Heavy Rain Director Creates "Experiences, Not Products"

[Legion]

At least he is passionate about what he does. Whether or not his "experiences" turn out as well as he intends, I have much more respect for a guy willing to take their creation in the direction they want, rather than trying to tick as many boxes as possible to make as much cash as quickly as he can.

 

[TheLazyGeek]

Why can't products also be experiences? Like Taco Bell. 45-minutes after eating their product and I have a sorrowful experience. And most of the time my brother catches a whiff of the experience too!

Also, I don't see how it's "challenging to adept" if you just outright ignore input.

 

[Seventh Actuality]

If his games were as powerful and innovative as he thinks, maybe he could let them speak for themselves instead of blowing his own horn in another interview every other week.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I'd like to say it's this kind of pretentiousness that turns me off to his games but its the pretentiousness of the games itself.
Now if he can get enough players to want to sit and watch a kid do his homework and eat dinner more power to him but I do enough of that in real life. In real life, it's at least interesting and rewarding; in a game, it's tedious. Now, I don't need guns in all my games (hell most of my favorite games from last gen didn't even have any sort of guns) but I don't want to spend my game time doing completely mundane things either.
But besides all of that, I still just can't get past the overuse of QTEs. In this day and age, QTEs are completely obsolete. If they were really so great, they could come up with an intuitive control system.

 

[major_chaos]

good lord this guy seems like more of a pretentious ass every time he opens his mouth. At this point there is just about zero chance of me pick up Beyond for that reason alone.
Also, hey Mr. Cage? how about instead of worrying about Experiences vs. Products, you try making actual games instead of second rate animated chose your own adventure books.

 

[Lunar Templar]

so .... not only does he have the wrong idea when it comes to graphics .... he also doesn't know how to use criticism or sequels >.>

wow ... just ... wow, how the hell did he get where he is?

 

[Matthi205]

Even if I don't like his games very much (or him for that matter), the man has a point.

The idea of sequels isn't all that good. Make it good, and get it right the first time. Without sequels, every story has to be fresh and interesting. This doesn't exclude the autor from the ability to make something in the same universe, but it gives us stories with some actual closure for once.

Also, actually having something driven by a single person should make for a much more coherent experience (except if it's Suda51...) than what we have now - plot holes the size of Uranus alongside reality rifts the size of Jupiter.

Video game storytelling is too much oriented to be like a movie. And, let's face it, neither game storytelling from the ME school nor storytelling from the David Cage school of videogame storytelling is going to do much to help. Though maybe he has plans to move in the right direction, who knows.

There is a kind of story you can only build in a videogame. A kind of story where every choice has meaning and the player decides in which direction it goes. The problem with doing something like this is that either it's going to feel awfully limited because of limited resources or it's going to take literally forever to make. A directed story is easier to make, and it's easier to balance gameplay along the way.

Hmmm... normally tedious things in games are included to provide a heavier contrast when things go downhill. It has to be balanced properly though. And that (amongst other things like gameplay) is something the guy needs to learn. I remember a quest in Two Worlds (I got it after all the issues had been patched ) where you basically ferried a few packages around for the traders' guild until they noticed you getting suspicious (which was about 3 trips in - mind you,there was fast travel in the form of portals outside every major city in that game), after which they flat out admitted that they had done that just to see if you're any good. Actually, that's one of the little fetch quests I remember where the creators actually put some thought in - it made sense in the game and the traders' guild doesn't just trust you from the moment you show up on the doorstep of their dependance. I'm going off topic now, so I'd better stop.

 

[Sectan]

If polygons is emotions. How many emotions is people?

I haven't played any of his games, but from what I've seen they seem to be in the same vein of...Idk what they're called, Katawa Shoujo was one of them. It's a story, but you're just kinda doing it not playing it. Maybe every once in a while you do something to take another path.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

too bad Cage's experiences are all ass. They're not fun nor is the writing any good. It's amazing at how a hack like him is allowed to be propped up as some sort of visionary

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

David Cage is like a first year Creative Writing student who trots out the 'you don't understand what I'm trying to do' excuse to respond to any criticism.

 

[Rad Party God]

Sorry, I just can't take this guy seriously anymore... curse you Jim and your amusing antics!

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

The day I had to sit next to a raving nutter on the bus was an experience, cost nothing and was one I don't wish to repeat. Funnily enough it was not too disimilar to experiencing Heavy Rain's plot.

Besides give me emotions over experiences any day Cage

 

[Nurb]

When the higher-ups start using "visions" or "experience, not game", they usually don't listen to people telling them something is wrong because their head is up their ass.

 

[Something Amyss]

It doesn't matter what you call it, it's not all that good. Focus on making the...The whatever you want to call it good, and you can call it what you want. Otherwise, you sound like a pretentious douche trying to justify a poor product with artistic vision.

 

[wulf3n]

Ignoring the fact that "Experience" and "Product" aren't mutually exclusive, and that a product is "anything offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need", so in fact his "Experiences" are products, why does everything he say come off pretentious in some way?

hmmm... Thinking about it maybe what he's actually saying is that his "Experiences" aren't products because no one wants it or needs it.

 

[Shuu]

I get what he's saying, but the thing is... he's probably boasting to a large extent. David Cage is a bit of a knob, with some twisted views on the industry, but the guy has vision, and I don't believe him when he says "i never leisten to criticism". I imagine him saying that, "I'm just so smart that any worthy criticisms, I have already thought of! If I didn't, it's because it's not a wortyh complaint!" and then secretly checking the internet thinking "now... what did people think of Heavy Rain."
Criticism is a powerful weapon for improvement. Cage knows that perfectly well, he's not an idiot, he's just controversial. I've got no idea why he wants people to look at him like he's just too good that he doesn't need to come to terms with his games' flaws to improve them.

Incidentally (and while I don't have time to make huge arguments to this effect, here) I don't see the need to differentiate between art and product. To me, any art becomes a product at the point where somebody other than the artist partakes in it. So in most cases, art is a product. There's nothing wrong with that. Being a product doesn't subtract from your work's aritistic merrit. Unless you're too good for that, ie. David Cage.

 

[Xarathox]

Yeah, the guy's officially off his nut. And his "experiences" that he sells have been complete shit from the start.