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We Don’t Know All There Is To Know… About the Crying Game
By Corvus | November 8, 2005
Boy, the Montreal International Game Summit was chock full of things to rant about, wasn’t it? Between Warren Spector’s bashing of Rockstar while claiming that diversity in the industry could be found by seeking funding from Hollywood, to Neil Young’s “Can Games Make You Cry” keynote, which Kim nicely summed up as:
The basic message was “immersion requires big budget high quality HD-type content if people are going to buy it”.
All right, I’m going to get this out of the way now, so that I can focus on the crying issue: What in the hell is up with this graphics backlash? The hu e cri for story and original content is being met with a unified “graphics are the answer” response from all corners. Every EA executive, no matter what they’re talking about, suggests that graphics is the way to achieve it, from emotional depth to quality, innovative gameplay. Mark Rein, at a recent conference, actually suggested that only graphics were important.* It’s frustrating that so many people seem to be ignoring all the lessons we’ve received over the years about photo-realism not being a panacea that obliviates the need for actual content.
All right, I’ll touch on that again, but only in the context of the post’s intent…
You would think, what with my rabid focus on Story, that I’d be 100% on board with the “Games Ought to Make You Cry” movement. And I am on board… except that I’m not, not really. Not, at least, in the way that I suspect it’s going to be interpreted and implemented.
First off: developers are focusing, by and large, on the wrong things. Photo realistic graphics, for example, aren’t going to increase my emotional involvement with a game. I was far more emotionally invested in the Parr family’s cartoonish trials in The Incredibles! than I was in Dr. Ross’s hyper-real attempt to… do… that… thing she was trying to do in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.**
Neither is Hollywood going to bring emotional depth to games by stapling linear, movie based, narratives on, into, and around, a game’s controllable sequences. For one thing, the movies that studios want game tie-ins for aren’t so emotionally complex themselves. For another, having seen the movie, the player has already experienced whatever emotional reaction they’re going to have and the game will merely serve to remind them of it.
I know Patrick is going to comment that when Chris Crawford releases Erasmatron to the world, and the game industry stops in its tracks to bow down and worship at the alter of truly interactive stories, that the preceding problems will dissipate like fog in the morning sun (or something to that effect).*** But Patrick, as much as I’d like to agree with you, I fear that you’re wrong. Movie studios don’t want you to be able to kill characters that didn’t get killed in the movie. They aren’t interested in paying writers to deal with all the eventualities. They’re only interested in keeping the budget low and raking in a few extra bucks with an interactive marketing tool. The big game studios aren’t any better. I’ve heard developers argue that just as soon as they’ve pushed photo-realism as far as it will go, then perhaps they’ll be allowed to spend some money on professional writers.
Even Chris Crawford, bless his black heart, isn’t going to be able to use Erasmatron to appeal to us emotionally, if his suggestion of bodice ripper and soap opera games for women is any indication.
Of course, professional writers aren’t going to solve the problem either. Traditional writers don’t understand what it takes to make an interactive story, any more than a circus elephant would. When a story is related through staticly presented cut scenes, it becomes separated from gameplay, and therefore loses a significant portion of its emotional impact.
As compelling as the preceding arguments may (or may not) be, they are by no means the most important reason why games have a difficult time reaching the player emotionally. The primary reason can be summed up with one word: agency.
First off, the very nature of playing a game activates portions of the brain that are rational. Whether you’re solving puzzles, or merely wrestling with coordination in an effort to stay alive for the next plot point, your emotional brain is not the only thing at work when you’re playing a game. The very nature of an interactive story gets in the way of deep emotional connections.
Add to this, the current trend of separating the plot moving narration from the gameplay narration, and you’ve got ourself a recipe for tepidity. Often, those plot advancing cut scenes pop up after a particularly tense bout of gameplay. I don’t know about you, but after those moments, I’m busy relaxing my shoulders, shaking the tension out of my hands, and grabbing a drink of water. All actions which get between me and the narration.
Another issue is the central character itself. Given that we’re controlling their movements, we’re investing a bit of ourselves in the game world. The central character is not completely independent from us, and therefore has perspective and distance from its environment. As much as well crafted characters pull us in, they also serve to pull the character out.****
Even if you manage to better integrate the static narration elements, and create characters that create compelling ties into the game world, the emotional pull of a well crafted novel, or movie, is in experiencing trauma or loss that you can’t do anything about. The very powerlessness of the audience to effect the outcome lends itself to the tragedy, and therefore to the empathy. The very nature of a well wrought game is to allow the player agency. To remove agency and force an action is to risk irritating the player. One of my complaints about the last couple of Soul Reaver/Blood Omen games is the designers’ insistence on wresting control from me in order to have the character walk to the correct spot in a room. Imagine that sort of wrested control on a larger scheme. You’ve gotten very good at playing a game and, suddenly, an NPC sidekick is killed by the enemy during a combat sequence. What’s the first thing you do? Why, you reload of course. Reload, and try again. The NPC get’s killed again. Even though you were standing right next to them, drawing fire, defending their life. Eventually (I’d give it another reload or two), you realize that the NPC is meant to die and that you can’t do anything about it, so you move on. You might regret the NPC’s loss, but any grief their death might spark in you is muted by frustration, resignation, or the mere repetition of experiencing the loss several times.
In order to fully communicate grief in a narrative, you can’t give the audience agency. Taking away agency is antithetical to creating fully interactive stories. So, every time I read of yet another people talking about how game’s ought to be able to make the audience cry, I wince. I appreciate the heart of what they’re saying, that games need to present stories worth relating, that we need to craft stronger, emotional, narratives. I just don’t know that we’re going to be able to make you cry… sorry.
*Fortunately for Epic, other of their employees seem to be making sure there’s an actual game to play behind the pretty engine.
**All I can recall is the pain.
***Please don’t think I’m picking on Patrick. I want to share his enthusiasm, I truly do. But I just can’t bring myself to be so optimistic.
****I don’t think I’m doing a great job of expressing this point. It’s possible I’ll come back to it in another post.
November 8th, 2005 at 10:16 am
I’ve learned over years of paying close attention to Epic not to pay too close of attention to Mark
He seems like an OK guy, but he’s a public head who will definately put the spin on that he feels justified. It’s not that he’s a pathological liar or anything, it’s just always good to take his statements with a grain of salt.
Thankfully others in Epic are usually a bit more reserved with their statements.
I think we’re seeing a PR ramp-up to next-gen work, where virtually everyone … even guys like Spector … are going to need to excuse their big budgets to render high res textures on high poly models.
In one way, it’s kinda cool. We could potentially see games which are more vivid than ever. And sure, that might add to emotional quality we don’t have with current graphics.
But I just don’t see the “emotion pipeline” with games today. I didn’t care about any character in HL2. I came kinda close in DX2. Certainly didn’t mind anyone dying in Doom 3. Etc. etc. Graphics are certainly one dimension that they could use to develop more emotive work, but I’m not holding my breath.
November 8th, 2005 at 11:48 am
You know, this has turned into a really interesting obsession for you, Corvus. And I heartily approve of interesting obsessions.
I think we just have to accept that games, like all other media, are vulnerable to Sturgeon’s law, and most of them have (and will continue to have) terrible stories even as the graphics get better. It’s easy to make things pretty, although it’s expensive. It’s also becoming something that you can force someone to churn out, whereas story is often more at the whims of your creative staff. I’m sure EA always has that in the back of their mind. So Josh may be right that it’s a ramp-up.
But are agency and story really compatible? I’d have to say no, for two reasons. First, a gamer’s self-created story that he or she created through quickloads and persistence doesn’t have any real dramatic arc. The gamer always wins. There’s not a lot of drama there.
Second, you’re asking basically for the story to be generated around the player, right? I just don’t think most gamers are storytellers of that calibur, that they can be trusted with that much agency. I don’t know that I would want to be.
When a story is well-penned and interesting, with fun characters, I don’t mind losing control temporarily (read: Prince of Persia, and Soul Reaver is another example, thanks Corvus). The problem comes, as you’ve said, when agency interferes with that story. I think the best interactive storytellers so far have used cutscenes or dramatic devices to prevent the player from messing with necessary, negative events. Half-life always stuck sequences behind bulletproof glass, or far enough away that nothing could be done, which is one way to do it. Another is to just take control, and if you’re good enough the player will forgive you. They may even keep playing just to lose control again.
Combining the two doesn’t have to mean granting total free agency. Maybe you can save that NPC–and a savvy digital writer might incorporate that choice into a branching script. But total freedom? That seems like a bad idea as far as story goes.
I personally don’t think Crawford is really interested in a story either. It seems to me like he wants to model personality for more freedom–but as the people around us can attest, realistic personalities don’t really mean great stories. Looking back on our lives, we could probably all use a better screenwriter to take control every now and then.
November 8th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
It is of course already the case that games make people cry. I know of several people who have been reduced to tears by game stories, and even more that have been reduced to tears by frustration! It’s just not a widespread experience. Looking at the core audience right now, are we suprised?
As for the need to take away player agency – well, yes, up to a point. If you want to make stories with impact, why not remove the player’s right to save!
I feel that meeting the perceived needs of the existing audience should be allowed to take a back seat if you want to create a new type of game; if not, what kind of fascism is in effect?
Anyway, must go… Don’t take anything in this comment too seriously!
November 8th, 2005 at 3:23 pm
As a gaming industry outsider who spends most of his gaming time in a CRPG or MMORPG, a few areas of this topic seem a bit odd. So, some oddity from my perspective.
It’s frustrating that so many people seem to be ignoring all the lessons we’ve received over the years about photo-realism not being a panacea that obliviates the need for actual content.
Do people really think that? And if they do, have they ever played NetHack? Photorealism is great for, well, reality – actors and sets – but isn’t this animation? The more detail you show, the more subtle nuance will be expected.
WoW’s cartoon-like style comes to mind as an example of people understanding that.
For another, having seen the movie, the player has already experienced whatever emotional reaction they’re going to have and the game will merely serve to remind them of it.
There are a number of people who look to a movie-based game not to reenact the movie’s plot, but to have their own experiences in the movie’s world. Whether that’s a vast majority or tiny minority, I have no idea, but I know they’re out there.
Whether you’re solving puzzles, or merely wrestling with coordination in an effort to stay alive for the next plot point, your emotional brain is not the only thing at work when you’re playing a game. The very nature of an interactive story gets in the way of deep emotional connections.
I’m not sure I agree with that. The emotional brain isn’t the only thing at work ever – be it playing a game, playing music, or going on a date – and that doesn’t seem to interfere with having a deep emotional connection with life. (Or maybe I’m just weird.)
Even Chris Crawford, bless his black heart, isn’t going to be able to use Erasmatron to appeal to us emotionally, if his suggestion of bodice ripper and soap opera games for women is any indication.
Recent thoughts on music that relate to this: Make something that you love, and do it so well that others who love similar things will enjoy it. Making something that amalgamated market research will love is weak.
You already knew that, I just wanted to say it.
Traditional writers don’t understand what it takes to make an interactive story…
They might if they stop just short of writing the story.
Another issue is the central character itself. Given that we’re controlling their movements, we’re investing a bit of ourselves in the game world.
Controlling their movements, sure. But in the games I spend any noticeable amount of time playing, controlling the character’s movement is a low-level mechanic that I just expect to work properly – it’s a breaker, not a maker. My investment in the central character is his name, his skill set, how he’s dressed, how he approaches problems, whether he’s a talker or a fighter, his race/culture/phenotype, etc., etc.
The game writers you’re talking about (Doom et al.) build this great world, and then they want me to emotionally invest in the characters they’ve created, when the characters I would create are much more emotionally appealing (to me, at least). And they probably have better names, too.
They’re missing the deeper concept of avatar.
To remove agency and force an action is to risk irritating the player.
Damn straight. I’m there to play, not to watch. It immediately breaks the link to the character.
Moving me into the ambush is cheating.
In order to fully communicate grief in a narrative, you can’t give the audience agency.
Sure you can, if their agency is less than omnipotence.
Simple example: Give them a superhero dilemma. Save the girl or save the city, your choice. (But both outcomes need to be valid.)
More complex example: The choices you make early in the game have long-reaching consequences. Your small village home is on fire, and you can’t cross the river in time to save your family. Why? Maybe you didn’t get rid of enough crocodiles that morning. Maybe you insulted the river god by looting his temple. Whatever.
The key point is, the story goes on from there. Losing the city, or the girl, or your hut in the village does not mean losing the game. (If it does mean losing the game, then you reload, restart, and play it through right – because what you did was obviously wrong from the gameplay perspective – which, as you mention, is another link-breaker.)
If you put me into the girl-or-the-city dilemma and then make my choice for me – either by putting words in my mouth or making one of the choices lose the game – I’m no longer emotionally attached, I’m mildly interested. (And you’re probably the one that walked me into that ambush, too.)
November 8th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
You know its funny, I agree almost the entire post, even “Even Chris Crawford, bless his black heart, isn’t going to be able to use Erasmatron to appeal to us emotionally, if his suggestion of bodice ripper and soap opera games for women is any indication.” I can say quite confidently, based on the information about the engine that I’ve gotten, that his suggestion is not any indication; the stuff I’ve got planned will be much more interesting and complex that a mere soap opera. Imagine if David Lynch or Stanley Kurbick “got” interactive story, thats what you can expect from me
I do disagree with your comment that gameplay is inherently logical and thus blocks emotion. While linear narrative generates its emotional impact via the audience’s inability to alter the causation, this is actually a historical limitation of traditional narrative forms, it only seems like a strength because it hasn’t been topped, yet. All the emotional impact of our own lives comes from things we can have an impact on, even the seemingly unavoidable. Our tragedies are amplified by the nagging guilt that asks “what if I did something different”, our comedies are funny to us because we perpetuated them, our glories and achievements are meaningful because we make them happen. Traditional narrative wouldn’t work if human beings didn’t already have these patterns in their heads from interacting with the world and each other. So, Interactive Storytelling is not only possible, but a more complete realization of the human symbolic imagination (BTW the “telling” part is of utmost importance, putting the empahsis on the act and not the content per se). And that, as they say, is that.
I concede your point about Hollywood funding; I’ve left that boyish fantasy on the shelf. I’ve devised an ingenious plan to fund a killer-app blocksbuster without any strings, using an MTV grant, a liscence overlap, a few transhumanist contacts and a roll of duct tape, hopefully it’ll work out.
As to your point that Hollywood studios don’t want to pay writers to cover all the angles or have their character IPs killed off in a game, you’re right, they don’t, but you’re missing the point. In Erasmatron and probably any substantial drama engine you don’t have a specific set of consistent verbs at any given time. Small consistent verb-sets are for Unreal (Cliffy B, a designer at Epic Games, in a recent Gamasutra interview, commented that the problem with Interactive Story is Danny Glover shooting Mel Gibson in the head in the first scence). If you’ve got that sort of consitency to the gameplay, what I call “shallow verb consistency”, then yeah, you’ve got to worry about that. But in Erasmatron for instance, you wouldn’t have the Kill() verb available at all times, only times that are appropriate, so problem solved. Some, such as Andrew Stern and Micheal Mateas, have argued that player’s want consistency in their verbs, but I say, since shallow consistency doesn’t work all the time for interactive storytelling, we need to get more discrete, more indirect, more subtle. We need to provide verb-sets which shift in consistently inconsistent manners. You could call this “deep verb-consistency” where lots of little, microgame verbs that vary based on context allow the player to direct their game in a number of greater dimensions, what you might call macro-verbs or mega-verbs. So say your story has a dualistic theme, like loyalty vs. passion; you can enable true agency by allowing the player choose one over the other (or a balance) over the sum aggregate of all their shifting, context-dependant decisions. Bioware’s KOTOR did this in one dimension, the basic Light vs. Dark theme, but the beautiful thing is your macroverb dynamics can be N-dimensional, and very complex variations can be introduced. This way the player can find a unique path of cuasation and put their stamp on whatever happens in the story, but at the same time microgame agency is preserved, if inconsistent. I call it having your cake and eating it too.
November 8th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
“But in Erasmatron for instance, you wouldn’t have the Kill() verb available at all times, only times that are appropriate, so problem solved.”
Okay, seriously, explain something to me: I’ve read some of this Crawford’s design documents. I’ve given him the benefit of a doubt, even though I’ve seen no evidence of his skill with design. I’ve tried to understand. But
A) How is the above quote any different from what games do today? I mean, I can’t kill people in a lot of cutscenes. In some games my ability to use weapons is taken away during interactive points. Maybe I’m wrong, but when I read stuff like that it just makes me think, “It’s not just that he hasn’t designed, it’s also that he hasn’t played a game in 15 years.”
B) What exactly is the Erasmotron accomplishing that I haven’t seen before in a game engine? He’s putting out a lot of verbs and relationships, which is great, but ultimately seems to ignore a lot of practicalities along the way–how will this stuff be implemented? How will I interact with it?
C) How is a verb set that shifts constantly not the same as a context-sensitive command set? Why is one superior to the other? For years, the golden rule of UI has been not to surprise the user. Why in the world would you want a game that allows or disallows certain behaviors behind the scenes?
It’s easy to beat up on Crawford for his style or his poor choice of topics. I love the editorial he posted up about those thugs on the internet attacking him–”my writing is just too subtle,” he says, which has to be the overstatement of the century. And personally, as a journalist and writer, I’d like to introduce him to famed polemicists like Mark Twain or my hero HST, and then kick his teeth in for insinuating that vulgarity, hyperbole, and humor are signs of intellectual or linguistic deficiency. But after all that, I’d like to think that he’s got something to say about games after all, and I just don’t see evidence of that anywhere. His design documents read like the game wish list I wrote in fifth grade.
Can someone tell me why the man is supposed to be a prophet? Honestly?
November 9th, 2005 at 2:15 am
I agree that Chris’ intellectual worldview is very platonic and modernist, I personally think “slovenly” language is like, totally cool, and I think if Crawford were coming from a more contemporary perspective not only would his article’ langauge have been more chill (or is it chiller?), but he probably would have structured the content of his point differently, without so explicit a draw from Evolutionary Psychology. As far as I understand the basic point of the article was that women, for scientifically verifiable evolutionary reasons, tend toward social styles of cognition over spatial styles. Since men make up the gross majority of developers, marketers and players, it makes sense that the majority of games are along the lines of spatial cognition, and that is we want to really cater to women we need to cater to their cognitive inclinations. I might be missing something, but I think that is a fairly straightfoward point to make.
As for Erasmatron, I’ve found a limitations in its design from day one, and there is a certain ideological bias involved, but its something man, so I figure its worth trying to make the best of it. I’m fairly confident I can subvert its ideological limitations and do some really interesting stuff, but I guess we’ll see for sure in a few months. As to your specific points:
A) Cut-scenes not only take away your Kill verb, they take away all verbs, and the “Interactive Points” you mention typically take away all but a very limited range of verbs, creating the good old branching story structure. Branching story doesn’t work for content creation reasons, and I think is what Corvus imagines when he says “They aren’t interested in paying writers to deal with all the eventualities.” True, but whats novel about Etron is that it enables the a “writer/designer” to script the underling mechanics for a fair range of eventualities, rather than explicitedly writing out all causal variation.
B) tying in with A), the Etron’s dictionary, which is really more of a library of verbs, will eventually allow the average storyworld to use a plethora of verbs, into the hundreds. Most games average between 8 and 12 verbs, some of the more complex run into the 20s maybe, so making a content creation paradigm which is verb-centric and allows for high verb counts really is quite novel, even though the verbs themselves will be largely discrete and not fleshed out in the sort of visceral intensity that you’d expect from, say, Half-Life’s much smaller verb-set. The way this is managed is through the Diekto interface, which I’ll address in
C) Diekto (an overview of which you can find at Crawford’s site) is like an inverse parser taken a step further, to a graphical interface with a truncated grammar, with different blocks containing a context-sensitive list of choices. These add up to decent range of possible inputs for a given causal node, though the possible verbs per node will be more in the 5-10 range. This is less suprising than IF style command parsers because the options are plainly laid out, and the sentance construction gives it an added dimension. The possible options per causal code are set-up by the storybuilder while scripting. A good storybuilder isn’t going to have to resort to cheap tricks to force the player down a certain path, so while the player might not have the Kill verb available at all times, it shouldn’t be an issue since most people would rather make a choice that is meaningful to the dramatic context, rather than overtly break the system.
I wouldn’t say Crawford is a prophet, but let me tell you why I’m optimistic, at least. Imagine the range of all possible types of gameplay as the continent of Europe, so far all the games we’ve seen have been constricted to the nation of Spain, with platformers and FPS games making up the mainland, RTS games being portugal, adventure games and IF being the Basque country, and RPGs, particularily those with fairly interactive narratives like Planescape:Torment, being in the foothills and slopes of the Pyrenees. Now I don’t want to sound pretentious, but imagine that Crawford is Don Quixote and I’m Sancho Panza. I don’t think Chris is a prophet, there issues where I disagree with him, but the thing is, I’m tired of Spain. Sure its a nice country, I’ve grown up here, toured all the regions and tasted all the local dishes, but now its time to get out and see what other sorts of gameplay are like. When Chris goes and chases windmills like Evolutionary Psychology (did I mention I was once fired for “creating a hostile work environment” after explaining Evo Psyche to a female co-worker? Believe it.) my opinion of the overall ideal is not changed. I mean hell, we’re all a bit crazy here, aren’t we? We’ve gotta be to want to make games in the first place. But if Chris and his Erasmatron can get me over the peaks of the Pyrenees and into the uncharted gameplay of France and whatever else is out there, then thats an insanity worth devoting time to.
November 9th, 2005 at 6:36 am
That is a fine response to a somewhat impolite set of questions. Thank you.
November 29th, 2005 at 5:33 am
This exploration continues… (link: Boo Hoo).
December 1st, 2005 at 10:28 am
[...] We Don’t Know All There Is To Know… About the Crying Game – Man Bytes Blog [...]
December 1st, 2005 at 2:32 pm
Well, I think back to books. And even the Man that I am, I cry during certain books. I remember when Sturm dies in the DragonLance series, and I cry like a babe in the woods. Why? Because that characters sacrifices all to save his life long friends, or at least buy them the time they need. But in a game, how can you make someone get attached to an NPC? Almost impossible.
You have to somehow get people attached to those NPCs, so that when they die, you feel it deep inside. How can you do that, hell I do not even feel that way about my PC in an RPG, I know I can just go back to the last save.
It will be tough to convey good emotional content in a game.
I remember watching Fellowship of the Ring with my wife and I had not told her anything about the book. She balled like a baby when Gandalf plunged into that crevice. And I knew how she felt from my experience of reading the book. He had given his life for his friends, as far as she knew. Honor, Friendship and sacrifice. How can you convey that through a game?
Not trying to be a buzzkill, I would love to get the experience out of a game I get out of a book.
December 1st, 2005 at 4:06 pm
[...] OK, so now I’m stealing links from Glenn Reynolds, but this Carnival of Gamers has about 20 really great links to various games related blogging (including a report from the Montreal International Games Summit). Check it out. All sorts of fun. [...]
December 2nd, 2005 at 3:13 am
Of course, one is an observer in a book, and a participant in a game. I’m afraid that many hardcore players now demand such stringent controls over their experiences (e.g. absolute save control) that it’s much harder in games. But I take the (controversial) view that we can wrest this control away from the players and exert higher authorial control if we want to (although the player should always be able to save and quit when they wish). Also, perhaps we will remember that the player doesn’t have to be at risk from dying in games. This could really help for a number of reasons.
“He had given his life for his friends, as far as she knew.”
Just a small point, but it is widely accepted that Gandalf does indeed die at this point, at least by literary scholars with an interest in overwritten fantasy and Tolkein geeks.
His return is literally a return from death, although this is handled with relative subtlety.