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

[Meinos Kaen]

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.

Hmmm, well, actually, I feel Persona doesn't really do that good of a job with the social links. I'm playing Persona 4 right now and the whole Social Link situation doesn't feel natural at all. Instead of thinking 'okay! Which of my friends do I want to spend time with, today?' my mindset is more like 'Argh, this social link is low! I need to spend time but I wanted to train my Persona level, today, or raise my courage. Oh, well, I can do it tomorrow... Ah, no. I can only go out with these guys on saturdays and WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON'T COME OUT BECAUSE RAIN?!'.

The result is that the game treats the characters like tools instead of people. I can't play the social part of the game like I want to because there's only one right way of answering.

"So, who's your type?" "Oh, Chie for sure! She's so cute and energetic, an-: "LOLNOPE! YOUR TRUE FEELINGS ARE 'NEITHER!' ANSWER THAT OR YOU WON'T RAISE YOUR COURAGE!" Don't try to tell me what my feelings are, game!

 

[VanQ]

Hmmm, well, actually, I feel Persona doesn't really do that good of a job with the social links. I'm playing Persona 4 right now and the whole Social Link situation doesn't feel natural at all. Instead of thinking 'okay! Which of my friends do I want to spend time with, today?' my mindset is more like 'Argh, this social link is low! I need to spend time but I wanted to train my Persona level, today, or raise my courage. Oh, well, I can do it tomorrow... Ah, no. I can only go out with these guys on saturdays and WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON'T COME OUT BECAUSE RAIN?!'.

The result is that the game treats the characters like tools instead of people. I can't play the social part of the game like I want to because there's only one right way of answering.

"So, who's your type?" "Oh, Chie for sure! She's so cute and energetic, an-: "LOLNOPE! YOUR TRUE FEELINGS ARE 'NEITHER!' ANSWER THAT OR YOU WON'T RAISE YOUR COURAGE!" Don't try to tell me what my feelings are, game!

I think you're mistaken with the point I was trying to make. I never claimed that the Social Links felt any way realistic or natural, but that they play an important part in the story and other mechanics in the game and that the systems all tie together. The Social Links have a very definite role in the outcome of the character's progression and the story of the game including the ending.

 

[Meinos Kaen]

Hmmm, well, actually, I feel Persona doesn't really do that good of a job with the social links. I'm playing Persona 4 right now and the whole Social Link situation doesn't feel natural at all. Instead of thinking 'okay! Which of my friends do I want to spend time with, today?' my mindset is more like 'Argh, this social link is low! I need to spend time but I wanted to train my Persona level, today, or raise my courage. Oh, well, I can do it tomorrow... Ah, no. I can only go out with these guys on saturdays and WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON'T COME OUT BECAUSE RAIN?!'.

The result is that the game treats the characters like tools instead of people. I can't play the social part of the game like I want to because there's only one right way of answering.

"So, who's your type?" "Oh, Chie for sure! She's so cute and energetic, an-: "LOLNOPE! YOUR TRUE FEELINGS ARE 'NEITHER!' ANSWER THAT OR YOU WON'T RAISE YOUR COURAGE!" Don't try to tell me what my feelings are, game!

I think you're mistaken with the point I was trying to make. I never claimed that the Social Links felt any way realistic or natural, but that they play an important part in the story and other mechanics in the game and that the systems all tie together. The Social Links have a very definite role in the outcome of the character's progression and the story of the game including the ending.

Oh, I agree with that. I'm just saying that while on paper it's a great idea, the end result isn't really that good. It gives you an illusion of freedom, and I don't really like that.

 

[Windcaler]

I think what were seeing is more and more developers wanting and trying to develop games that have more artistic merit. In most cases that has been with more narrative driven focus. There are only so many games (or even instances in games) which you can play that doesnt tell a story without words.

Not every game has to be a work of art but personally I find games much more interesting and memorable when they can be considered art. Morale dilema's, the questioning of morality in and of itself, phsycological horror, exploration of humanity. These are all themes that make me look at a game with greater and greater appeal and transform a game into art.

 

[aozgolo]

There are two conflicting design philosophies in games:

Narrative first Design and Gameplay first Design.

Yes you can have a Narrative and Gameplay that compliment each other but often the beginnings of game design go one of two routes:

I want to make a game that tells "this story"

or

I want to make a game where you can do "this"



The David Cage games are obviously designed "Narrative first" as is pretty much every Adventure game ever. You want to tell a story, so you build a framework of gameplay around it to house the story and present it in a way that it deviates very little.

Grand Theft Auto is a great example of a game that is "Gameplay first". You don't get a world like GTA:V out of a desire to tell a set story, especially in an established franchise. Everyone knew before a single story beat of GTA:V was known that it would be open world, you would have a huge amount of activities to do, both scripted missions and non-scripted emergent gameplay. To do anything different would have been a betrayal to it's namesake and fanbase.


Personally I feel that both philosophies have their place, and you can have Narrative-first design and create really fun gameplay (MGS was really fun to play) and likewise have a Gameplay-first design with great narrative (Fallout New Vegas comes to mind). It's when players come to expect a game to be one type and it turns out to be another that you really have this disconnect. While some games nail both, not all do, and they don't all have to, but when promising both and only delivering on one, you will inevitably get backlash.

 

[tilmoph]

snip

I'm with you to a point. My line boils down down to this; what other artform had to sacrifice what made it truly unique to be accepted? What sculptor had to have a painting, the the exclusion of the 3d form itself, to be accepted as "art"? What painting had to answer to "well, you don't have your images in motion" to the film industry to be accepted as legitimate art? To me, gaming provides something other forms of art don't have; the allowance of the viewer/player to be a deciding factor of the art itself. No, I don't except every single game to allow the audience to change the course of history, or the tale of the story of the game. I'm fine with popcorn games that exist purely for fun, damn all else. but if something is being called "the right direction of games as art", I feel well within reason to expect that thing to show off what makes that artform unique. In the case of gaming, that is interactivity, either in the world, the characterization, or both. I don't care if Gone home or dear Esther are, in and of themselves, called games. I do care if these things, which abandon all the potential of the artform of gaming specifically, as opposed to digital movies, are praised as the "future of gaming", because I feel that robes gaming of it's place as unique artform

 

[Papadam]

Why can't there be different games for different tastes? Does all games have to be open world, 100 hour games with lots of filler and grinding?

The Order is one of the best games I have played in the last 5 years. I wish there were more games like this made but all we this is theese boring open world grinding games.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Either the director wants to be an author or movie director, and begrudgingly uses video games as their medium because that's the job they have, or having a bunch of cinematics and QTEs is way easier to make as a tech demo for hardware (The Order was probably supposed to be a launch title and do this for the PS4), or a director genuinely wants to make video games a great storytelling medium but could learn from some others on how to weave it into the gameplay better (Hideo Kojima).

I don't have a problem with games being cinematic. It doesn't mean that all of my bullet hell shmups and runners are going to vaporize. Cinematic can also be badass, there's a place for games trying to push forward as a texture and shader based piece of cinema with light audience participation. There's a market for that, there's people who aren't looking to be challenged or play any game more than once. More of these games won't make Bayonetta 2 vaporize.

There's also a gameplay argument to be made too. The generic Ubisoft template of "open world, climb towers, reveal more of map, find the hundreds of 'things' to do" might offer a lot of gameplay, but how much of it is grindy busy work just to fill bars and unlock useless abilities? Sometimes it's nice just to have a game with a guiding hand from beginning to end, where everything you do has a purpose and it's hard to get the story off-pace (Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was kind of like this, and I feel it worked as a game if not a Silent Hill one).

I guess what I do is spot the cases where love and care, or at the very least competence is involved, and decide using the many tools at our disposal if it's worth enjoying as a game. And don't lie to me. I know that The Order was 30 fps for technical reasons, not because movies run at 24. I was told that The Order was a story-focused, story first cinematic affair, when the stories that Ready at Dawn made for the GoW games were total shit. I will probably never buy The Order, but I loved Heavy Rain. It it least looks like David Cage is trying something wholeheartedly.

 

[Casual Shinji]

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.

Yet others would use MGS as a perfect example of games trying to be movies and sucking because of it. Kojima is constantly accused of being a talentless hack who just wants to make movies and not games.

See how there's no clear line for this? How some people think games should merge gameplay and story perfectly, and how others think putting any kind of story in is already going to far?

It seems the only time "games are trying too hard to be like movies" is when it regards a game someone doesn't like.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

The answer is simple: penis envy. Movies get a certain type of respect that video games don't, they're viewed as a higher level of art due to being around longer. There's also the fact that a lot of the people leading development teams just want to make movies but for one reason or another ended up in game development.

You can say it's money, but at the end of the day a well made cinematic that lasts 5 minutes will often cost more then a whole level, in some games it's even so bad that most of the budget was spent on cut-scenes.

They want to make movies, they want games to BE movies, so as a result there are cinematic-heavy games.

Came here to say this and it's pretty damned dead on.

Side note: If Dear Esther is a game, then so are those interactive museum things where you can 'walk' around a virtual version of the exhibits.

 

[Albino Boo]

The answer is simple: penis envy. Movies get a certain type of respect that video games don't, they're viewed as a higher level of art due to being around longer. There's also the fact that a lot of the people leading development teams just want to make movies but for one reason or another ended up in game development.

You can say it's money, but at the end of the day a well made cinematic that lasts 5 minutes will often cost more then a whole level, in some games it's even so bad that most of the budget was spent on cut-scenes.

They want to make movies, they want games to BE movies, so as a result there are cinematic-heavy games.

There is a monetary aspect. Directors of AAA movies get paid considerably more and get a percentage of the gross. Project leads on AAA games don't do badly but directors are in a different league

 

[Foehunter82]

Kojima is constantly accused of being a talentless hack who just wants to make movies and not games.

I consider him a talentless hack because it seems the characters he kills off always come back, thus removing any lasting meaning to said story.

That said, I have only played the first Metal Gear (on NES) and the first Metal Gear Solid, and have heard about the absurdity of the other games second-hand.

 

[laggyteabag]

I would say so, yes. I believe that games should try to be successful based on their own merits and traits instead of trying to latch onto other mediums to try and emulate them. Whenever a developer goes on about how their game offers a cinematic experience, I pretty much just chalk it down to trying to have good PR.

"Hey, we have lots of unskippable cutscenes, the game runs at 30FPS and has big black bars across the screen, so yeah, we fucked up."

They wouldn't say that. They'd spin it in a way that benefits themseleves.

"Hey, we have lots of cutscenes, the game runs at a more cinematic 30FPS and the big black bars really drive home that cinematic feeling."

It is all pretty much a side effect of having better graphics though. As much as I hate to say it: Graphics sell games. Even if a game plays like crap, people will still go out and buy it because it looks nice. The Order 1886 proved this perfectly: People don't care about resolution or FPS as long as what is on their screen looks nice.

 

[Casual Shinji]

People don't care about resolution or FPS as long as what is on their screen looks nice.

Uhm... I can't really see the problem with that. If what's on screen looks nice haven't the resolution and frame rate basically done their job?

 

[Bad Jim]

I think it is because they have a slave driver mentality, with 100 hour weeks and the like. Programmers switch to boring banking jobs with sensible hours, decent pay and job security once they decide to have children. Actors have unions. Good game designers actually need to play a lot and appear to be goofing around when they are doing what needs to be done.

The slave driving mentality only really works with 3d modellers and the like whose skills are too specialised to take elsewhere. So we get games that are very pretty but not particularly fun to play. Advertising as if they were movies allows them to downplay their failings as games.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I voted no. Anyone who believes 'cinematic' game design is somehow purging any other form of design out of existence is deluded, or is too narrow minded. Just because The Ellen Page Crying Simulator [footnote]Known, I believe, in most regions as 'Beyond. 2: Souls'[/footnote] exists, doesn't mean, I dunno, Child Of Light somehow ceases to be part of the industry and medium.

Cinema has helped shape and influence gaming for decades, and it's none the lesser for it. The medium's now more diverse than it's ever been - and that's what we should be celebrating.

I also think it's a little ignorant, and slightly ridiculous, to bother having discussions about what may or may not be a 'game'. If literally every game becomes a triple-A shooter, or a wacky Kinect, er, wave-at-the-screen-'em-up, or a space-truck simulator, etc... then it's time to start worrying.

Gaming's greatest virtue is surely its versatility (Tetris, Street Fighter, Minecraft, Lollipop Chainsaw, EVE Online, Life Is Strange, TES, Child Of Eden, Gone Home, Forza Motorsport/Gran Turismo, Fez, Darkest Dungeon, et cetera... ). The sooner the industry - and the rather whiny, label-hungry fans - get that, the better.

Yes, this post is rather snippy/snarky. But I'm getting sick of the hypersensitive insecurity so many gamers seem to be exhibiting ('Gamers are dead!' 'No, gamers are not dead!' / '30fps = cinematic!' 'How very dare you!' / 'This is a game because reasons!' 'No, this isn't a game because reasons!').

So to directly answer the poll question: no, I don't think they're taking it too far - every approach is valid, as this medium's strength is its incredible diversity.

 

[lefantome]

I have no idea.
The budget needed is high and the failure risk is huge. I think that they are mostly done by failed movie/tv writers or directors turned game designers.

They may be cool cinematic game but I don't think this is the right direction for gaming.

 

[laggyteabag]

People don't care about resolution or FPS as long as what is on their screen looks nice.

Uhm... I can't really see the problem with that. If what's on screen looks nice haven't the resolution and frame rate basically done their job?

Dont get me wrong, pretty games have their place, but when you have two great big black bars covering the borders of the screen, and when you have to set the game to 30FPS, and limit the game to a glorified corridor shooter, were the few extra particle effects and polygons really worth it?

I mean, The Order 1886 is a damn pretty game, and anyone would be silly not to admit that, but there must have been a lot of sacrifices that were really detrimental to the user experience to get a game to look that good.

 

[stroopwafel]

Dont get me wrong, pretty games have their place, but when you have two great big black bars covering the borders of the screen, and when you have to set the game to 30FPS, and limit the game to a glorified corridor shooter, were the few extra particle effects and polygons really worth it?

Well, despite the environments being basically just one long hallway divided into tiny chunks with dozens of lengthy unskippable cutscenes to load them in; the fucking game doesn't even have particle effects or destructible environments. Sure, maybe there is a vase or 2 that can break but other than that you wouldn't see damage in the environment after some pop 'n stop firefight has taken place. Which also isn't good as the reticule floats in every which direction while enemies react to bullets like their made of paper. The 'gunplay'(if you can call it that) lacks any kind of kickback or oomph.

I don't know, I played many bad games in my life but rarely to the extent that a game seems completely devoid of any talent. The Order is such a 'game' though. Not only is this turd nothing but a glorified tech-demo, the script that the writers are so in love with sucks as well. Cool premise for sure, but executed so poorly that talking to a plant might deliver more interesting dialogue.

And yet they clearly had some of the best art-directors working on the game. That they managed to fuck it up so badly is beyond me. The Order is like something that came with a PS4 dev-kit, to demonstrate the graphical horsepower of the machine and nothing more.

I guess that's another reason why 'story over gameplay' is a bad idea. When the story of an FPS sucks it's still an FPS. When the story of an action-RPG sucks it's still an action-RPG. However what do you call a game in which the story sucks yet is nothing but 6 hours of cutscenes mingled with the occasional QTE? The Order.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Dont get me wrong, pretty games have their place, but when you have two great big black bars covering the borders of the screen, and when you have to set the game to 30FPS, and limit the game to a glorified corridor shooter, were the few extra particle effects and polygons really worth it?

I mean, The Order 1886 is a damn pretty game, and anyone would be silly not to admit that, but there must have been a lot of sacrifices that were really detrimental to the user experience to get a game to look that good.

Well, what I mean to say is that resolution and FPS are meant to make the game look nice, and if the game already looks nice then I would say that's a job well done, whether it's 720p or 1080p, 30fps or 60fps. I know that the industry has sort of created this hair splitting itself by boasting the power of current gen consoles, but I hope this won't result in people going 'Yeah, that looks gorgeous, but it aint 1080p and 60fps.' I mean, I've been playing God of War 3 again recently, and that game runs at 720p, but you can hardly tell because it looks so freaking incredible.

Gaming's greatest virtue is surely its versatility (Tetris, Street Fighter, Minecraft, Lollipop Chainsaw, EVE Online, Life Is Strange, TES, Child Of Eden, Gone Home, Forza Motorsport/Gran Turismo, Fez, Darkest Dungeon, et cetera... ). The sooner the industry - and the rather whiny, label-hungry fans - get that, the better.

Thank you!

There is this rather unsettling mentality among the gaming community about the "Pure Gaming" and anything that doesn't adhere to this must be sneered at and quite possibly even annihilated. Because for some reason I'm not aware of there's just not enough room for everyone.