kanada514 said:
That's where you're wrong. Designers don't need to execute litterary prowesses because they only write the GDD. They have nothing to do with the story whatsoever and they usually don't give a fuck about it either. 1)
As for Steven Spielberg equivalent.
Do you think he would make a great game if he got to be in charge of one?
Do you think those two medias are alike or similar? 2)
Do you think that one of them being interactive might force a different cinematographic approach or a different approach altogether? 3)
Is it easier to create a story for a passive audience that has no control over it or for a crowd that actually plays the main protagonist's role in the story? 4)
What of the choice of protagonists? Is it easier to have the character embody a knight, marine or a grocery clerk? 5)
Because in movies it doesn't matter who the main protagonist is.
Take the movie "The Machinist" for instance. It's abvout a machinist. Who would like to play a machinist? In a movie though, it doesn't matter. The movie can be appealing nonetheless. 6)
You can't do whatever the fuck you want with game though. It's much more constrained and limited but then again, it is a completely different media (incidentaly, a media that just supplanted the movie industry in terms of revenue, so then again, there must be something they're doing right) 7).
1): Designers design. They choose the writers. What happens when the designers don't choose a good writers? they chose bad one, and you get a bad story. Also like I said, they design. They decide what story is used. I doubt Dave Jaffe just let the writers do whatever with the God of War series. You can bet he had a fair say in whatever they did. Why? because he's a designer.
2): yes and yes to the Spielberg thing. Steven Spielberg is a great producer. Meaning he knows how to find people who will make awesome stuff. Even the stuff he produces are great. Look at Boomblox and Animaniacs. A game and a cartoon. Not exactly the thing you'd expect the man who created E.T. and Schindler's List to create right? but he knows what he's doing. Those games are great because he knows how to get awesome people working with him.
also, to the differences in mediums. I'd say no. It's like art. Same principles all around. It doesn't matter if you are using a Pencil or Charcoal or paint. The same principles of how stuff is suppose to look applies, you just have to learn how to use the medium correctly
3): no, that's the great thing about limits. There's no limit to what you can do within them.
4): They are one in the same. Interactive mediums are just doing what movies and books do, telling a story. They tell a story and let you take control of the expiriance instead of just sitting there and watching, but like the artistic mediums thing, the same principles still apply. You have to make people identify with the protagonist, otherwise they won't enjoy playing him/watching him. Now when a game makes you identify with the people in the story and makes it fun to play at the same time, then it is truly good. I'm sure we can all think of a game that we love that has a great protagonist.
5): It does matter. If he or she is completely unlikable the movie/game won't be good/as enjoyable. You need to identify with protagonists. Other wise you won't care about him or what he's trying to accomplish. I've had fun games and movies be ruined by protagonists who are bitchy pricks who I hate with a passion (male and female).
6): A machinist would make a very interesting protagonist. Image running around trying to solve a mystery while building things, that would be great. It doesn't matter who the protagonist is, as long as we can identify with him. The point is not what the protagonists are, but who they are.
7): that's the point of gaming. To be able to do whatever the fuck you want. If you want to fly to the moon? hell yeah, buy a game about it. Games are about experiencing things we would never be able to experience otherwise. That's also what film is about. Film takes us to another place. So do books. They tell us tales of wonder and excitement, intrigue and danger, darkness and depression, happiness and light. That is the whole idea of story telling, incidentally, it is also the idea of games. To let us live out the experiences that we wouldn't be able to in real life. Also, Popularity and revenue have nothing to do with whether something is good or not. Otherwise twilight would be better than most of the great literary accomplishments of the past few centuries.
