Poll: Why are Devs trying to turn games into movies?

[Meinos Kaen]

Cinematic feel. This word has been used more and more, recently. Two instances of which were particularly bad. One came from Ubisoft, and the second from Ready at Dawn. Both to explain why their games run on 30fps. On Ubisoft?s part it was just an excuse. They still haven?t managed to crack all the potential of the PS4 so, to keep the console graphics high, they had to cut on framerate. It?s a simple technical limit on their part that they didn?t want to admit.

The other, more recent and in my opinion more important case, is with The Order 1886. But unlike Ubisoft I have a nagging suspicion that these guys believe what they?re saying. And that?s bad.

You?ve certainly heard people talk about Videogames as an inferior form of art compared to say, movies or books. What most of these people don?t understand is: you can?t measure videogames using the same meters as movies or books. They?re three different things, they work in different ways and they need to be looked at with different tools.

The strength and the very core of gaming is: player interaction changing the experience. That?s what makes them games and not movies. And that?s what makes me ask: why are people trying to turn games into movies? Your medium?s strength is interactivity.

When something like the Order 1886 comes out, with a very short railroaded single player campaign where half of the gametime is cutscenes, I have to ask myself: why are these people in the game making business to begin with? Maybe that?s a bit harsh, but the thing is: the more people realize that yeah, videogames can be used to tell incredibly emotional tales, the more they try to tell those tales like it was a movie or a book. Instead of trying to play with the tools and strengths of a videogame.

Let?s take my favourite JRPG ever, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. A game for the Nintendo DS, this has almost complete immersion. The developers fused together the gameplay and game lore almost perfectly. There?s no meta. You have a menu because your high tech suit has a menu. You don?t level up, your suit levels up and gets stronger adapting to its surroundings. And you can talk and store demons because you have a computer software that allows you to.

Why do people think it?s a good idea to cut on gameplay for graphics and cutscenes? Why make giant levels and then limit the player?s ability to explore it with punishments that don?t make sense? And most importantly, why are they surprised or offended if people naturally have a problem with the way they do and price things?

 

[tippy2k2]

I think what it comes down to is that people want different things out of their games and hell, the very definition of game is in flux.

Would you consider Mass Effect a video game? Everyone is going to say Yes.
Would you consider Telltale's Walking Dead a video game? You lose a few people but most will say Yes.
Would you consider Heavy Rain a video game? You lose some more people...
Would you consider Dear Esther a video game? There are a lot of people who say no...

For me, a video game can do a lot and some developers are going to play with the concept of what a video game is. I haven't played The Order but making a video game is far more complicated than making an animated movie or TV Show; there's a reason they made it a video game over a non-interactive art. I know it's not the most popular opinion but I thought Heavy Rain was an incredible game (and I look forward to playing the spiritual sequel that is Beyond: Two Souls). Games that try something new (even if it doesn't fire on all cylinders) are always just a tiny bit more interesting to me than cookie cutters.

Maybe their concept got lost in translation, maybe it just failed miserably or maybe they're just bad at their jobs because we've seen games do the "movie concept" and hit critical success (see Metal Gear Solid).

 

[Whitbane]

Because you don't actually have to make compelling gameplay. You can just have cutscenes with a few QTE's and claim anyone who doesn't eat that shit up "doesn't get it".

 

[tilmoph]

Part of it, at least in my opinion, is people missing out on what makes gaming a unique artform. It's the emergent gameplay and storytelling, the tales that merge from the game world just going about its business. Crusader Kings II is, in my opinion, the high king of this; the entire game tells some massive, deep stories about the feudal age of Europe, with interesting, randomly generated characters, a constantly evolving world, and any number of themes for each playthroughs story that come from the results of the players actions and reactions to the world. The only dialogue is an occasional pop-up window for a random event, and with most of those, the player is still the one making a choice and watching the consequences, which emerge from earlier choices and choices made by the AI which informed more player choices.

What it seems like more and more games are art types want is art in the movie sense, with a focus on preset dialogues and pretty, atmospheric visuals. Gaming's unique feature, interactivity within the game world, control over the course and (sometimes) outcome of the story, are overlooked in favor of making things more like films. I don't mind games like that existing, and I frankly wouldn't care about some people calling things like Gone Home or Dear Esther games, since it's not some sacred name, it's just a classification for a thing. What does grate on me is people calling Gone Home the direction artful gaming should be going. No it isn't1 It's the exact opposite of how gaming as art should be evolving. Effectively no player involvement beyond scavenging for what are basically just "world of" DVD extras and 1 door puzzle that seems to have been tossed in tokenly? That's the way forward for an artform; taking out its defining characteristic?! No. Hell, hell no.

Now, not every game is going to be art, just like not all films are art. CoD; Pacific Rim. Just Cause; Avengers. Some things in both forms exist for fun, and that's all. And that's fine. What I wish the games are art types (which I guess I count as) would puzzle out is that nuking the most unique aspect of games is not making them legitimate; it's making them not games, thus undermining the effort at legitimacy for the medium that's being pushed for in the first place.

 

[Timeless Lavender]

I think it could be that gaming has also attracts a different audience where they may not be into the mechanics in the game but interesting in the story of the games. It just my hunch since gaming as expanded to larger audiences and no matter what the "hardcore" gamers may wish to believe, there are consumers who are willing to invest in a game with a story rather than a gameplay-only .I did not vote because "yes" and "no" does not truly capture my feeling towards 'cinematic experience' games. It depends on the story of the game for me to be invested in it so basically I am interested in games "movie-like " games if the story is very good.

 

[stroopwafel]

It'a a trend that kind of started in '98 with Metal Gear Solid. It was the first game that really used long-winded cutscenes to tell a story in a similair structure a movie would. It's no secret Kojima would have rather been a movie director and MGS is the product of that.

Now, I actually really enjoyed MGS when it first came out b/c for games 'to be like movies' was still a novel idea at the time. Now ofcourse it also helped that the story in MGS was weird, eclectic, cool and intriguing enough that these cutscenes weren't a chore to watch. However as always other developers will try to ape what's popular, with far less promising results.

With technology becoming more advanced and capable of incredibly impressive renders(just to take The Order as an example) games never really shook off the trend that MGS started, namely to tell a story through long-winded cutscenes(aka 'cinematic'). However whenever a medium tries to emulate another medium it never quite 'is', simply b/c it doesn't play into the strengths of that particular medium. In the case of games that is indeed interactivity and player agency, which unskippable cutscenes completely take away. Nothing is more excruciating than a game grinding to a halt b/c there is some unskippable cutscene followed by an 'exploration section' in which you need to slow-walk to find some trigger point to the next cutscene. Nothing is more immersion-breaking in a game for me than inconsistency in design.

In the end it's simple. If I want to watch a movie I'll watch a movie and if I want to play a game I'll play a game. The problem however is that that there are many talentless 'game-designers'(like David Cage, that Indian guy from The Order, Ken Levine to a lesser extent) who feel they a have 'a story to tell' and see game-development as a sort of gateway to peer-recognition from the movie industry.

Wrong. These people can't write for shit and as a result their games consist of mostly pretentious story exposition(best case, eg. Bioshock) or 6 hour cutscenes wrapped around some shitty gameplay diversions(worst case, eg. The Order, Heavy Rain etc.) I wish there was actually less narrative in games. Let the player experience(or figure out) the story for themselves as they play. Like the Souls games, classic Silent Hill, classic Resident Evil without the few cutscenes, the emergent storytelling in Shadow of Mordor or even the unpredictable/randomized AI in Alien Isolation. Or even Skyrim or Fallout for my part. You'll be hard-pressed to find people experiencing the game the same.

In the end though that is what it boilds down to, a game should be experienced, not passively watched. That is what movies are for.

 

[TastyCarcass]

I think the answer to this is simple. It's easier to do cutscenes than gameplay.

This is absolutely true, but I do believe that it's because it's easier to market a movie than a video game. It's easier to make a trailer from scripted events.

I think it could be that gaming has also attracts a different audience where they may not be into the mechanics in the game but interesting in the story of the games.

I think that a lot of customers simply don't understand gameplay. I don't even mean as a storytelling device, I mean that even without a story gameplay can hold a game, just as music without lyrics. Therefore when you get games like Order, some people just simply can't understand what the complaints are, or understand the difference between replaying Order or a classic Resident Evil, games which are meant to be replayed.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Why do people think it?s a good idea to cut on gameplay for graphics and cutscenes

I think the answer to this is simple. It's easier to do cutscenes than gameplay. There's no need to play test a cutscene where the player has no control beyond the point of, "Does this work the way we wanted it to?" There's no point where a player can muck it up. If the cutscene is also prerendered not only is there no major testing but it can look prettier than the gameplay too. I dislike being interrupted by such things personally, but I do know there are people who just want to see cool stuff on the screen. In short: It's easier and people will probably buy it cause it looks cool.

I don't think this is entirely true. While it is very much possible to completely screw the gameplay, creating all the audio and visual aspects are far from the easy route.

Take The Order 1886, since it's rather topical now. The entire game is more or less a tech demo, which is why I don't buy into the idea that "The Order looked this good, therefore all PS4 games will look this good". The people at Sony want everyone to think that all those shiny new art assets have simply appeared, out of virtue of having better hardware. The reality is, everything you see and hear in a game still has to be created by the many arts working on the game. Games like The Order aren't cinematic with meagre gameplay because that's the easy option, they are cinematic because they want to show off the hardware, and they have lacklustre gameplay because they already pooled all their resources into looking nice.

Generally, looking and sounding nice is more difficult than coming up with some decent gameplay. Otherwise, you would be seeing all sorts of indie games with AAA graphics and poor gameplay.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Because you don't actually have to make compelling gameplay. You can just have cutscenes with a few QTEs and claim anyone who doesn't eat that shit up "doesn't get it".

Exactly this kind of pretentious hipster attitude being preached at us from clueless devs is what I'm sick and tired of.

Out with this "cinematic" bullshit, and back with proper gameplay.

 

[Ishal]

Wrong. These people can't write for shit and as a result their games consist of mostly pretentious story exposition(best case, eg. Bioshock) or 6 hour cutscenes wrapped around some shitty gameplay diversions(worst case, eg. The Order, Heavy Rain etc.) I wish there was actually less narrative in games. Let the player experience(or figure out) the story for themselves as they play. Like the Souls games, classic Silent Hill, classic Resident Evil without the few cutscenes, the emergent storytelling in Shadow of Mordor or even the unpredictable/randomized AI in Alien Isolation. Or even Skyrim or Fallout for my part. You'll be hard-pressed to find people experiencing the game the same.

In the end though that is what it boilds down to, a game should be experienced, not passively watched. That is what movies are for.

I was going to say QFT. But I disagree one Ken Levine a bit.

I considered Bioshock to be one of the better examples of weaving story and gameplay. I haven't played it in a while, so there might be more cutscenes than I remember. But I don't think there were that many.

Though on the whole I agree. Souls games, Metroid Prime, and tons of others have done this. It's games like those that use the medium to it's fullest potential. Investigate the story yourself. Immerse yourself in the world, because the world is well crafted enough to allow that.

OT: ME3 demonstrated to me that games face too many hurdles to be able to tell a good story. Stories in the games get criticized all the time. Whne people say they want better stories in games, they don't just mean that. They mean compared to other mediums that do it better. Other mediums that they have experienced, and experienced better storytelling. I don't think games can get there, not without significantly altering the way the player interacts in the game. Ludo narrative dissonance is real. The player is an obstacle for storytelling in games. An obstacle that script writers and other authors don't have to deal with. There are ways around it, though. Ways of altering play to tell a story. But from what I've seen, nearly all involve limiting the player in some shape or form. The results are rarely fun experiences.

I'm not really interested in the whole "game or not a game" discussion. I feel that game implies fun, and people will of course state correctly that fun is subjective. I'm more interested in how you label the experience. There are multiple ways to satisfy a player. It doesn't need to be fun, but what about engaging? Compelling? Satisfying? I don't think Telltale games are really games. But I certainly see why people enjoy them, and I enjoy them, too.

 

[VanQ]

Because as games have become more popular and accepted, a new demographic has opened up that wants to watch television but be part of the "cool nerd" crowd that plays video games. I, personally, blame The Big Bang Theory for the whole video games as a trend thing.

 

[RandV80]

What it seems like more and more games are art types want is art in the movie sense, with a focus on preset dialogues and pretty, atmospheric visuals. Gaming's unique feature, interactivity within the game world, control over the course and (sometimes) outcome of the story, are overlooked in favor of making things more like films. I don't mind games like that existing, and I frankly wouldn't care about some people calling things like Gone Home or Dear Esther games, since it's not some sacred name, it's just a classification for a thing. What does grate on me is people calling Gone Home the direction artful gaming should be going. No it isn't1 It's the exact opposite of how gaming as art should be evolving. Effectively no player involvement beyond scavenging for what are basically just "world of" DVD extras and 1 door puzzle that seems to have been tossed in tokenly? That's the way forward for an artform; taking out its defining characteristic?! No. Hell, hell no.

'Art' can be full of pretentious bullshit, the sort that really isn't needed in gaming. Personally I like to view worthwhile art as the creative works of a talented individual(s). Whether that be painting, sculpting, writing, music, film, etc, doesn't really matter. And gaming is a medium that kind of involves little bits of everything from that 'art'.

So where I like to set my definition for gaming as art: when the creative people are allowed to create the game they envision. Could be that game is Gone Home or Dear Esther, or maybe it's Shovel Knight or The Binding of Isaac. What I want to actually play may vary but I view all these games equally as 'art'. The other side of the equation is the big business of gaming, where the 'creative' people are just a variety of cogs in the machine and corporate/marketing/focus groups/etc dictate the game to be made. Sometimes you can have a creative person at the top and you can look at it like the conductor of a symphonic orchestra, but more often these days it's purely cynical business.

 

[Foehunter82]

The Mass Effect series is as close to a cinematic game as I really need. I'd rather they spend more time on gameplay/content (for a base game, not DLC).

Because as games have become more popular and accepted, a new demographic has opened up that wants to watch television but be part of the "cool nerd" crowd that plays video games. I, personally, blame The Big Bang Theory for the whole video games as a trend thing.

The Big Bang Theory contributed, but was not the starting point, in my opinion. It started a few years before that. I would mark The Matrix as the turning point where "geekdom" in general started being perceived as good by the mainstream. After that, as I like to say, "Everybody wants to be like Neo." I could, of course, be wrong, but that's where I really started to notice the change in the culture in general. It didn't really reach critical mass until recently, though.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Because as games have become more popular and accepted, a new demographic has opened up that wants to watch television but be part of the "cool nerd" crowd that plays video games. I, personally, blame The Big Bang Theory for the whole video games as a trend thing.

I would think that part of this is because of ambitions by video game writers to emulate movies and literature for stories.

In a way, I can understand, people don't really hold game stories up to the same level as movies even if we try to provide examples (Persona is my example). As such, the belief in imitation would propagate.

However, I and many others would want writers to work hand in hand with game designers to let the story integrate into gameplay and I want that to though I don't know how to do it intrinsically.

 

[Muten]

I haven't play The Order, but i did play Mass Effect 3. If you guys remember, at the start of a new game you have basically 3 option on how to play the game (ACTION / RPG / STORY) http://tinyurl.com/nxgy3lm

They STORY mode was meant for people who just wanted to experience the story with few combat scenarios, with an on rails sorta flow to it. I don't know how many ppl play it through it that way, but its was clearly meant for casual gamers.

The ACTION mode have fewer dialogue options, with the combat scenarios been the main focus.

Maybe there is some data to be sorted out there, on how effective that was for bioware, but the effort there was to have more of a "cinematic feel" for ME3, no doubt.

 

[VanQ]

Because as games have become more popular and accepted, a new demographic has opened up that wants to watch television but be part of the "cool nerd" crowd that plays video games. I, personally, blame The Big Bang Theory for the whole video games as a trend thing.

I would think that part of this is because of ambitions by video game writers to emulate movies and literature for stories.

In a way, I can understand, people don't really hold game stories up to the same level as movies even if we try to provide examples (Persona is my example). As such, the belief in imitation would propagate.

However, I and many others would want writers to work hand in hand with game designers to let the story integrate into gameplay and I want that to though I don't know how to do it intrinsically.

Persona is a poor example of the kind of game I'm talking about. Persona does an excellent job of weaving its gameplay mechanics, specifically Social Links, into the story. The kind of game I'm talking about is like Metal Gear Solid 4, which was vastly dominated by cutscenes. Another prime example would be Final Fantasy 13 (only the first one, I didn't play the others) where it was about 50% cutscenes, 30% walking in a hallway simulator and 20% combat. And the combat in FF13 was basically a "choose your own QTE" adventure.

Other franchises have also started to open up to the audience that doesn't care about gameplay like the Fire Emblem casual mode. I don't begrudge the Fire Emblem games for this mode, mind you, because they still have the regular permadeath mode. I'm just trying to point out the fact that there is a demographic now that just wants TV in the form of video games.

And that's fine. I'm happy for there to be some games that don't appeal to me. There's already too many games I want to play that I'll never have time for. It's good that I can cross some off my list and it's great that others can enjoy the hobby in a more controlled environment where they can turn off their brains. Even I play a corridor shooter from time to time.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Uh money? I mean how happy would Devs be to re-release Final Fantasy Spirits Within(Actually not a horrible movie...) with QTEs every minute or so, for $60?
With the DVD extras like the Thriller dance video released as DLC

Movies are easier to make than games with gameplay and mechanics and the like. No one worried about a movie glitching out or players cheating. A movie plays and you don't have to worry about that table in the far corner having clipping issues, because no one ever goes near it!
Movies = less work = more money

 

[Cecilo]

I think what it comes down to is that people want different things out of their games and hell, the very definition of game is in flux.

Would you consider Mass Effect a video game? Everyone is going to say Yes.
Would you consider Telltale's Walking Dead a video game? You lose a few people but most will say Yes.
Would you consider Heavy Rain a video game? You lose some more people...
Would you consider Dear Esther a video game? There are a lot of people who say no...

For me, a video game can do a lot and some developers are going to play with the concept of what a video game is. I haven't played The Order but making a video game is far more complicated than making an animated movie or TV Show; there's a reason they made it a video game over a non-interactive art. I know it's not the most popular opinion but I thought Heavy Rain was an incredible game (and I look forward to playing the spiritual sequel that is Beyond: Two Souls). Games that try something new (even if it doesn't fire on all cylinders) are always just a tiny bit more interesting to me than cookie cutters.

Maybe their concept got lost in translation, maybe it just failed miserably or maybe they're just bad at their jobs because we've seen games do the "movie concept" and hit critical success (see Metal Gear Solid).

Dear Esther ISNT, a game, There is no gameplay. You can have a game be artistic, you can have a beautiful world and a narrative, but if all you are doing is shuffling around you are not playing anything, you have lost what makes it a game. To call Dear Esther a game, is to call going into a museum with a megaphone in background speaking playing a game. It isn't just because you installed it via steam or had an opening menu. It distinctly lacks any thing that you use to identify it as a game.

If you want to have a narrative and a story that is fine, as long as you are interacting with the world on some meaningful level. And to the people that want video game art to just basically be visuals and audio then you are missing out on what makes gaming so unique as a possible art form. By immersing yourself as a character through the story that you play as, you can feel more with the characters, and that requires you are them, not just watch them do things or move around.

It is why I separate Gone Home and Dear Esther, Gone Home's atmosphere and little game play did make it a game (Not a 10/10 for sure, maybe 7 or 8/10), It had things you could do, you could explore the house, interact with objects, it's atmosphere added to your experience, I spent the good 30-40 minutes into the game thinking it was going to be a horror story because of the atmosphere it gave you when you reached it. Dear Esther has none of that, it is little more than a gallery.

And the same can be said of Heavy Rain, it leans more towards a movie narrative but you have some input on how it is moved forward, hell you can choose to kill yourself at one point in it, and if that is how you want to play that is your choice, and it felt real while you were playing it, Jodie was in a dark place you could understand why she would want to do it, her life was going to shit, she had been used by her friend, tossed to the wolves by her mentor, She was on the streets. But you felt with her despite the cinematic nature of the game, you were watching her suffer through Aiden, and it was heart breaking seeing it (to some).

You can have your cinematic feel or look to a game, just it has to be compelling when you aren't in the cinematics if that makes sense?

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

For money, because they're shit, and because console hardware is meh. That pretty much sums it up.

It costs less to make a 6 hour "cinematic" game, than it does to make an actual, y'know, game with good gameplay. And bonus points for selling it at $60.

Some devs are just bad. They can't design, they can't code, they can't optimize, so they make cutscenes, and it comes out as a shit animated movie that morons payed $60+ dollars for.