Alice at Wonderland has a great series of notes from Maxis/EA studio boss Neil Young from last week's Tokyo Game Show. The thesis put forward by Mr. Young was that games, in order to become truly mainstream media, must succeed in making players cry - and not out of frustration from trying to leap over that final impossible jump in Super Mario Bros or out of pain from doing one too many crunches in EyeToy Kinetic. Real emotional involvement; that's what we're talking about here.
From the article:
Here's where we are – we are pre-Citizen Kane in our industry. We're before the moment where we understand it all. Before the moment where we can effectively tell a story. CK was the first where the camera was an actor, where there were sfx, where relationships were complete. It's the first example of a great film. In a film we have places. In a game we have spaces. In a film we have the protagonist and in a game we have player character.
Among some of the innovative features he mentions which are currently present in games and may eventually move players to tears include the Game Face customisation in Tiger Woods 2004, the 3D open world design in the GTA series since GTA3 and the dual-wielding in cooperative games like Halo and Perfect Dark. So by giving the player control over the game spaces, and allowing him or her to personalise the game experience, the player becomes involved as an actor and therefore cares.
Great stuff.
