Spielberg, Lucas Opine On Video Games' Future

[Karloff]

Spielberg, Lucas Opine On Video Games' Future

Motion control is the way forward for complete immersion, Spielberg thinks.

"The second you get the controller something turns off in the heart," Steven Spielberg said, "and it becomes a sport." He was speaking at a Creative Arts panel at USC School of Performing Arts, where he and George Lucas were talking about the future of the movies - "there's eventually going to be a big meltdown," says Spielberg - and also the future of games, in which motion controls and empathetic story elements would become paramount. Neither of them felt that games had really been able to create the same empathy with characters that the movies historically have done - the turning off in the heart that starts when you pick up a controller - and both wanted to see a time when the controller was out of the picture, one way or the other.

"The big game of the next five years will be a game where you empathize very strongly with the characters and it's aimed at women and girls," said Lucas, "That will be a huge hit and as a result that will be the Titanic of the game industry." Gaming has, to date, been driven by the hard-core audience that enjoys onscreen violence, according to Lucas, and that is what prevents truly empathetic characters from thriving. Lucas hopes to eventually see a game which features "actual relationships instead of shooting people." Good to know that the future is now, as Clementine fans [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/fivefavorites2012/10110-Susans-Five-Favorites-of-2012] might say, or those who had a whale of a time with Journey.

Spielberg hopes for the day when the controller and screen are extinct, and everything is controlled by Kinect-like devices, a hope that might have been shaped - at least in part - by Kinect [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/moviebob/10346-Xbox-Done] for the success of its Xbox One. "We're never going to be totally immersive as long as we're looking at a square," he said, "whether it's a movie screen or whether it's a computer screen. We've got to get rid of that and we've got to put the player inside the experience, where no matter where you look you're surrounded by a three-dimensional experience."

Lucas meanwhile prays for a time when a chip, inserted in your brain, allows you to download your dreams and play them like a game. "We'll be able to do the dream thing 10, 15 years from now," says he. "It's not some pie-in-the-sky thing."

Source: Variety [http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/lucas-spielberg-on-future-of-entertainment-1200496241/]


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[Falterfire]

I think the Extra Credits guys called this one correctly: Motion Controls are the uncanny valley of controllers. With a normal controller in a well designed game, you don't even think about the controller. You don't think 'I'm going to press the A button to jump up and then press forward on the movement stick to get onto that ledge. You just think "I'm going to jump on that ledge" and you do it. Motion controls are just kind of awkward in their current stage.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J1lkYplh7v8

 

[repeating integers]

Well, that last paragraph has me wanting very hard.

 

[josemlopes]

If Spielberg is saying that the controller and screen should go then the Kinect isnt what he means, what he means is a holodeck. He wants VR stuff

 

[Vivi22]

Two guys who don't really know anything about making games pontificating about their future and how games need to be more like movies. Nothing to really see here.

Though if we're talking about games being able to create empathy like movies, they've already surpassed movies. I have never been moved by a movie in the same way I was by The Walking Dead, or by some of the better parts of Heavy Rain, largely because movies leave the viewer with absolutely no agency in the events which take place. Passive viewing will always be at a disadvantage when it comes to eliciting a real emotional response. Not saying it can't be done, but it is a lot harder.

 

[Sixcess]

Neither of them felt that games had really been able to create the same empathy with characters that the movies historically have done

Then they are wrong.

A game - a good game - can put you in the place of the lead character in a way that movies simply cannot match. There's an immediacy to the connection when you feel that your every action will decide what happens next, when you set the pace rather than sitting back and viewing.

For the moment that empathy is mostly very primal emotions - like fear. Anyone who's ever spent minutes at a time hesitating in Amnesia because there MIGHT be something horrible around the next corner is fully empathising with that character.

Other emotions still often need to be evoked by movie style conventions, leading to a lot of 'games' that play out like they really really want to be movies, and that leads into the other problem - even the best mo-capped video game character is a bad actor. Their expressions and actions are unnaturally emphasised, and they look weird. Look at any Bioware game. They have really good writing and voice acting, but any group of competent actors could deliver much better visual performances.

Games need to work on using the tools that are unique to the game experience to enhance their storytelling. They won't do it by aping movies.

Oh, and Kinect is a gimmick, and hugely unimmersive. If a game has a good, intuitive control system I won't think twice about it, I'll barely know the controller is in my hand. I can't imagine it ever slipping my mind that I'm waving my arms at a bloody camera on top of a tv screen or monitor.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Well, that last paragraph has me wanting very hard.

You can already do that. It's called lucid dreaming. Still, a cool idea if he's talking about something like an interactive version of that brain drug device in Strange Days.

So far I haven't been too impressed with the latest array of "story driven" games but SS has a point. I do have a hard time empathizing with Nico's loss near the end of GTA 4 since I usually get there by driving through pedestrians on the sidewalk. And Heavy Rain was burdened by QTEs and pretentiousness.

Have neither of these guys played Sims?

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

I think the Extra Credits guys called this one correctly: Motion Controls are the uncanny valley of controllers. With a normal controller in a well designed game, you don't even think about the controller. You don't think 'I'm going to press the A button to jump up and then press forward on the movement stick to get onto that ledge. You just think "I'm going to jump on that ledge" and you do it. Motion controls are just kind of awkward in their current stage.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J1lkYplh7v8

They're movie people, yeah, but the big difference here is that these aren't 'teh hardcore gamerz.' It doesn't make it bad, and in fact it kinda makes their point more important. Spielberg and Lucas are talking from mass market viewpoint.

We as gamers have grown up for twenty something years with a controller in our hand probably every day of the week. To us the only way a controller makes the game feel bad is if it really is just a bad game. My dad understands shooters, but when I give him a controller for Halo (which he loves) he has a good time but spends more of it messing with the controller than the game.

I agree with other commenters, Spielberg isn't toting Kinect, he wants a holodeck. We all do! The Oculus Rift is a big step in this direction, but it won't truly catch on until there's a way of it tracking your hands. The disconnect between what you see and what your body is doing will kill the potential of the item because to untrained hands it makes the controller even more awkward.

TL; DR
controllers are 'natural' to us because we grew up with them. They are actually awkward as balls.

 

[vhailorx]

This doesn't seem like a a particularly surprising statement. It basically just boils down to: "Movie-maker says movies are better than games!"

It seems like exactly the sort of silly thing that Roger Ebert was always saying, and for exactly the same reason: Spielberg and Ebert were passionate about movies and only distant observers of video games. Maybe he was baited into this topic by the interviewer, or maybe he just doesn't realize how ridiculous it is to categorically declare what entertainment medium makes everyone feel more empathy for fictional characters.

As for "mass marketing" I don't think that's a valid argument any more. the game industry is bigger than the movie industry, COD makes more money than even the biggest movies. Games ARE mass market. Sure, there are still lots of people who don't play games, but that portion of the population is getting smaller, not bigger. And no single type of entertainment will ever appeal to EVERYONE.

 

[Sixcess]

controllers are 'natural' to us because we grew up with them. They are actually awkward as balls.

It's a fair point, but I think what we're going to end up with is Kinect or other alternative control methods being used for 'casual' gaming while controllers/mouse and keyboard continue to reign supreme for everything else. I don't see how motion control can ever have the same level of precision as existing methods, and given that gamers (especially in competitive/PVP games) draw a distinction between mouse and keyboard vs controllers I don't see them embracing anything that's even less precise.

 

[Shanahanapp]

Good thing these film people are here to tell us silly little gamers what to think. I respect both of these guys but they don't work in this medium. Also I have empathised with characters in games far more and more often than characters in movies. I don't get why they keep bringing people who make good movies to talk about gaming. Stick to what you know guys.

 

[Dr.Awkward]

Nope.

The future to games in general is to have OPTIONS, or that almost everything is OPTIONAL.

Consoles, games, peripherals, the more options or things that are optional, the more satisfied players tend to be.

That, or keep things SIMPLE to use.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

Good thing these film people are here to tell us silly little gamers what to think. I respect both of these guys but they don't work in this medium. Also I have empathised with characters in games far more and more often than characters in movies. I don't get why they keep bringing people who make good movies to talk about gaming. Stick to what you know guys.

But without Spielberg there to make the games, who's gonna put spotlights in the background of every shot pointing directly at the screen? (See: Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Warhorse, & pretty much anything else he's done)

 

[Something Amyss]

"The second you get the controller something turns off in the heart," Steven Spielberg said, "and it becomes a sport."

That's why DVDs can't emotionally captivate you. That damn controller turns something off in the heart.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

controllers are 'natural' to us because we grew up with them. They are actually awkward as balls.

It's a fair point, but I think what we're going to end up with is Kinect or other alternative control methods being used for 'casual' gaming while controllers/mouse and keyboard continue to reign supreme for everything else. I don't see how motion control can ever have the same level of precision as existing methods, and given that gamers (especially in competitive/PVP games) draw a distinction between mouse and keyboard vs controllers I don't see them embracing anything that's even less precise.

As far as controllers go, yeah we probably won't get much better from here (for consoles), unless Microsoft actually puts in force feedback into to triggers for real resistance like they said they would, and not just more rumble. I love my mouse and keyboard, but that's like 30x as many buttons!

Part of the reason things like the Atari 2600, NES, and the Wii were so successful to mainstream is because the controllers were rather simple. They're gateway controllers. Give a man who's never played a game a 360 controller and load gears of war.. my bro is a gamer and even he couldn't get the control scheme for that game. Cover sticking is too weird/awkward. Now give Mario to someone, anyone, and the "this makes you move and that makes you jump" idea is something EVERYONE gets.

 

[Something Amyss]

Good thing these film people are here to tell us silly little gamers what to think. I respect both of these guys but they don't work in this medium. Also I have empathised with characters in games far more and more often than characters in movies. I don't get why they keep bringing people who make good movies to talk about gaming. Stick to what you know guys.

But without Spielberg there to make the games, who's gonna put spotlights in the background of every shot pointing directly at the screen? (See: Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Warhorse, & pretty much anything else he's done)

dn't worry. We still have needless bullet-time, that stop-start and slow-fast camera bullshit, and lens flares galrore, even without Hollywood getting involved.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Lucas is clueless which is not really news to anyone, and Spielberg wants a holodeck. Who doesn't? How else am I going to play out my Scarlett Johansson fantasies?

Stick to what you do best old timers, and leave video games to video game developers.