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

[sumanoskae]

Depends on the game. I couldn't imagine Fallout or Dragon Age without voice acting, there's a lot added to both of those games by the unique inflection of each voice actor. For example, Alister could have very well come of as just whiny and generic without the stellar voice acting, but the way he talks, the subtle sarcasm, the slight dragging on certain lines regarding royalty, these things imply a lot. I dare say he might not have been half the character without voice acting.

But the real problem with such a change would be this; it's not the walls of text themselves that cause the problem, it's the break in pace and the change in how we adsorb information. In terms of immersion, one of the most important things to consider is consistency, that the set of rules we've applied to the world of the game aren't broken, because doing so reminds us that we're playing a game, that our actions ultimately mean nothing because they can be reset by screwing around with ones and zeros. And it's easier to create that illusion if it's closer to what we already hold as true. Thus, seeing a living, breathing world that communicates through text breaks immersion. Voice acting is useful because it allows the game to convey information without having to break flow

Which brings me to my other point. When you interact with media, you go in with a certain mindset, certain expectations. When you read a book you go into a specific mood, your prepared to read, and prepared to imagine. When you play a game, you prepare to react, to calculate. So when your presented with a wall of text(Which is usually not particularly interesting) you have to switch gears, and in comparison with the quick pace of most games, reading an entire conversation worth of text is going to seem boring and slow by comparison

It's the same critique Yahtzee gave Black Ops, but in reverse. When your really excited abut something, the time you have to wait for it seems longer, and vice versa. How would you feel if, in the middle of Game of Thrones, you were called upon to take control of Drago during some pillaging?

Cinematics are another story. I don't think they're useless, just misused. A cinematic implies that you have no control over the proceeding events. A lot of games use cinematics strictly for the camera angels, but I think we could get around that. It may at first be awkward to navigate an environment when left, right, up and down are constantly changing, but I think we could fix that problem by, say, allowing the player to just give basic commands to their avatar during cinematics rather then dictating their every move

When we read books we study events, when we watch movies we observe events, when we play video games we drive events, and understanding the psychology behind such things is crucial to pushing this medium forward as an art form

 

[Tratchet]

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 ) .

How much money do these things cost? I've always been under the impression that the real money sucker for high quality games is high quality graphics, but I may be wrong (and whether or not we'd be willing to sacrifice graphics is a different question). I could understand cutscenes taking a good chunk of money, but I don't think voice acting, even high quality voice acting, would.

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.

I know this question is hypothetical, but I'd just like to say that I'm pretty sure that a company wouldn't lower the price of their games just because it took less money to make them. Think about it like this. All AAA games don't cost the same to make, sometimes by a margin of millions of dollars, but they all are priced the same when new.

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) For AAA games with meaningless or easy to understand stories (for example, Mario), yes on both accounts. For games with more complicated stories, I think the story should be shown through gameplay (I know I'm not the first to mention that), so yes to cutscenes. Voice acting is a little more difficult to get rid of, because without voice acting the only way to convey a story would be through written dialogue. So probably not for voice acting.

b) Sure, as a hypothetical question, but as I already said, It'd be really unlikely to actually happen.

c) Yes for cinematics. It depends for voice acting. If the extra polish doesn't make up for the decreased ability to tell the story, then I probably wouldn't get it.

EDIT: For people that think that Voice acting takes away from Immersion , im guessing you guys don'T read BOOKS? you know that WALL OF TEXT between two covers that has a story , and a begining and an end? Books can be pretty immersive if you ask me , and no voice acting is required. Just an extra thought.

The reason I would cut cinematics is to streamline the game, so that the story could be better told during and through gameplay. If the story is told in text it tends to grind the game to a halt while the player reads whatever he needs to. What works for books in storytelling doesn't necessary work for games. Also, if your entire story is told through text you would need to hire good writers. While this would probably not cost nearly as much as creating cutscenes I could see it costing as much as adding voice acting.

 

[Nightvalien]

i would sacrifice cinematics, but voice acting can be beautiful look at bioshock the narrative is great and i don't think the game would be half of what it is without the narrative.
captcha : much ainiti the hell is ainiti

 

[Spitfire]

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) No.

B) No.

C) And again, no.

I think that presentation in videogames is the key to immersion, and the voice acting and cinematics are paramount ingredients.
Also, while I can maybe understand this argument with regards to voice acting, I really don't think that cinematics have such a high cost requirement that they would ever need to be removed.

Bottom line, unless it's a platformer, or a simulation game or something, I really can't picture a modern game that doesn't feature those 2 things.

 

[yndsu]

Depends on the game.
Dragon Age: Origins didnt have voiceover for the main charater, and the game and the story were better for it. Dragon Age II had voiceacting for the main character as well and the game did suffer for it.

About the cinematics, it depends on what kind you are talking about. If it is some special finisher move in a fight then go for it. But that would be more of an animation really.


Well, it is hard actually to give you a straightforward answer. It will always depend on the type of the game and the way it has done. If done right a cinematic clip can make the game awesome beyond your imagination, if it is done badly it can ruin the whole experience.

Hehe, this is kinda like an episode of "No Right Answer"

 

[Xaio30]

I'll just add an epic [HEADING=2]Yes[/HEADING] to all three of your questions.

 

[emeraldrafael]

id say it would all vary. it would depend on the game, cause dont forget that VA and Cinamatics would be gone from games like Catherine, Halo, CoD, everything. And when you take them out, its a slipperly slope to just taking all sound out of video games just to save money. cause lets face it, if you dont want to hear someone talk or watch a cut scene to save money, you'd probably ust as well not mind if there was no music or sound in the game.

 

[Xanadu84]

I think that the idea of putting down a groundwork to apply to "Games" is a little ridiculous, when games these days include Farmville, Flower, and Call of Duty. I wouldn't want to sacrifice voice acting from Heavy Rain or Dragon Age, but I don't need it in Minecraft. It all depends on the game.

Also saying that voice acting doesn't help with immersion because Books are immersive is a little ridiculous. Was adding voice to movies a mistake? Is radio worthless? Should Inception have had Intertitles giving you all the dialog? Voice Acting is another tool to play around with. Use them or not, the only foolish thing to do is to dismiss them entirely. Voice Acting had added a lot of immersion to games. Other games don't benifit from Voice Acting. Books don't need Voice Acting because they were written as books.

 

[viranimus]

1: Yes and no.. I would give it up for one or two games dependent on how good they were, but all games, absolutely not Edit: Basically its what type of game that will dictate when and where this is applicable.

2: No, because its not worth it. Thats one of the largest reasons why the prices of games are as high as they are, is the talent and content. Edit: THough I am looking at cinematics more than Voice acting here.

3: No, because it does not matter how "polished" the game play is. I personally need incentive to play. Im not the type to just be handed a gun and start killing people. I have to have a reason to do so or I am not going to do it.

There has to be some sort of motivation. Without it, then why bother playing a game? Could you play Halo without a single player story campaign? Sure.. but how long before your asking yourself, what exactly did these grunts do to me to deserve my wrath?

Quite frankly Multiplayer is already strangling the life out of the single player experience in games. Its also allowing game developers and publishers to get by with producing less content but charging the same price (if not more) and this generation is encouraging it mindlessly. So this is absolutely the last thing the industry needs.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

Well ... if the game can make up for the sacrifices, sure.

 

[EHKOS]

I would for Voice acting, nothing a text box can't fix, but I love me some cinematics.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Because VA is important, it's not essential to storytelling but it certainly makes it better. Video games are an auditory/visual medium, by their very own nature they are conducive to voice acted stories. Voice acting doesn't need to be in every game, I will agree with you there, but it does need to be in games that try to tell a story, especially RPGs where things like immersion and dialog are very important. Story telling in games are what's going to push the genre forward and help make games be considered a more serious art form. Voice acting is a part of that. Taking voice over out of a Triple A game would be like removing music from it, would you remove music from any game? I certainly wouldn't. If anything removal of these features would set the genre back to days long ago when games were simply viewed as children's toys.

Games can tell a story through text or through gameplay means, but that story is, by default, less immersive and less captivating. This has nothing to do with anyone's inability to read, or that people who prefer VO and cut-scenes are stupid. It has to do with games as a whole. One of my favorite games of all time is FF6, nearly perfect in my mind, I love the story, music, gameplay and characters. Do I think it would be better if it had voice over? Do i think the story would be better told through voice acting? You bet your ass I do. If we followed your line of thinking, maybe we should just cut out voices from movies to increase the quality of production. Video games are a visual and auditory medium, having to read texts is not conducive to the medium and voice acting is.

EDIT: Sega killed Sonic with shitty game play.

I'd say the exact opposite, at least for RPGs. Voice acting essentially makes choice, consequence, and branching storylines into a direct drain on resources. So you have modern RPGs that are a lot less ambitious with where they take their stories simply because it's considerably more expensive for them to do that. In other words:

Could you make a fully voice-acted Planescape: Torment? Maybe, but you'd have to drag the execs kicking and screaming all the way, and they might actually be right. Recording sessions are expensive, and no way are they gonna want to implement all those choices when they could get away with a much smaller number.

EDIT: Not to say that voice acting has no place in RPGs. But there are definite trade-offs to be made in terms of c&c, and it's important to acknowledge that.

 

[Tim Mazzola]

Huh. Why not? I dunno, all the people here who are saying they wouldn't play a game without VAs and cutscenes are imposing severe restrictions on themselves.

All these people making the argument "I CAN'T IMAGINE MASS EFFECT 2 WITHOUT VOICE ACTING" aren't actually arguing their own point. Just because one game has no voice acting doesn't mean it will disappear from gaming. Whether one game has no VAs and cutscenes has nothing to do with others.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. VAs and cutscenes are like online multiplayer. They are often a waste of resources shoehorned into everything because it "has to be in everything" even when totally uncalled for.

Also, some people seem to be thinking "Voice acting and cutscenes" = "story." That is laughably ridiculous, restrictive, and insulting to gaming. It implies that video games will only ever exist as a shadow of other media, and will have to perpetually rely on antiquated methods of narrative delivery.

Personally, if someone refuses to play games just because they lack VAs and cutscenes, they're basically saying they want to medium to stagnate and never evolve.

Also, as one last point, I want to remind people. WHAT killed Sonic?

Because VA is important, it's not essential to storytelling but it certainly makes it better. Video games are an auditory/visual medium, by their very own nature they are conducive to voice acted stories. Voice acting doesn't need to be in every game, I will agree with you there, but it does need to be in games that try to tell a story, especially RPGs where things like immersion and dialog are very important. Story telling in games are what's going to push the genre forward and help make games be considered a more serious art form. Voice acting is a part of that. Taking voice over out of a Triple A game would be like removing music from it, would you remove music from any game? I certainly wouldn't. If anything removal of these features would set the genre back to days long ago when games were simply viewed as children's toys.

Games can tell a story through text or through gameplay means, but that story is, by default, less immersive and less captivating. This has nothing to do with anyone's inability to read, or that people who prefer VO and cut-scenes are stupid. It has to do with games as a whole. One of my favorite games of all time is FF6, nearly perfect in my mind, I love the story, music, gameplay and characters. Do I think it would be better if it had voice over? Do i think the story would be better told through voice acting? You bet your ass I do. If we followed your line of thinking, maybe we should just cut out voices from movies to increase the quality of production. Video games are a visual and auditory medium, having to read texts is not conducive to the medium and voice acting is.

EDIT: Sega killed Sonic with shitty game play.

Saying that telling a story through gameplay means is "by default, less immersive and less captivating" is just bullshit, and again, a blatant insult to video games as a whole. You can't possibly say voice acting makes narrative better in all cases, that's ridiculous.

Also, what? When did I say anything even implying a line of thinking related to cutting out voices from movies to increase the quality of production? That's just putting words in my mouth, and since when did this discussion have anything to do with movies? We're talking about games here, which aren't (and should not be) similar to movies unless we want to restrict the medium completely and allow it to stagnate under the shadow of other media. What I'm getting from your post is "movies are inherently better than video games." That's basically what you're saying. You're saying in order for a story to be presented properly, it has to be done exactly the way movies do it. Games are capable of more than that.

Also, more bullshit statements from your post.

"Story telling in games are what's going to push the genre forward and help make games be considered a more serious art form."- Storytelling has been done in every other medium. Storytelling is the least innovative and artistic thing about video games. That's like saying Beethoven's symphonies suck because there are no lyrics and thus there is no "storytelling." Also, this has nothing to do with voice acting, since video games can tell stories in other ways, as mentioned above. Even another comparison to music, instrumental pieces can tell stories simply through the music that stories in lyrics could not hope to convey. Games are like music in that regard. The mechanics of the game alone can be enough, and that is what will make games a great new innovative art form.

"Taking voice over out of a Triple A game would be like removing music from it, would you remove music from any game?"- COMPLETE bullshit. Voice acting and music have literally no similarities other than being something you hear. Also, I never said I wanted to remove voices from existing AAA games. I simply said it's not necessary for all of them to have it. ALSO... ya, just WHAT?! Where the hell did this statement come from?! This is just hilarious. Plenty of games have music and no voice acting. I have NO idea what you were trying to convey with this statement. I'd also like to point out that not every game needs a soundtrack either. I love video game music and constantly immerse myself in it, but saying "this game NEEDS music" is, again, restrictive. Music, like voice acting, can add to the immersion of the experience, yes, but both are by no means necessary for it and neither add to the experience in EVERY case.

"If anything removal of these features would set the genre back to days long ago when games were simply viewed as children's toys."- How?!! You're saying that if someone made a game without voice acting, they wouldn't take the game design seriously? This statement basically says "If a game doesn't have voice acting, the game designers will treat the level design, systems design, physics etc. like a toy and not put any creative thought into it." Voice acting is not what separates video games from "children's toys", the creativity and vision of the game designers is.

 

[Risingblade]

No, no and no. btw A lot is two words

 

[zedel]

a.yes
b.yes
c.yes

I've played many games where voice acting completely ruined the game for me. :/ I'm looking at you dragon age 2. Mass effect also had this problem...
Having voice acting and cinematics turns video games into movies and I pay less for my movies.

 

[G-Force]

I'm sorry, but if you hate reading so much that you're willing to put up with ear-rapeage of that severity, you deserve what you get. And yes, that's pretty much the worst of the worst as far as bad dubbing goes, but I think it drives the point home that re-dubbing a foreign-language game might not necessarily be worth the investment.

After all, were ICO and Shadow of the Colossus such bad games, just because all the characters spoke in Greek? Or was that Japanese? Greekajanese? Whatever.

While I do agree that having the original language is an option there are still amazing dubs out there. With Chaos Wars the CEO used his friends and family as VAs for some reason. Yes it is horrible but for every Chaos Wars you get games made by Atlus which do a tremendously awesome job localization and dubbing their games.

Even the Japanese recognize the appeal of the English. No More Heroes has no Japanese track as the game was ONLY recorded in English at first. The Japanese release of that game only had subtitles.

 

[Telemachus]

if you can do all those things and still make a great game. doesn't matter to me.