europe keynote address, Warren Spector attempted to let the game industry know what we should and should not be taking from other mediums, like movies and television. The creator of Deus Ex, Thief, and the upcoming Disney’s Epic Mickey stressed that video games could shine by standing on their own two feet. With the industry “in the center of a cultural firestorm,” Spector asked a poignant question: are we only the amalgam of media that came before, or are we something different?
Spector spoke about hailed film directors like Spielberg and Del Toro dabbling within video gaming, while many developers seem to want to create little more than interactive movies. When is it alright to take techniques from other media, and when should we blaze our own trail?
The Junction Point creative director noted that borrowing is a sign of an industry maturing. Early films were patterned on theatre, radio on silent films, and TV borrowed from radio. The problem is the film-to-game comparisons don’t work as one might expect.
In a film, editing is the “recreation of a dream” showing a series of events in the manner the director sees fit. In a game, a director should not decide where the action happens. “We don’t want to cut away,” says Spector, referencing Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ film. ‘Rope’ used a single-take for the entire film, which is a very game-like perspective, but worked horribly within the film.
"We are a literal medium that's all surface,” Spector explained. With games, he said "we're not about the imagination, we're about the experience."
Pacing remains something games must pay attention to as once a gamer leaves a game, they’re unlikely to return to it, whereas films have a controllable, captive audience for the entire experience. Characterization is also an issue, as “games are not about the magic moment, they're about the repeated action.”
“Our job is to find ways to change the context around the repeated action,” he suggests, so that one can make the first time feel "different the thousandth time." The movie industry does not have to worry about repeated action, but the video game industry needs to perfect the illusion of change in order to succeed.
Spector moved onto comic books for efficient storytelling techniques and their serialized nature. Comics can also provide the industry with iconic images, as opposed to photorealistic artwork, as "a lot of us [have] worked out that the Uncanny Valley is a bad place to go." He also pointed out that comics were slowly moving away from an area he felt the game industry was mired in: "If we don't break out of the big buff guys with swords and... space marines, we're going to get marginalized the way that comic books have been in the United States."
Ultimately, the player needs to be in control of where the narrative goes, Spector feels. "We have to put our ego on hold... and let the players tell the story." This argument formed the heart of his address. He continued saying that "we have to embrace the players as partners," and that playing a game should reveal to a player something about themselves.
Games provide the “power to transport” a gamer to an entirely different world, into the shoes of another person. The industry can immerse gamers in vast canvases that are completely believable. Games are about the strength of repeated actions, and should evolve and change based on which actions the player chooses.
If the player finishes a game as a different person than when they started, “not just upping some stats,” then Spector truly believes that we’ve maximized the potential of video games.
[Via Gamasutra]
