Movies, videogames and (un)reasonable expectations

Hello there, it's me. Yes, I know, I have been gone for quite some time now, haven't I? Why? I was kind of busy working for a gaming website and now I'm working for another Gaming Website, that focuses on Sega and thus gives me some time to write about other games on my personal blog here. Who do I write for now? Oh silly you, check the sidebar! Because everything else would be shameless advertising and as we all know, this community does not take kindly on shameless self-promotion!

Now, this is a blog dedicated to Josmeister, who became my 100th follower on Twitter and thus had the opportunity to choose the topic of a blog-post. Guess what, he wanted me to write about videogames and movies, so I did! Here we go!


'Videogames need to be more like movies'

This sentence is something that quite some people have been yelling repeatedly in random intervals for a lot of reasons. But let's focus on one of the most prominent loud persons in the videogame business to utter this sentence: David Cage.



Now don't get me wrong: I like David Cage! He's a guy with a vision and he tries really hard to fulfill that vision, which is something I can fully understand and actually get behind of. Unfortunately, his games are, in my honest opinion, lacking. There are many arguments for why they don't deliver, but my guess is that since you're reading this on Destructoid, you've all heard about what's wrong about these games.

However, I don't think that his initial claim is invalidated by his poor delivery. It's just that I don't think that he means the same thing as I do when I read that sentence. He seems to think: 'Games need to have long cut-scenes and a lot of dialogue in order to get their story across etc.' and I think: 'Games and movies should be able to be about the same things'.

So, his approach is more about the 'how' of storytelling in videogames while my standpoint is more about the 'what' of storytelling. Now, granted, this is a bit exaggerated, because on the 'what'-side of things, David Cage and I are pretty much on the same page: Games also should be about something different than violence. This is not to say that we should get rid of all our nice, little FPSes or God of Wars. Nope! This is about diversification!



Take Heavy Rain as example! Here, David Cage tried (and I chose that word for many reasons) to deliver a story about fatherhood. Sure, there is violence, but it is somewhat diminished if compared to other games. Or let's take L.A. Noire! Yes, yes, I know, also violence, but just think about the many stories this game is telling you in a rather well done way. Thematically speaking, these games are way more diversified than what we're normally used to. Sure, there are the Cooking Mamas and Trauma Centers, but they are not huge Triple A titles that get a lot of mainstream attention. A title like L.A. Noire on the other hand, does. This is of course no reason to claim only Triple A titles matter, just wanted to point out, that they have a more widespread recognition.

This, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much the only point, where videogames should try to imitate other narrative media. In terms of delivery, I wouldn't say that it would be a good idea to look too much to other media, since one key component of videogames, interactivity, is not present there, at least for the most part.

So, I guess I made my point here, nice and clean. Hope you liked it, hope I didn't steal away too much of your time and thank you for reading. I'm happy about any kind of feedback!