There is a interesting video from gametheoryonline.com currently making rounds on Twitter about the role of writing in video games. There is no real news here – apart from the fact that this is a good, thought-provoking video. In fact, the most important have been stabbed in the heading was set up in the movie is the one hand, that I did not find convincing: an attempt to suggest that we are experiencing a Renaissance in storytelling in video games. Of course, it may be true and I would be glad to hear about any games that support this idea – but next to no evidence is produced in the movie itself.
What movie do well is provide a coherent overview of the Evergreen problem of why authors have so far not done as much as possible of video games. And why, as the industry expert John Walker puts it "gaming is apparently still years away from its 1984, its slaughterhouse-five, its Annie Hall."
On the front of it you might think that this relatively new, rapidly developing type of art would be exciting and fruitful area for authors. There are opportunities for experimentation ability to say, explore more narrative strands to make mistakes and start again, to work in the puzzles. There is also secure attractive opportunity to encounter kind of predominantly young male demographic that traditional book publishers have such problems with reaching. And of course there are tons of cash you stand make If you can just keep hold rights.
Yet while authors such as F Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler and PG Wodehouse is headed for California since Hollywood was at a similar stage in its development, it is difficult to imagine any big names in modern fiction mix in computers. What is more, they have professional Hollywood scriptwriters even be able to get in on the action. There is, admittedly, headlines all so often suggest that the opposite is true — but most are typical for the last time when it turned out that the only person to make the transition was Chris Morgan, the brains behind the fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift – not a film noted for its sparkling dialogue. Or something else.
So why do so few authors from other konserveringsmiljøet take on the game? And why is most of the writing in video games – which even ardent gameheads in game theory Online Movie says open – so bad? Part of the problem is obviously to do with priorities. As game author and former critic Rhianna Pratchett says in the movie: "the story is often the last thing thought about and the first thing is lifted from each other". So much effort is going to make spectacular worlds, to tackle the technical logistics and ensure the play experience is pleasant to decent plot and dialogue drops disappear.
Nevertheless, there are more difficult issues involved. As a few persons says in the movie, presents a unique challenge gaming in the form of linear narrative. Or rather the general lack of same. All variant and options on the movement paths through a game offers plenty of potential for creativity – but think wrapping it all together is so brain-ache-making and often need such mathematical precision, it is small wonder game authors are less able to concentrate on things such as dialogue. There is also the continuing problem with works that dialogue in the game as the story. Currently the most innovative and otherwise thoroughly entertaining games such as Grand Theft Auto series count cut scenes that abort. The dialogue is inevitably, annoying to get in the way of operation rather than drive it.
There is also a more difficult challenge at the heart of most games: writer has a fundamental lack of control. Things get complicated when the protagonist is the person who sits on the other side of your screen. Bob Bates from legend Entertainment puts it neatly on the movie, you can your lead must be a gentle soul, but if the person who plays the game is more intent on killing kittens, there is not much you can do about it.
Of course, such interactivity potential to be meaningful and exciting. But it will clearly take a special kind of genius – or more likely a collective of them – to produce a game that has a narrative and related appliances, to impress as much as all other elements. Even so, there is scope for improvement. Certainly those who maintain this quality gaming has the potential to be one of the great art forms of the early century (with whom I agree, on the whole) should be demanding better dialogue? I also can't help wishing that more romanforfattere would get involved. China Mieville and Joe R Mijas Costa could work on the setting. Paul Auster could handle the mind games – with Thomas Pynchon. Jonathan Franzen and Salman Rushdie could write jokes. A bright Easton Ellis could add violence. Martin Amis could … Well, perhaps it would work. Although Let me know if you have any better ideas.
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