At last week's EIEF, some of the top names in interactive comedy came together to discuss a question gamesblog has considered in the past: why aren't games funny? Beyond the reasons that have been proposed, the panellists suggested a few new reasons why the belly laffs don't translate into interactivity.
According to Neil Richards from The Mustard Corporation, one of the major problems is that games are compared with TV and film, which is measurably funnier than computer games. In TV and Film, scriptwriters pen 10-15 scripts before the final draft is approved and the actors lay down their lines. In games, the script is the last thing to be laid down, and usually – not exclusively – it's done by the person who's not doing anything at that particular moment. They're not specialists, the directors of the game aren't specialists, and there's no comedy timing expertly inputted by an editor in the cutting room.
There's an issue of method as well. In the games industry, scripts are done by committee, a reflection of the democratic nature of interactive entertainment. According to Richards, team-writing is the death of comedy. Lest you Simpsons/Friends/Seinfeld fans come down on his logic, apparently in such situations one or two people nail down the comedy nugget, and then the team comes in to flesh it out.
Most of all, he argues, publishers don't take risks, which means that games companies start their comedy games in the wrong place – a place of high financial output, driven by the vast expense of keeping a games company running when out of the games cycle. That kind of hysterical environment doesn't produce cleverly crafted comedic results.
Richards' biggest beef is with the camera, which is understandably placed for the gameplay perspective. Unllike in traditional media, it doesn't move to where the comedy is, a technique used to localise the viewer's/player's attention. Furthermore, the developer has no control over the course of the game, the pace through which the player completes it, and what (or when) the player pays attention to.
He thinks that in-game comedy will never be little more than passing nugget in the story before the player moves on to the next scene.
Dave Green, founder of internet zine Need To Know, approached the question from the perspective of the very casual browser-based comedy games market. As Games Ed of Channel 4's interactive comedy website, he pointed out that the funniest games on the web are few and far between. It's easier to find the weirdest. He was particularly complementary about the extremely bizarre "Nigella Bites!".
A few final thoughts on the subject from the session:
Comedy is an exciting way lower budgets are able to break through to an audience in a way that blockbusters aren't.
Gameplay itself is almost deliberately opposed to comedy. What happens in comedy is that either you experience frustration or your expectations are fulfilled. In comedy, your expectations are supposed to be subverted. This would be terrible for gameplay.
Create situations in which drama arises, not place drama at the centre.
