Removing Voice Acting and Cinematics to reduce the costs of video games.

[Rhatar Khurin]

I generally skip story in any game i play anyway, cinematics i quite like though.

So sure

I don't know why I find this so problematic....if you don't like story why play games with story? Unless all you play is FPSs that don't really have a story worth anyone's time or games like Diablo I find this quite troubling.

No, i only play MMOs.

For example, reading missions in SWG or EVE online makes no difference to the experience (which i like!)

Generally the more story and cutscenes and voice acting there is, the more boring slug it is to get to max level so you can start pvping properly

 

[TheDooD]

So theres a thread on the escapist that i found pretty interesting entitled : 'Price of Games Why whinge? Should their be a price Increase for games longer in development? ' which talks mainly about the prices of video games and several things that could and should influence them. That got me to thinking, would we as gamers be willing to play a game with little to no Voice acting and/ or cinematics? Now a days almost every game has wonderful ( and awe inspiring ) Cinematics and Great Voice acting, but the reality of the matter is , these things cost money ( ALOT of money ) .

Now money isn't an issue for all gamers . But let's just say a game has no Voice acting or Cinematics, the cost for developping said game will be lower, thus the price for the game on released SHOULD be lower also. Or on the other hand , if a game has no Voice acting or Cinematics, the time and money that would have been spent on those two aspects of the game , could be used on something else, like polishing the game , thus keeping the price the same , but having a better game, in the same amount of time.

So my question has 3 parts:

a) Would you Play a current gen AAA game with no Voice acting and no cinematics?

b)Would you be willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a lower video game release price?

c)Would you Willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a more polished game?

The only bad thing about this is that Publishers and PR yes men make WAY more money then the development team.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

Here's a little cost-cutting measure that would actually make games better: when localizing foreign titles, DO NOT DUB!

 

[necromanzer52]

I think I'd stop playing games if they stopped having voice-acting & cinematics.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

So I take you don't play Zelda. You're missing out!

 

[Tim Mazzola]

Yes, Yes aaand Yes. I'm not saying this should be for ALL games, mind you, I'm just saying a lot of games do not need these things. The AAA industry is way too concerned with making games look and feel like something they aren't. If a AAA game came out this year that featured nothing more advanced than 2D sprite art, a MIDI soundtrack and no VAs or cutscenes... I'd buy it as long as it was a GOOD GAME. My point being, having VAs and cutscenes adds nothing to some games. It's not true in all cases, but it's kinda like how they have to shoehorn multiplayer into everything nowadays. I feel the same is the case for VAs and cutscenes. Sometimes they just aren't called for, and the game would be better for excluding them.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

A) Yes.

B) Yes.

C) Definitely yes.


Well, actually, thinking back, it really depends on the game.

For example, without voice acting, how do you know where to go? What if you're in the middle of a mission and it just assumes that you can figure out the direction to go by yourself, and you get lost? That'd kinda suck.

It depends on the game I guess.

I agree with all 3 options as i'd choose all 3 myself but to answer your question about knowing where to go in games there are text directions like arrows or symbols found in old games and sometimes new ones that can tell you where you need to be without the need for voice acting.

 

[bob-2000]

No to all of these. Voice acting and story is very, very important for me.

 

[Mid-Boss]

As long as a game is fun and the story is engaging then the "few choices but with voice acting" and the "No voice but lots of options" both work for me.

 

[Zakarath]

Yes, I would. Although Voice acting and cinematics have their place (I.E. mass effect wouldn't have been the same without it), I also love playing older games simply because their lower production values allowed them to have much more content.

 

[aashell13]

No to all.

I do feel that a lot of AAA titles aren't worth $60, but I don't have the disposable income to purchase even the good ones at that price. So I usually buy games on steam a year or 18 months after release.

 

[Smertnik]

No, no and no. Well, I don't care that much about cinematics but voice acting is very important to me. I can't enjoy a game without voice acting (unless it's a puzzle or something).

 

[Tibike77]

a) Would you Play a current gen AAA game with no Voice acting and no cinematics?

It's more immersive with good voice acting, but bad voice acting can be a deal breaker - I certainly would not mind a no-voices title (or minimalistic voice) as long as the game itself is good enough.
As for cinematics - depends. Games nowadays have more and more in-game-engine pseudocinematics, and since they should not take much longer to make than actual gameplay stuff, I would be mildly miffed if THOSE cinematics would get cut (unless it makes sense in context). But yeah, pre-rendered cinematics, those I could easily live without.


b)Would you be willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a lower video game release price?

Sure, why not, with the caveats above.


c)Would you Willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a more polished game?

ABSOLUTELY.

 

[Dense_Electric]

Voice acting, no, it's generally too important unless your game doesn't have any sort of narrative at all (a la Tetris) or minimal narrative (Peggle).

Cinematics are a different story - in fact, I think we should do away with all cinematics in games (or at least the vast majority of them). To me, they undermine the defining characteristic of a game that sets it apart from all other media, interactivity. About two days before the Extra Credits guys published the episode where they said this (I don't remember which one), I realized that "do, don't show" might be gaming's golden rule. When they came out with the exact same thing I did, I realized it was true. So to answer your question, yes, I would pay for a game with no cinematic. I already paid for Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Portal, and Portal 2 (why is Valve the only company doing this?)

 

[MikailCaboose]

Morrowind. Best game I ever played. Voice acting is minimal, and cinimatics? There is not even enough to count on my left hand.

So my answers is yes across the board.

And then came Oblivion. Sometimes I think it would have been better without voice acting. Well except the Emperor and Sheogorath, but besides that...

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I generally skip story in any game i play anyway, cinematics i quite like though.

So sure

I don't know why I find this so problematic....if you don't like story why play games with story? Unless all you play is FPSs that don't really have a story worth anyone's time or games like Diablo I find this quite troubling.

No, i only play MMOs.

For example, reading missions in SWG or EVE online makes no difference to the experience (which i like!)

Generally the more story and cutscenes and voice acting there is, the more boring slug it is to get to max level so you can start pvping properly

Ah, yeah, that also would explain this. I actually played FFXI a ton and that game's story is actually worth a damn but it's never forced upon you, you can easily go to max lvl and never do most story quests. It's rather fun doing them from a normal game standpoint though, even if it doesn't seem worthwhile from a strictly MMO point of view.

 

[kasperbbs]

Depends on the game.. I really love rpgs, but i guess a lot of them wouldn't be the same without voice acting, imagine Morrigan from dragon age without Claudia Black's voice.. Portal wouldn't be half as good without Glados comments. If they cut out voice acting from a game like 'Dirt' then i wouldn't mind, i would actually prefer if it didnt have any voice actors, but in a game that has human NPCs voice acting is necessary.

 

[conflictofinterests]

a) Would you Play a current gen AAA game with no Voice acting and no cinematics?
Depends on the game, but no, I like my voice acting in my story driven games that have already established themselves with strong voice acting. On the flipside I don't want the Legend of Zelda games to have any more voice acting than they currently do.

b)Would you be willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a lower video game release price?
I refer you to my previous answer, Legend of Zelda barely uses voice acting and yet it has always cost as much as its peers. Little to no voice acting won't make video games cheaper. I'm pretty sure it's factored into the assigned budget. And you honestly can't take cutscenes away from all story driven games, they're an integral part of the experience, the Half-Life approach doesn't work for every game.

c)Would you be willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a more polished game?
And again, what idea makes you think that no voice acting or cutscenes would make for a make a game more polished? There are plenty of polished games that have both voice acting and lengthy cutscenes and buggy titles that have only one or neither of those.

In short, your logic is highly flawed.

The idea is that if they cut the voice acting and cutscene budgets, then they would have more money to throw at polishing the game. Yeah, there are plenty of examples to the contrary, but it's hard to know how much of an impact the funding of each of the aspects figured in to the quality of the aspects.

The flaw to that is that while in some cases you get what you pay for, in others, pretty good is really cheap. There are just too many things that factor into the quality of a game to say that "if you threw more money at polish instead of cutscenes and voice acting, you'd get a better game"

Also, I'm pretty sure polish is something that comes over time and beta testing, so with that cut in the cinematics and voice acting budgets, you'd have to tack on a few months in the pre-release phase.

 

[tzimize]

So theres a thread on the escapist that i found pretty interesting entitled : 'Price of Games Why whinge? Should their be a price Increase for games longer in development? ' which talks mainly about the prices of video games and several things that could and should influence them. That got me to thinking, would we as gamers be willing to play a game with little to no Voice acting and/ or cinematics? Now a days almost every game has wonderful ( and awe inspiring ) Cinematics and Great Voice acting, but the reality of the matter is , these things cost money ( ALOT of money ) .

Now money isn't an issue for all gamers . But let's just say a game has no Voice acting or Cinematics, the cost for developping said game will be lower, thus the price for the game on released SHOULD be lower also. Or on the other hand , if a game has no Voice acting or Cinematics, the time and money that would have been spent on those two aspects of the game , could be used on something else, like polishing the game , thus keeping the price the same , but having a better game, in the same amount of time.

So my question has 3 parts:

a) Would you Play a current gen AAA game with no Voice acting and no cinematics?

b)Would you be willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a lower video game release price?

c)Would you Willing to sacrifice Voice acting and cinematics for a more polished game?

A: Yes

B/C: Dont know, in Final fantasy (when I played it) I actually prefer no voices...but...imagine a world where we never heard the FANTASTIC voicework of Simon Templemans Kain...thats a sad world imo. In so many games voices are just meh...but if done right can bring a WHOLE new dimention to games that can easily be even more important than todays extreme focus on graphics.