Speaking with Edge, THQ executive VP of core games Danny Bilson lamented the industry’s reliance on cut scenes in games, calling them “the failure state, that is the last resort of game storytelling. It’s really not what the artform is about. As soon as you put a controller in someone’s hand they want to interact.”
Bilson commented that he hasn’t played a game which interested him from a narrative standpoint. “That’s a place we have not cracked yet, as an industry. We should be able to tell great stories, fresh original stories, in this industry, just like in books, movies or anything else.”
“There are fantastic story moments in games, there are stories that I think are better than others,” he continues. “Games aren’t about story first — the story is there to make you care about the mechanics, to make it more emotional. But if I separate the story from the experience it doesn’t blow my mind.”
Can’t really disagree with him. Cut scenes serve their purpose, but I get the impression that maybe, way in the future, we’ll look back and scoff at them after finding a much more meaningful way of telling stories that better suits interactivity.
Bilson: Cutscenes Are Gaming’s “Failure State” [Edge]
