Issue 41: Casual Friday - Confessions of a Crybaby

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
John Walker"This week's titular question is obviously a silly one. Answer: Yes. Next issue please!" John Walker explains why games can and should make you cry.
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: munki

I I found myself getting a little misty-eyed just reading John Walker's article - do I win?
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: andrew stern
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2006/03/14/overly-escapist/
While I appreciate the ?rah-rah, boo-hoo, emotion in games!? cheerleading, let?s get real about the status quo of gaming?s expressiveness, please?

There are many games that tell stories as you play along. Many of these stories have characters with dramatic or melodramatic character arcs, most often fantasy-based. A willing player can let themselves be immersed in these pretty much linear stories, allowing their imaginations to emphathize with the characters, to point they can cry if they wish. That?s perfectly fine ? you?ll find no criticism here for anyone who willingly and actively immerses themselves in a linear story. The fact that you have to interact a bit, to essentially turn to the next page of this mostly linear story, can, for those willing, enhance the feeling of immersion and therefore heighten the emotions felt. The occasional, essentially multiple-choice, even binary-choice morality questions posed to you as you ?turn the pages? can feel meaningful if you want to believe in them. I should point out, the primary reason such players are feeling emotional is due to the devices of good-ol?-fashion storytelling, with emphasis on telling ? not because of interactivity.

Read the full reply at
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2006/04/21/the-new-gofst
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: John Walker
http://botherer.cream.org
Yes, and this piece isn't about interactivity being the root of the emotion. It's about the need to adjust the means by which a player associates with the characters - in the storytelling - because of the interactivity. Cecil is addressing the dilemma of asking the player to "be" a character who is patently not them, rather than asking that the reader identify with the description on the page.

I think you've rather missed the point, probably because of a prior-conceived frustration with an argument that this piece is not making.

However, I also think it's enormously short-sighted to dismiss interactivity as a hugely affecting factor when it comes to identity and empathy. To use a dismissive tone to reduce all involvement of the player as elaborated page-turning is both dishonest and obviously untrue. Perhaps in a game like Broken Sword that only intends to tell you one story (note: intends to - it isn't a giant interactive conspiracy against which you must fight), but your argument holds no ground in the context of something like Knights of the Old Republic, Planescape: Torment or Deus Ex, where your actions strongly determine the story you are told. Even the ending may remain the same (although in these cases it does not), but the path you take to get to it, and the experience you have along that path, are hugely determined by how you choose to approach each choice. To ignore this interactivity (in KotOR you can be loathed or loved or much in between by those you encounter, and the consequences of your actions determine the futures others have) as impacting upon emotional involvement, is to make a very peculiar argument indeed.
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: andrew stern
http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/2006/03/14/overly-escapist/
I think you've rather missed the point, probably because of a prior-conceived frustration with an argument that this piece is not making.

If you're not making the point explicity, I (and perhaps other readers) assume there is an implicit point you're making: that games are doing something more than good ol' fashioned storytelling to make us cry. I don't think that's true yet, and it's an important point. If it's just storytelling in the same sense as books or movies, what's so special about that?

Re: KOTOR, Deus Ex, etc. they may be games that offer more than zero level of plot control, but the degree of control (agency) is still quite low, and the interactivity tends to be melodramatic about saving the world or battling outsized enemies, not the stuff to make one cry. I still can't get those characters to listen to me, so that I feel they care about me, so I can reciprocate and care about them.
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: John Walker
http://botherer.cream.org
I think in the case of something like KotOR, that's not true.

F'rinstance, one interesting scenario has you meet a woman who has lost her droid. Her husband has also recently died, and she seems far too attached to her missing robot. She asks you to find him. You can tell her to piss off, or offer help.

If you find the droid, he explains that he has run away, because she's attempting to replace her husband with it. And he's freaked out. His programming commands him to return to her, but he knows it's wrong, and asks that you kill him to set her free.

You can order him to return to her, and he will. You can refuse to get involved. You can kill him, return to her and tell her he is dead. And you can kill him, and return to her and tell her that he's alive and waiting for her, and she should look for her.

This isn't fighting a big monster or saving the world. It's a choice you can simply walk away from. Meeting her again later in the game (which you won't necessarily do) your earlier decision will have had an effect on her life.

I think it's already happening.
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: Graham Smith

I agree with John on this one. Has a game ever made me cry? No, but they've certainly made me care, and care all the more because of the interactivity. I feel empathy for the characters in a movie when I see them suffer, but games can - and have - made me feel a greater sense of pain because of my complicity in the situation.

The offered KoToR scenario is a good one. More recently, Oblivion has put me in a lot of similar situations. The paranoid man who approaches you and asks you to investigate his neighbours, as he's convinced they're conspiring against him? You can ignore him, tell him the truth, or confirm his worst fears - and then you can either kill his neighbours for him or turn him over to the guards. Whatever you do effects how he reacts, and effects whether people get killed or not.

And one of the great things in Oblivion is that people do live. People get up, eat, go to work, come home, eat, read, train, sleep. They have lives and routines. So if you interupt those routines with a rusty sword, then that person won't have a tomorrow. That's a tremendously powerful thought, and no film or book has ever made me feel guilt before, or a sense of sorrow so strong.

I can't tell them about my day, but my ability to interact with them - be it with weapons, words or otherwise - nonetheless informs my feelings about them in huge ways.
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: bnielson
http://www.onlineroleplayer.com
It seems that Andrew is talking about the over all story. Yes, the level of interactivity with the "big story" is still quite low. But games (RPGs in particular) have really moved us to a new level when it comes to subquests. More and more subquests allow you to resolve the situation in a variety of ways. For now, we just don't have the techniques to allow that level of interactivity on the overall plot. But companies like Bioware are slowly pushing the envelope on this.
 

The Escapist Staff

New member
Jul 10, 2006
6,151
0
0
Original Comment by: Steve Ince
http://www.juniper-games.com
"Broken Sword 3 was primarily written by Neil Richards..."

He must have forgotten the three-quarters that I wrote... :(