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Top PlayStation executive predicts focus will ‘shift from graphics to immersive narratives’

ByWatterson

Member
every year and every gen they say they will improve game design and we've been playing the same shit but prettier since 2007.

This seems like a cogent point until you consider the context of other art.

The feature film has been functionally identical for about 100 years. The novel is unchanged for 300 years. The radio song is about 100 years, the painting almost a millennium, and no new musical instruments ever get invented.

Gaming has matured as an art form. We still get innovation, but it happens more slowly and less frequently.

But the quality is often eons beyond anything from yesteryear. Yesterday alone I played some FFVII Rebirth, Age of Empires 2 DE, and Helldivers 2 - all high quality but very different experiences. I'm loving this era and I genuinely don't understand how others don't.
 
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64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
This seems like a cogent point until you consider the context of other art.

The feature film has been functionally identical for about 100 years. The novel is unchanged for 300 years. The radio song is about 100 years, the painting almost a millennium, and no new musical instruments ever get invented.

Gaming has matured as an art form. We still get innovation, but it happens more slowly and less frequently.

But the quality is often eons beyond anything from yesteryear. Yesterday alone I played some FFVII Rebirth, Age of Empires 2 DE, and Helldivers 2 - all high quality but very different experiences. I'm loving this era and I genuinely don't understand how others don't.
video games are pretty young in comparison to all of those other mediums though and the medium started stagnating in design 15 years ago. it's only been around for 60 years and only been relevant for 40
 

bitbydeath

Member
Acting in this case means more or less talking, or acting but again in a narrative context only, otherwise he would not put emphasis on emotions and characters. I guess you can consider that gameplay in a way, if you stretch it. But it's obviously not what most people mean when they say they want AI in games to improve, it's obviously a whole different context.
Character emotion is the biggest part of AI. Without it they’re just drones following the same script.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Forgot this paragraph at the bottom:

“This is important for the younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences, who are the first generations that grew up digitally and are looking for personalization across everything, as well as looking for experiences to have more meaning.”

Basically, the Sony exec is pushing tech for storylines and personal customization (ie. Fortnite and GAAS kind of stuff which is heavy into custom loadouts and dressing up).

Nothing said about physics, AI or actual gameplay.
 

ProtoByte

Member
Basically, the Sony exec is pushing tech for storylines and personal customization (ie. Fortnite and GAAS kind of stuff which is heavy into custom loadouts and dressing up).

Nothing said about physics, AI or actual gameplay.

For instance, NPCs (Non Player Characters) in games could interact with players based on their actions, making it feel more personal.
Literally the preceding sentence.

Wish he said "Immersive simulations".
Immersive sim is a curse word in the industry at this point.

every year and every gen they say they will improve game design and we've been playing the same shit but prettier since 2007.
It's tough to "innovate" game design past where it got to by the 7th gen.

It's just going to take some time and some hard lessons (both of which we've gone through to a large extent by now), for studios to figure out that their focus should be refining and incorporating mechanics that make sense for their games to the height of their potential.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
The ideology of gaming today is big and profit off of micro transactions, battle passes, and giving CEOs a large amount of power to essentially rule over gamers and their wallets nobody saw this coming.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
tumblr_noan24TLev1u33nero1_500.gif
 

IAmRei

Member
More Narrative? This is video game, not movies :/

Lotta people got bored with joystick attached in their hand. And if its genZ, they will watch their phone instead, while cutscenes playing.
 

StereoVsn

Member
This seems like a cogent point until you consider the context of other art.

The feature film has been functionally identical for about 100 years. The novel is unchanged for 300 years. The radio song is about 100 years, the painting almost a millennium, and no new musical instruments ever get invented.

Gaming has matured as an art form. We still get innovation, but it happens more slowly and less frequently.

But the quality is often eons beyond anything from yesteryear. Yesterday alone I played some FFVII Rebirth, Age of Empires 2 DE, and Helldivers 2 - all high quality but very different experiences. I'm loving this era and I genuinely don't understand how others don't.
Much like with movies a lot of the storytelling and characterization is made for the “modern audience” with a “modern Message”. That just turns them to shit.

Gameplay can be good and so are graphics, but the actual storytelling is mostly terrible. This doesn’t necessary apply to non Western games.
 

ZehDon

Member
Sounds like Sony's budgets have reached breaking point. I look forward to more tweets about emotional mo-cap sessions instead of new and exciting gameplay.
 

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Not sure how Sony can focus more on story and narrative than they already do, but ok. On the other hand, not putting a lot of stock into what this guy is saying.
 

IAmRei

Member
The AI quote is hilarious. These people are so delusional. No one wants to interact with an AI. We play games to experience what a human artist intended. If that artist programmed an npc response that he felt enhanced the experience then great. if the artist delegated it to a computer then fuck you.
I kind of recall Bob Marley's song, No Human No play : )) *jk

Not only artist division, I can understand as well if programmer themselves, also can be called as artist. Even they play by logic, they still need to understand the feel of what they created as well.

I'm glad to see if there is still some people with common sense 👍
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Gameplay is capable of serving a narrative- it doesn't necessarily have to be that gameplay and narrative are exclusively disconnected.

They do because a game lives and dies off gameplay. The gameplay has to be the focus.

Not to mention that there's an entire genre of games that use the interactivity of the medium to let the player create their own narrative and we just had a critically acclaimed entry in that genre LAST YEAR.

Sure. The player can create their own narrative. Very similar to a child playing with toys or a game of D&D. Video games are no different. Yes, there is a thread of a story, but it's up to the player to fill in the gaps.

the issue is that these major AAA games will have combat focused or puzzle focused gameplay

That's not a issue at all. That's what we should expect from a game. Actual gameplay that's fun and challenging. Any story is just a fun added bonus.

then proceed to interrupt that with totally unfitting walk and talk sections or unskippable cutscenes. Not to mention that the stories themselves will typically not be the best. But that's not a result of videogames being an awful medium for storytelling, because they're not.

That is the reason. A video game will and should prioritise it's story above gameplay, which is what makes it a terrible medium for storytelling.
 

ProtoByte

Member
The AI quote is hilarious. These people are so delusional. No one wants to interact with an AI. We play games to experience what a human artist intended. If that artist programmed an npc response that he felt enhanced the experience then great. if the artist delegated it to a computer then fuck you.
Slimy, you know better than this comment.

Every time you boot up a game, you are interacting with AI. Every AI is scripted to give a range of responses to actions. This is just giving more opportunity for a higher volume with (hopefully) more depth. Nothing ridiculously transformative, but I don't see how anyone wouldn't find open world NPCs using generative AI a bad thing.

Anything to save costs.
Something has to give.

It doesn't work that you want better graphics (and if you're agreeing with Slimy, you must), higher production values, without an increase in price and without reigning in developer spending. Even reee types are starting to get the hint.
 
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Gameplay is capable of serving a narrative- it doesn't necessarily have to be that gameplay and narrative are exclusively disconnected. Not to mention that there's an entire genre of games that use the interactivity of the medium to let the player create their own narrative and we just had a critically acclaimed entry in that genre LAST YEAR.

the issue is that these major AAA games will have combat focused or puzzle focused gameplay then proceed to interrupt that with totally unfitting walk and talk sections or unskippable cutscenes. Not to mention that the stories themselves will typically not be the best. But that's not a result of videogames being an awful medium for storytelling, because they're not.
It depends on what kind of game we are talking about, but any type of action game (FPS, TPS, beat them ups, etc) this will be a problem, because the player can fail, and be forced to replay certain sections over and over again, which completely interrupts the narrative momentum of storytelling. The only way to avoid that is to make the action really easy and hard to fail, which is what QTE in action games are all about, so as to keep the narrative momentum give the illusion of action. But then people complain about the lame gameplay of too much QTE in games.
I think in action games the narrative and the gameplay are often at odds with each other and cannot be reconciled easily, if at all. Great action games tends to have limited narrative, and great narrative games tend to have unremarkable action gameplay.
 
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Yoboman

Gold Member
Well he's head of PlayStation Productions (movies) so of course his focus are around narrative improvements
 
Not only I can read but also I do understand this is fucking bullshit

AI will enable the creation of “more personalised experiences and meaningful stories”.


So yeah, if you want stories created by algorithms, go for it. I'm not paying a cent for something not created by human talent.

feels game of thrones GIF


Already now a lot of ai is used in video games one way or another, better stop playing altogether now. And in a few years from now ai will be ingrained into our society so much that almost everything you see or do is influenced by ai. Better close your eyes and ears from then on 😉
 
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Dr.Morris79

Gold Member
every year and every gen they say they will improve game design and we've been playing the same shit but prettier since 2007.
Very true.

Off the top of my head the only game I personally found that pushed a few boundaries in years was the Outer Wilds.
 

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
It doesn't work that you want better graphics (and if you're agreeing with Slimy, you must), higher production values, without an increase in price and without reigning in developer spending. Even reee types are starting to get the hint.
What if we don't want any of that shit and we'd prefer improvements in gameplay and narrative? What then? We just got Hellblade 2 which GAF is going crazy over because of visuals, we can hardly improve over that.
 
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ProtoByte

Member
What if we don't want any of that shit and we'd prefer improvements in gameplay and narrative? What then? We just got Hellblade 2 which GAF is going crazy over because of visuals, we can hardly improve over that.
1. Easier said than done. What what you do to improve gameplay?

2. That's literally what Qizilbash (the exec in question) and Druckmann are talking about with these statements. You're confusing the direction of my statement.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
I'm playing Mass Effect LE right now and holy **** I have no idea how some of y'all put up with this type of narrative design for so long. It's awful.

Go here. Shoot 12 bad guys. Talk to NPC who tells you to go there. Go there. Shoot 14 bad guys. Talk to NPC...rinse and repeat.

Single player has needed this grapefruit sized tumor removed for a while now.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
Basically, the Sony exec is pushing tech for storylines and personal customization (ie. Fortnite and GAAS kind of stuff which is heavy into custom loadouts and dressing up).
Not exactly no. Its very heavily implied the idea is personalization of the whole experience, right down to narrative itself adapting to players. Along with many other things. I mean today, most of ppl online already accept AI tuned image(not handcrafted) as the preferred way to play. Its not a big step from there to having personalization even down to how individual pixels are rendered, and the demand for it is visible in every graphics thread.
 

BossLackey

Gold Member
“Conan! What is best in gaming?”

“Deep and cohesive game mechanics, good performance, and a sick art style.”
 

Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
What if we don't want any of that shit and we'd prefer improvements in gameplay and narrative? What then? We just got Hellblade 2 which GAF is going crazy over because of visuals, we can hardly improve over that.
Helldivers 2 looks pretty damn good, has awesome gameplay, and sold for $40 so I assume the budget is smaller
 

Švejk

Member
Same shit like the graphics cards.. it'll all be about pushing AI now.. Graphics have about peaked anyhow, when it comes to realism.
 
I'm playing Mass Effect LE right now and holy **** I have no idea how some of y'all put up with this type of narrative design for so long. It's awful.

Go here. Shoot 12 bad guys. Talk to NPC who tells you to go there. Go there. Shoot 14 bad guys. Talk to NPC...rinse and repeat.

Single player has needed this grapefruit sized tumor removed for a while now.
This is an outdated formula that died in the 8th generation and is in no way comparable to the narrative story driven experiences Sony makes. The Battle Royale genre pretty much stole the spotlight of what made these types of games popular by Bethesda.

Why go out exploring and farming for materials on huge open maps that rival Ubisoft and GTA games, when you can have a similar experience playing against other people online? You're still farming for materials and you can do it with your friends. Not to mention the "live service" aspect keeps your friends on the same page, so you're both sharing goals and accomplishments.

Fetch quest linear RPG games died right when modders created Battle Royale mods on PC. Even Playstation studio knew they had to move away from linear storytelling, and give players more freedom of choice. I'd say they strike a good balance between games being open world, and still having contextual story moments that are triggered when you reach a certain area on the map.
 
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