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Postcard From GDC 2005

 

Why Isn't the Game Industry Making

 

Interactive Stories?

 

 


Warren Spector

Michael Mateas, founder of the Experimental Game Lab at Georgia Tech, seemed walled away from the rest of the game development community as moderator Andrew Stern and his podium towered between Mateas and the three other game designers on the panel: Tim Schafer of DoubleFine and formerly of LucasArts, Neil Young of Electronic Arts Los Angeles, and Warren Spector of Junction Point Studios and formerly of Ion Storm.

 

Though the discussion didn't devolve into dreaded narratology vs. ludology debates, or linger on definitions to the word "story", the panel seemed to be limited by the fact that the outside academic was not addressed by others on the panel or the moderator until the last third of the hour. While the professional game designers were allowed time to reflect on the past and their own personal requests for game and story spaces, Mateas did not speak until the panel was asked to look to future affordances.

 


Tim Schafer

Stern began the session by asking the game designers to relate the qualities and pleasures they seek as they design their games with story interaction in mind. For both Young and Spector, the goal is genuine human interaction, being able to explore characters that are on the other side of the uncanny valley. Spector also insisted on the ability to explore self as one explores environments in current games. Inner conflicts would dominate such a game. He also warned, however, "Once you need victory the narrative is in trouble. There is no winning or losing an inner conflict."

 

On the traditions and technology that are keeping the games industry from implementing better stories, Tim Schafer noted that gamers "have only been exposed to bad story… it comes down to talent. We need good writers!" While games have expanded to require real artists and real musicians, "we mostly forgot to get real writers." Neil Young mentioned that Electronic Arts was "…founded on the idea of 'Can a computer make you cry?' We need to reconnect with that idea."

 


Neil Young

Spector also mentioned, "I've been told by [several people] that you are not allowed to say 'story' in meetings." From there he moved on to the example of Citizen Kane; "Citizen Kane was not a particularly successful movie… but RKO was willing to take a chance. We need to get to that point." Spector also mused that a change of business model might be the key to having more creative opportunities.

 

For the last section, Andrew asked the panelists to recommend a prescription to the industry and invited Mateas into the discussion. For Tim, the solution lay in game designers to keep on striving for more experimentation. "It's my job to be experimental without [my publisher] knowing that I'm being experimental."

 

Mateas believed that the future for interactive stories would move toward procedural stories rather than embedded narratives. Designers need to work toward "creating a language to describe procedural narrative." Without this we will not be able to push stories in the same way technology has pushed video and audio content.

 


Michael Mateas

Spector responded by offering that "If it's about the player, maybe we're going about this in the wrong direction." He once dreamed that, as a silent film director, he was asked to create a musical. "Players are not very good at telling stories… rather than let players tell their own stories, it should be about players exploring their own inner devils." He also explained that from this, we need to give players extra dimension. "There so much more than just good and evil. It's not the hardest thing in the world."

 

Young offered his take on the difference between story comprehension and narrative. Story comprehension is of the individual while narrative belongs to the creator. "Film makers master narrative in order to create good story comprehension… [Game designers] have all the buttons to create good story comprehension but we haven't found all the buttons."

 

No matter how you decide to define story, "story belongs to the game player," Spector insisted. "Players can be bad at writing it, but at least it's theirs."

Stern capped off the panel by encouraging everybody to continue the discussion at grandtextauto.org

______________________________________________________

 

Add as a Primary Session to My Schedule   Add as a Secondary Session to My Schedule Why Isn’t the Game Industry Making Interactive Stories?
Speakers: Andrew Stern (Designer and Engineer, InteractiveStory.net), Neil Young (Vice President and General Manager EA Los Angeles), Warren Spector (Studio Director Ion Storm), Michael Mateas (Assistant Professor Georgia Institute of Technology), Tim Schafer ( Doublefine)
Time/Date:
Thursday (March 10, 2005)   2:30pm — 3:30pm
Track:
Game Design
Format:
Panel
Experience Level: All - Open to All Levels
Description: This panel brings together leading developers and researchers to debate the question: what is it truly going to take for the game industry to reach the point of building mass-appeal interactive story experiences? To date we’ve seen excellent games with some story incorporated into them, but arguably the industry is still far from fully realizing deeply interactive dramas, comedies and romances. What are the major design, technical, and business obstacles in the way? Realistically and specifically, how can these obstacles be overcome, and when? Is the game industry as it exists today capable of, or even interested in, building interactive stories?

Idea Takeaway: Attendees are briefly presented with a few ambitious but achievable visions of what fully realized interactive dramas, comedies, and romances could be, including references to the results of last year’s Love Story panel. Attendees will learn what technical, design, and business obstacles stand in the way of realizing such goals. They will learn several reasons why the game industry has made slow progress towards these goals, including questioning if they’re the right goals in the first place. Attendees learn realistic and specific ways to make progress towards these goals, or perhaps towards different and better goals.

Intended Audience and Prerequisites: This panel should appeal to a broad range of developers, particularly designers and programmers, but also producers.

 

 

시민케인

약 50여년전, 20대의 청년작가에 의해서 만들어진 이 작품은 그 새로움과 깊이로 오늘날의 관객들을 여전히 놀라게한다. 시민케인의 내러티브는 유례가 없을 정도로 복잡하면서 정교하게 구축되어 있다. 영화는 케인이라는 자본가의 일생에 일어났던 주요한 사건들을 시간 순서에 얽매이지 않고 보여주는데, 기자의 취재라는 내러티브의 큰 줄기 속 인물들 하나하나의 이야기에 독립적인 각각의 내러티브가 또 존재하고 있다. 그래서 이 모든 장면들은 그 자체로서 하나의 완결된 이야기면서, 영화전체는 일반적인 극영화와는 달리 열린 이야기 구조를 지니고 있다. 곧 시민케인은 부분의 인용이나 줄거리 요약만으로 설명될 수 없는, 오직 전체로서만이 이해되고 경험될 수 있는 영화인 것이다.

웰즈는 시민케인에서 후에 딥 포커스라고 널리 불리우게 된 기법을 완성에 가깝게 개발 구사하였다. 광각렌즈, 조명, 그리고 고감도 필름 등의 요소를 배합하여 한 화면 내에서 초점이 맞는 거리의 영약을 최대한으로 늘리는 이 기법은(혹시 모르실지 모르니까.예를 들어본다면, 긴 식탁에서 식사를 하는 장면이 있다고 쳐보죠. 그럴 때 한 화면에서 맨끝에 있는 사람부터 맨 앞에 있는 사람까지 모두의 얼굴이 초점에 맞는 방식을 딥 포커스라고 합니다. 요즘은 보편적이지만 당시로는 획기적이었죠.-개인 주석)...(중략).. 앙드레 바젱이 지적하였듯이, 시민케인에서의 딥 포커스 화면은 영화화면이 시간과 공간을 결합시키는 방식에서 현실의 모호성까지 담아냄으로써 화면 속에 드러난 사물들을 관객들이 능동적으로 선택해야 하는 새로운 관람태도를 요구했다. 현실의 단편을 조합함을 원칙으로 삼는 몽타쥬이론과 함께 이것은 영화가 현실을 기록하고 전달하는 데 있어서 또 하나의 중요한 원리를 구현하고 있는 것이다,

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