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[Spike6663]

So David's going to fund these investments yes?

 

[Cerebral Assassin]

I agree with this but if he wants to do this why doesn't he lead the way? QD seem to be able to do what they want to within reason with Sony. So why doesn't he show others how it should be done?

I do find it rich he talks about violence though when his last game was pretty much built on it.
And from what his showed of 'Beyond' it seems more of the same just with a supernatural element.

Because you need to have either top quality writing or a firm grasp on how to invoke emotion via gameplay mechanics & nothing Cage has made so far shows any ability to do so.

 

[anastazius]

david-cage-offers-nine-examples-of-how-the-industry-can-grow-up

TL/DR

"Please buy my next interactive movie game with boobs in. Kthx!"

Only kidding, Beyond Two Souls looks super interesting and I hope it turns out better than Heavy Rain overall, or at least as good / gripping as the first hour of Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) was.

 

[RM8]

About "expanding the audience" - take a look at the best selling games for any system. Do people want "meaning" in their games? It seems like they don't. And just because there IS a place for narrative-driven games it doesn't mean they're a "higher" form of games, or that all games should ape them. How he fails to understand this is so puzzling to me.

 

[KirbyKid]

#2 and the claim that "most people" don't want to master anything aka, actually play a game or learn something, seems to fly in the face of popular trends.

The mainstream population seems to adore games that are actually games. From Popcap, to World of Warcraft, even to something like Angry Birds and so-called simplistic mobile games. Hell, even "social" games such as Facebook stuff - even if those games are manipulative, they're simulating a person learning and being rewarded by mastery of a system.

You have a great reply here, but I want to challenge this part.

If you look really closely at how people are playing some of the very popular games, or even how many hardcore gamers play their games, you'll find that there is a surprising amount of people that don't really care for the gameplay part of games. It's not their favorite part of the experience, and they have a hard time expressing anything they do like about it.

Some of the most popular in app purchases are the "cheat" items that allow people to bypass the challenge in games like Cut the Rope and many others. I do not think most of these players are mastering these systems at all. Yes, they have to learn a bit, but that's the case with everything interactive. There's a difference between gameplay and interactivity.

 

[RedSwirl]

#2 and the claim that "most people" don't want to master anything aka, actually play a game or learn something, seems to fly in the face of popular trends.

The mainstream population seems to adore games that are actually games. From Popcap, to World of Warcraft, even to something like Angry Birds and so-called simplistic mobile games. Hell, even "social" games such as Facebook stuff - even if those games are manipulative, they're simulating a person learning and being rewarded by mastery of a system.

That's one of the things about the mainstream market though. Generally, they still haven't acclimated to the idea of games with deep storylines the way core gamers did during the PS1 era. It's like most casual gamers are where core gamers were 30 years ago.

 

[Data West]

Uh games are a little too accessible as it is

 

[skypunch]

Hm, I definitely agree with some of his points. Especially developing games that are adult-oriented.

Would you say Xenosaga and Xenogears are adult-oriented?

 

[Dabanton]

This article from Variety which must have come from the same interviews, expands on his thoughts about Hollywood and it's relationship with game creators.

The videogame industry might have taken in nearly $15 billion in the U.S. last year, but one of the industry's more controversial developers thinks the industry needs to reinvent itself if it wants to ensure long-term success.

David Cage, founder of the Quantic Dream development studio and creator of 2010's Heavy Rain and the upcoming Ellen Page starring game "Beyond: Two Souls," accused the industry of having a Peter Pan complex during a seminar at this year's D.I.C.E. Summit -- and offered his own vision for the future.

Noting that the industry's best-selling games were largely Nintendo titles and violent shooters, he chastised developers for reusing the same themes and worlds for nearly 40 years.

"Video games live in wonderland," he said. "They're not connected to our reality. They talk about things that are completely unrelated to all we know. We need to move from our traditional market -- which is mainly kids, teens and young adults -- to a wider market, where we can make anyone play. "

Cage suggested several changes, including reworking the industry's relationship with Hollywood.

Today, he noted, the relationship between filmmakers and game makers is largely based on licensing deals -- which he noted don't really benefit either side.

"The time has come for a new partnership," he said. "We can invent a new form of entertainment. They mastered the form of linear storytelling. We mastered interactivity."

Part of that change, he said, would involve bringing in new talent, as he has with Paige and his work with David Bowie on Quantic Dream's first game, "Omikron: The Nomad Soul."

Story, he said, is essential. While there's nothing wrong with the adrenaline rush that many of today's games provide, he dismissed those experiences as "toys."

"Can we create games that have something to say?," he posed. "Could we create games that talk about society? That talk about feelings and emotion? That talk about politics or homosexuality? Why not? We need to put games at the center of our lives. They shouldn't be set in a separate dimension."

More importantly, he noted, is for game developers to abandon the paradigms that have served them so well in the past -- including violence, which has become a hot button issue again in the past few months.

"We need to decide that violence and platform games are not the only way," he said. "We are in an industry that if the main character does not hold a gun, designers don't know what to do."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118065752/

Cage seems really desperate to get his foot in the door of hollywood.

 

[SixMachine]

Well since this is the actual thread instead of the other one.

I know I might sound like a dick for saying this, but the people who aren't into competitive games or games with mechanics with depth just don't have the gaming backbone for it. A lot of people like the thrill of a good fight. I've met people who would do things like only play bot games or against AI just because they didn't want to face another person. It's fine if they don't want to, if it's not for them, then it's just not their thing.

When playing a game which demands more from the player like say DMC3, overcoming challenge is a journey. I remember when playing Ninja Gaiden you can see yourself get better as you get further into the game and when I let my cousin play through it I could also see progress from a viewer's perspective not just as a player. When you get stomped by a boss, you come back after refining your strategy and/or building your strength until you can overcome them. You can actually say that the player just went on their own little hero's journey just to beat that one challenge.

He's afraid of getting beat, and doesn't feel the thrill of getting better. Competitive gaming genres (and this applies to physical sports as well) thrive on the satisfaction of getting better and beating stronger opponents. The sad thing when compared to a lot of older games of the past they are being "dumbed down" making games lose that edge.

I'm all for diverse gaming experiences and enjoy games that aren't mechanically deep or competitive at all, but this type of gaming experience feels like it's getting downplayed more and more as each day passes.

I will say this though, the most important meaning from a game is the one you make yourself. If I play a fighting game with a friend and we both strive to get better at it and get the thrill of competition, that means more than some story someone else fed you.

 

[GolazoDan]

10. More JAAAAAAASON.

 

[ComputerMKII]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...:+GamasutraNews+(Gamasutra+News)#.URLAiWcYF0J

http://www.vg247.com/2013/02/06/david-cage-offers-nine-examples-of-how-the-industry-can-grow-up/

I like David Cage the more I read what he says.

 

[Tiktaalik]

This reads like something from the 90s FMV era.

 

[pargonta]

I say we fundamentally change soccer, because, man, regular soccer is so mid-19th century England! Where's the meaning!? Don't even get me started on chess.

a person does not create a game of soccer. although.. i guess if we really wanted to get into that we could think about it lol.

anyway i disagree alot with the hollywood comments he is saying. while i agree games have stories to tell and interesting ways to tell them... there should be distance.

 

[jtb]

David Cage can go fuck himself. "The Importance of Meaning?" How about learning the importance of what a fucking Macguffin is first. You think Heavy Rain was the first story in the history of video games to have a theme? I wouldn't have so much of a problem with this list (frankly it hits on a lot of reasons why I'm disillusioned with the industry, sure) if it wasn't thinly veiled ego-stroking that aims at getting his terrible writing into Hollywood, while simultaneously slighting every other half-competent video game writer out there. There aren't a whole lot out there, but Cage does set the bar pretty low. What good is a videogame tackling politics or homosexuality when it fails at the basics of storytelling?

I weep for the industry if we're taking pointers from this hack.

 

[Goodacre0081]

Some people really hate David Cage.

how can you blame them when all this guy does is make glorified Dragon'sLair games? he's a reject from the film industry. every statement he makes sounds like he's trying to change the gaming industry to suit is interests.

can't believe I paid $60 for HeavyRain. i'll watch Beyond two Souls on youtube and get the same experience.

 

[LiK]

more shower scenes and boobs, amirite Cagey-chan?

 

[Conciliator]

Well since this is the actual thread instead of the other one.

I know I might sound like a dick for saying this, but the people who aren't into competitive games or games with mechanics with depth just don't have the gaming backbone for it. A lot of people like the thrill of a good fight. I've met people who would do things like only play bot games or against AI just because they didn't want to face another person. It's fine if they don't want to, if it's not for them, then it's just not their thing.

When playing a game which demands more from the player like say DMC3, overcoming challenge is a journey. I remember when playing Ninja Gaiden you can see yourself get better as you get further into the game and when I let my cousin play through it I could also see progress from a viewer's perspective not just as a player. When you get stomped by a boss, you come back after refining your strategy and/or building your strength until you can overcome them. You can actually say that the player just went on their own little hero's journey just to beat that one challenge.

He's afraid of getting beat, and doesn't feel the thrill of getting better. Competitive gaming genres (and this applies to physical sports as well) thrive on the satisfaction of getting better and beating stronger opponents. The sad thing when compared to a lot of older games of the past they are being "dumbed down" making games lose that edge.

I'm all for diverse gaming experiences and enjoy games that aren't mechanically deep or competitive at all, but this type of gaming experience feels like it's getting downplayed more and more as each day passes.

I will say this though, the most important meaning from a game is the one you make yourself. If I play a fighting game with a friend and we both strive to get better at it and get the thrill of competition, that means more than some story someone else fed you.

Wow great post. I'm also not philosophically opposed to 'cinematic' video games or whatever we should call it, but so few games actually do it well. If your game has little focus on mechanics and heavy focus on story and characters, that's fine, but your story and characters have to be good, or you do not have shit going for your game. Nearly all games that go this route fail in this regard(there are a couple of exceptions).

Spoiler

Good work junior

 

[Lime]

Wow. I think the knee-jerk reactions and amount of arguments against his person are getting out of hand.

 

[Loudninja]

how can you blame them when all this guy does is make glorified Dragon'sLair games? he's a reject from the film industry. every statement he makes sounds like he's trying to change the gaming industry to suit is interests.

can't believe I paid $60 for HeavyRain. i'll watch Beyond two Souls on youtube and get the same experience.

Ah huh sure you can.

 

[see5harp]

I don't see why someone is not allowed to criticize the industry just because you didn't enjoy one of his games. I don't have anything against the games like Starcraft or COD where the majority of gameplay is about gameplay systems and multiplayer. There's nothing wrong with those games because the intention is not to move the medium forward in terms of storyline or narrative. The issue is with the other games like JRPG's, character action games, uncharted, stuff that has the ambition to try and tell a story and develop characters. If you honestly don't think there's something wrong with the overwhelming majority of these games, then maybe you are part of the problem.

 

[Maztorre]

Film evolved a storytelling language over time. That language is still being developed within videogames. The language unique to videogames is interactivity. David Cage seems to think he can transplant the language of films directly into videogames with sloppy and incidental attempts at gameplay, and that it is somehow a "mature" videogame because it is wrapped in "mature" and "cinematic" themes.

He is the last person who should be commenting on how the industry should "grow up" as he is unable to offer anything more engaging in terms of interactivity than even 20+ year old games that formed their genres like Super Mario Bros or Doom. He is outdone by numerous other developers who have been able to successfully tie thematic and narrative elements to gameplay mechanics (Another World, Portals, Braid, Spec Ops), with fractions of the time and budget given to something like Heavy Rain.

Even looking at his list, he alternates between decrying the lack of a press that applies higher standards of criticism, yet advocates the dumbing down or removal of mechanical or systemic depth because "mastering a system is boring" to most adults, apparently. So he wants a smart press but shallow games for them to critique.

David Cage is a hack.

 

[charsace]

There's room in the industry for different kinds of games. The Walking Dead, Hotline Miami, Gears of War, Civ, Killzone, ARMA, Madden all have their place.

 

[mr_nothin]

1: Make games for all audiences. “I believe it's time for this industry to create content, interactive experiences, for an adult audience,” he reiteraged.

Yeah, I'm done there. The industry is putting disproportional amount of money toward adult audience as is. Like only Nintendo and Activision are making some serious AAA effort for younger audience.

Nope, they're mostly making games for teens. COD/Gears/God of War/DmC/Ninja Raiden 16 are for teen audiences. We need something a little more mature. Stuff like Last of Us SEEMS a little bit more....'adult' and 'grounded'.

 

[KirbyKid]

I will say this though, the most important meaning from a game is the one you make yourself. If I play a fighting game with a friend and we both strive to get better at it and get the thrill of competition, that means more than some story someone else fed you.

Well, that's really just your opinion. To make a somewhat funny analogy; if someone else "fed" you the a 5 star restaurant meal, compared to the Kraft mac & cheese you and a friend strove to create, the 5 star meal will probably be better. Sure, personal experiences and hard work mean a lot, but they don't mean everything. I can just as easily imagine an authored story meaning more to me than one I create (and I'm a writer too).

 

[RM8]

If you honestly don't think there's something wrong with the overwhelming majority of these games, then maybe you are part of the problem.

I enjoy JRPGs because of gameplay, battle systems, customization and strategy, and not really because of story. Pokémon being the most successful JRPG ever kind of proves this. Action games? Really? Do Shinobi games suck because the story is pretty much nonsense? Ninja Gaiden? Castlevania? Nope, I disagree.

 

[see5harp]

I enjoy JRPGs because of gameplay, battle systems, customization and strategy, and not really because of story. Pokémon being the most successful JRPG ever kind of proves this. Action games? Really? Do Shinobi games suck because the story is pretty much nonsense? Ninja Gaiden? Castlevania? Nope, I disagree.

I think that's fine if you are able to ignore the narrative, story, and characters in most of these games and simply enjoy them for being games. That's really no different than many of the people enjoying DOTA2, Starcraft and COD. It's a set of gameplay systems that the player has to work out. I enjoy games despite the story and narrative in most cases but I agree that the industry might be in a better place if it could start concentrating on the other stuff.

 

[Tex117]

“I see myself as a writer,”

 

[Pro from Dover]

Reading or watching an "artful" story is not the only way to be intellectually stimulated or challenged. Ironically, the framework presented seems to hinge on a stereotypical and even cynical definition of adulthood. The adult world and society would be far better if people were never conditioned to believe they should stop being curious, stop thinking, stop learning, and stop mastering new things. Personally, I think the continued popularity of genuine gamelike systems and experiences with the general public attests to this innate desire people have.

(quoted for size)

 

[RedSwirl]

To be honest though I do think more writers need to be involved at earlier stages of game development, at least if the developer is serious about putting a story in the game that means something. If they can reach a point where the writing and theme can influence the gameplay, then I think we'll be getting somewhere.

 

[firehawk12]

I'm just wondering, if this was posted by the guys that made The Walking Dead, a game which follows many of the same principles on this list, would people be so quick to shit on it? lol

 

[Conan-san]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...:+GamasutraNews+(Gamasutra+News)#.URLAiWcYF0J

http://www.vg247.com/2013/02/06/david-cage-offers-nine-examples-of-how-the-industry-can-grow-up/

So what Cage, who hasn't made a game that meant anything to anyone in the way he prescribes, incidentally, says here is that video games need to become like San Francisco in that one South Park episode and disappear completely up its own ass-hole in self aggrandising smugness.

See, if Cage even just tipped his hat to the likes of The Walking Dead or even Persona 4 with Nanako or something, I might be more inclined to believe that the guy isn't a complete jagoff.

 

[jtb]

I'm just wondering, if this was posted by the guys that made The Walking Dead, a game which follows many of the same principles on this list, would people be so quick to shit on it? lol

If it was by the one video game writer I respect, Chris Avellone, it wouldn't be the same list. And I could (probably) take it a bit more seriously.

 

[firehawk12]

If it was by the one video game writer I respect, Chris Avellone, it wouldn't be the same list. And I could (probably) take it a bit more seriously.

Having spoken briefly to Avellone, his interests are more on the other end of the spectrum. He has faith in the player being able to create their own story using their game as a platform rather than have a designer try to "create games with meaning" as Cage would suggest.

 

[maverick40]

David Cage can go fuck himself. "The Importance of Meaning?" How about learning the importance of what a fucking Macguffin is first. You think Heavy Rain was the first story in the history of video games to have a theme? I wouldn't have so much of a problem with this list (frankly it hits on a lot of reasons why I'm disillusioned with the industry, sure) if it wasn't thinly veiled ego-stroking that aims at getting his terrible writing into Hollywood, while simultaneously slighting every other half-competent video game writer out there. There aren't a whole lot out there, but Cage does set the bar pretty low. What good is a videogame tackling politics or homosexuality when it fails at the basics of storytelling?

I weep for the industry if we're taking pointers from this hack.

I wouldn't mind his job tbh.

 

[Maztorre]

I'm just wondering, if this was posted by the guys that made The Walking Dead, a game which follows many of the same principles on this list, would people be so quick to shit on it? lol

I would, but I doubt TellTale would go onstage at DICE to convince people that the road to the mass market is all about moving away from gameplay and mechanical depth (after showing the audience that the majority of the mass markets interest is in Nintendo or heavily systems-oriented games)

 

[Holy Order Sol]

If you honestly don't think there's something wrong with the overwhelming majority of these games, then maybe you are part of the problem.

Except there is no problem.

Well maybe Cage's all high and mighty attitude and disdain for what he thinks of as lesser games. I can't even take seriously the points I'd tend to agree with coming from him.

 

[Sinsem]

I'm just wondering, if this was posted by the guys that made The Walking Dead, a game which follows many of the same principles on this list, would people be so quick to shit on it? lol

That's not the point.
Cage can't just decide for the whole industry, he has the right to try something, but he has to let people do whatever they want.
We don't all want making Heavy Rain stuff.
Video Game aren't just about Cage and his ego.

 

[R_thanatos]

Incredible how people must say something bad aout heavy rain ( as if it's the only game he's made ) as some sort of argument that made his points invalid.

I was planning to read this discussion but there is always someone saying "heavy rain was bad, his opinion is invalid " every x posts.

I for example welcome his first point as we shouldn't limit video games to one audience , and we should be able to make all kind of game, just like you can do all kind of books or movies.

i also think his opinion on the role of the press is quite valid. the focus os scores can put quite a lot of GAME JOURNALISTS in shame because they don't back-up their claims properly in their scores. i'd rather read a well written review/preview with no score than a quick review with a big ( big meaning focused ) score at the end.

That's not the point.
Cage can't just decide for the whole industry, he has the right to try something, but he has to let people do whatever they want.
We don't all want making Heavy Rain stuff.
Video Game aren't just about Cage and his ego.

Cage is not deciding for anything he's just stating his opinion.

and stuff like heavy rain is in the minority

 

[Dark Octave]

1: Make games for all audiences. “I believe it's time for this industry to create content, interactive experiences, for an adult audience,” he reiteraged.

2: Change our paradigms. “We cannot keep doing the same games the same way and expect to expand our market,” Cage cautions. “We need to decide that violence is not the only way.”

“For most people out there, mastering a system is not something exciting, it's boring,” he says. They don't want to compete. It's fine when you're a kid, but not as fun as an adult. “I don't want to feel the strange experience of getting my ass kicked by a 10 year old,” he added, challenging the industry to start making games with no guns.

3: The importance of meaning. “When you think about it, you realize many games have absolutely nothing to say!” says Cage. “There's nothing against that, but that's a toy. Can we create games that have something to say? That have meaning?”

To do this, we need to let authors come in, he says. “Games today, most of the time -- not all, but most -- are written by programmers and graphic artists and the marketing team. We need to have authors really at the heart of the project.”

In addition, we should use all real-world themes. Most games take place in a world we can never enter, but Cage says we should focus more on human relationships. “We need to put games at the center of our society, the center of our life. Games can do that in a very unique way.”

4: Become accessible. “Let's focus on minds of the players, and not how fast they can move their thumbs!” he says. We need to think about the journey versus the challenge. Is a game a series of obstacles, or could it be just a journey? Just a moment that you spend?

5: Bring other talent on board. David Cage in his career has worked with David Bowie, and the actress Ellen Page, which he says brought new perspective to his games. “Working with these people has been an amazing experience,” he says. “They came to the game industry because that was something new to them.”

6: Establish new relationships with Hollywood. Relationships with Hollywood have traditionally been based on what Cage calls “a misunderstanding” for some time, largely through licensing. “I think the time has come for a meaningful constructive, balanced new partnership,” he says. “We can invent, together, a new form of entertainment.” They master linear art, and we master interactivity. We should bring them together.

7: Changing our relationship with censorship. “I see myself as a writer,” he says. “I try to write scripts talking about emotions, dialogues. Sometimes I use violence, and sometimes I use sex. And that's fine. But now I have somebody looking over my shoulder saying 'no, you have to change this. That's not possible.'”

“Why would this be okay in movies? Why would this be okay in novels? And the answer is always the same - because you are interactive,” he adds. “On the other hand I was quite shocked by some things I saw at the last E3. Some games go over the top trying to be more violent, or have more sex than its competitors. And I think that's also a mistake.”

“Sometimes we go too far, and we behave like stupid teenagers ourselves,” Cage says. “And we should stop doing this, because it's a matter of being responsible not only to our industry, but also to our society.”

8: The role of the press. “I think press has a very important role to play,” Cage says. [In the] press, we have on the one side, very clever people. They think about the industry, they analyze it, they try to see where it could go in the future. On the other side of the spectrum, you've got people giving scores. Just scores.”

“I don't think this is press,” Cage says. “Where is the analysis? Where's the thinking about this? Can anyone give his opinion and be respected as a critic? Being a critic is a job. It requires skills, it requires thought.” He here referenced the famous Cahiers Du Cinema, a film journal which helped influence the French New Wave of cinema, and changed movies significantly.

9: The importance of gamers. “I often think that buying or not buying a game is almost like a political vote,” Cage postulates. “You decide if you want the industry to go in this direction or not go in this direction. Buy crap, and you'll get more crap. Buy exciting, risky games, and you will get more of them. When you buy games, you vote for where you want the industry to go.”

1: Sure.

2: Yeah I can see the benefit to try and reduce the industry's reliance on guns as the main tool for interacting with the game world.

3: I'm not a deep person and don't really care for feelings in my games a lot of the times. There are exceptions but I don't need my games preaching to me.

4: I guess. I'm not even totally sure what he means by this. Make more puzzle games?

5: GTFO. It's bad enough that my Pixar movies have been celeritied up. I don't need the my games to have a huge section taken out of the box art to say "STARRING BRAD PITT" or whoever the fuck. I want to play as some character, not some actor. It's bad enough that every game I play has the same voice (thanks Noland North) but do I really need to see Elen Page's face in every game as well? The celebrity worship that's going on in the movie industry doesn't need to start in games.

6: No. Why? I don't think anybody wants that. Not on a large scale anyway.

7: I agree whole heartedly.

8: No opinion.

9: Yup, it is a vote.

 

[Conan-san]

Incredible how people must say something bad aout heavy rain ( as if it's the only game he's made ) as some sort of argument that made his points invalid.

So which part of Heavy Rain did you like best; the part where you pressed X to Jason or the part where you pressed X to Jason?

 

[Pociask]

Seems like he makes a lot of good points. I don't think he's talking about ending video games as a play toy, but broadening them beyond just being play toys. It's kind of like the very early, pre-movies - stick your head in a box, see a series of moving pictures. Well, you can still see movies that are basically just visual spectacles - but also movies today explore the range of the human experience, and provoke all sorts of emotions.

Video games as a way to play should always stick around. But video games as an interactive medium that allow for "experiencing" virtual worlds, and having agency within those worlds, definitely have room to grow.

 

[Dabanton]

Nope, they're mostly making games for teens. COD/Gears/God of War/DmC/Ninja Raiden 16 are for teen audiences. We need something a little more mature. Stuff like Last of Us SEEMS a little bit more....'adult' and 'grounded'.

As good as TLOU looks.

Imo it's no different to the other games you mentioned. It offers the same sort of violence and scenarios just with a more 'mature' veneer.

 

[R_thanatos]

4: I guess. I'm not even totally sure what he means by this. Make more puzzle games?

i think he means more games that doesn't always require only to the replexes of the players.

Maybe something like a mix of muscle memory and stratégy ?

So which part of Heavy Rain did you like best; the part where you pressed X to Jason or the part where you pressed X to Jason?

It's ok to dislike heavy rain .. but reducing that game to X to jason only show your ignorance.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

All of these are fine.

Not sure he's moving video games forward at all in these areas though.

 

[AAK]

David Cage should make a fighting game, I'd like to see the result.

 

[jtb]

Having spoken briefly to Avellone, his interests are more on the other end of the spectrum. He has faith in the player being able to create their own story using their game as a platform rather than have a designer try to "create games with meaning" as Cage would suggest.

I agree. I personally think Avellone has basically written the three best videogame stories, full stop in Planescape: Torment, KoTOR 2, and Mask of the Betrayer. He understands the medium of videogames, he understands choice and consequence, and he's not dying to get his foot into the Hollywood door because he's not a shitty would-be failed screenwriter.

It's not (and NEVER WILL BE) bigger production values, more "Hollywood!" that take advantage of the interactive medium. A ridiculously buggy game with pretty shit graphics has the best NPC ever written in Kreia. Similarly, a game with great graphics, ridiculous production values, etc., and yet all that gloss can't hide the fact that Heavy Rain's story fundamentally does not work.

The tools at Cage's (and the industry's) disposal are perfectly fine to tell a compelling story; Cage shouldn't try to use the lack of tools at his disposal as an excuse for his shitty writing. Ellen Page and her Hollywood connection's aint got nothing to do with it—I wonder if Cage has heard of the pre-eminent storytelling form of the past several hundred years: the NOVEL.

 

[PapaJustify]

I think a lot of his points are valid.

People saying he should make a fighting game: He wasn't saying EVERY game should be like that. And Fighting games are actually a better example of using "violence" for great gameplay.

 

[Dark Octave]

i think he means more games that doesn't always require only to the replexes of the players.

Maybe something like a mix of muscle memory and stratégy ?

Thanks for the clarification. I did like Heavy Rain and wouldn't mind more games similar to it. It was an enjoyable plot and something different. I also enjoyed Tale Tales Walking Dead game. I think the market is slowly warming up to these types of games. I've always agreed that not every game needs to be a twitch fest.

 

[timetokill]

Incredible how people must say something bad aout heavy rain ( as if it's the only game he's made ) as some sort of argument that made his points invalid.

I was planning to read this discussion but there is always someone saying "heavy rain was bad, his opinion is invalid " every x posts.

People are a lot more believable when they are more than just words. Cage's games, Heavy Rain, Fahrenheit, etc. are garbage. He says solve things without violence, but his games feature tons of it. He says games can say important things, but his characters are where Gabe got his "retarded and autistic" thing from. His Hollywood fascination produces games where player interaction is largely meaningless. When he says "we've solved interactivity" it's incredible to believe he actually said that with a straight face.

I for example welcome his first point as we shouldn't limit video games to one audience , and we should be able to make all kind of game, just like you can do all kind of books or movies.

People are already doing this, though. Games are made for a really wide variety of audiences, from kids to adults, girls, boys, women, men, etc. It can be expanded but he's trying to act like this isn't happening or that he's leading the movement. He isn't.

i'd rather read a well written review/preview with no score than a quick review with a big ( big meaning focused ) score at the end.

Too bad most people wouldn't, and most websites need the clicks and rankings exposure so they have to put a score.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to have more good games criticism, but it actually is out there already; you just don't hear about it much because ... get this... there's no score attached.