After getting lost in Olympia, having been misinformed by my brain, I find myself at the pint-sized Game Developer's Conference -Europe at Earl's Court. Though I haven't yet made it downstairs to the trade-based (and relatively sparse) ECTS, thus far the upstairs Academic Day series of sessions is broadly interesting. Certainly combined with the conference sessions from the Docklands EDF and EGN events, in which the strands were very much about the importance of immersion to un-tapped audiences, there's a theme emerging amongst the movers, shakers and thinkers of the computer games industry. From politics to plot, it seems now that the technology is suitably up to scratch the focus has moved away from this gadget or that graphics card and is now on getting people involved in play through narrative.
Story, character and plot are buzzwords at the moment. But is this really important? OK, so some research suggests that this is one of the things that might attract more non-traditional players. Perhaps, but where is the plot in mass-market phenomena like the Dance Mat games, EyeToy or SingStar? As gamers, and as people interested in computer games enough to read a blog about them, what do you think about the importance of plot in interactive entertainment? Does it really matter?
