USATODAY: Spielberg, Zemeckis say games, films could merge

[MaDSheeP]

Obviously they never got far enough to see Aeris's death

[pogonip]

Ohh god lets hope not games have long ways to go before they are as entertaining as a good movie ...

[nervouselk]

?? really?? ever watched A.I. yawn.

[Game-boi]

Ohh god lets hope not games have long ways to go before they are as entertaining as a good movie ...

I was about to say the opposite! Hollywood is out of original ideas. How many "big" movies this year are sequels, based on a book, or a rip off of another movie we've already seen?

Even now, I see too many movie-like qualities in gaming than I care for already.... Too many long FMV's, too many sequels, derivative gameplay, style over substance. If games are supposed to be on the fast track to be like the Movie Industry, then I prey for the coming of the game equivalent of the Sundance/Dogme 95 movements. Just imagine it... few, short (if any) FMVs, storytelling happening in-game (little amount of text/voice over/narration), nothing prerendered. Nothing getting in the way of the the game. Oh well, I'll just go back to playing Super Metriod.

oh... wait a minute...


-Chris

[lestdog]

It's been pretty obvious that it's been heading in that direction for a few years now hasn't it? No offence to the great spielberg, but you're telling me that he just know had this great epiphany? Maybe I'm not understanding something here.

[jipe]

Grim Fandango is one of the greatest examples of this.. what a superb game. I cried at the end - maybe they should make Spielberg sit down and play it. Hell, everyone should play it!

[pogonip]

?? really?? ever watched A.I. yawn.
Yeah I liked A.I you probebly did'nt get it...

[agreenster]

AI was fantastic, minus the fluffy ending.

[maddness]

Apperently, the functionality and ease of Digital work has become such a regular thing that our whole world's field of originality is imploding like a neutron star.

Seriously though, i'll buy what he's saying as far as video game cinematics and movie cinematics merging, but i still think it's more of a two edged sword...

[Goon]

"Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis say students can change the face of filmmaking if they only play more video games."

Shoot me. Now.

Video games will lower the par of movies if they influence them/join them. I'm not saying Hollywood hasn't been making tons of shite recently, but there is a huge difference between a good movie and a good game.

IMHO, games have yet to really develop as a storytelling medium. The whole interactivity factor has caused a lot of game makers to resort to telling the player what is going on with cinematics, npcs, etc. that blatantly explain the plot, leaving the player to simply travel from point A to point B killing everything in his path, or searching through levels for item xxxx.

Their cinematography isn't much better either. In-game camera control is either fixed fps style, 3rd person longshot, or some annoying switching between fixed camera's to mimic film cinematography. It has no emotional impact, the framing is typically bad, and I've got no idea how the hell they would improve on this. A couple of games are going to be using AI to control the camera, and that might have potential, but it can only be controlled by a few factors like action and needed visibility, with none of the finer considerations that film's can utilize. This is limited by the user's ability to control the camera, and the need to have a clear, non-confusing perspective to ease control.

The cinematics aren't much better. Either they are horribly done, or simply borrow from the established film medium.

Plus, unlike films, games can't edit out the boring parts. Well they can, but only by changing levels, or using some form of transportation/teleportation device, so you don't have to walk 500,000 miles across the fricking map at an incredibly slow pace. So games are forced into a situation where there has to be constant action, ie. the randomly spawing monsters as you walk. Hence the typical pacing of a game is a climactic buildup from monsters A to monsters B, to Boss X, repeat on next level.

Storylines typically follow the same premises belonging to their genre, almost all of which are mirrored by the typical art posted on cgtalk: guys/girls + guns, military something, fast cars, giant robots, etc.

Personally the emotional involvement in almost all the games I've played has been nill. As the main character, my only motivation to continue is an addictive desire to obtain the carrot the game makers have strung out before me. I don't have a burning desire to hunt down and kill everyone in bad guy organization Z and then take down their boss with 20 rockets and a hand held gatling gun, because they murdered my killed my father. I just want to see how many headshots I can score, or how many gold stars I can accumulate.

So remind me again, other than graphics quality, what about a good game even remotely equates with a good film? How would a gamers influence help improve films?

Of course this is just my opinion, and I don't really like games. i just play them.

[SkullboX]

The last thing Games should do is aspire to be more like film, as that's what they've been doing the last couple of years. They hire people from film, have them apply the standard narrative structure to a completely different and largely unrelated medium only to find out over and over again that is no way to make the story unfold in an evoking way.

Surely games should try and achieve more on an emotional level, but to say film is needed for that is stupid and undermines games as an artform (which is what most game developers seem to do, apart from the art assets that is). Games should find their own means of getting the player's attention and try to get him to live up in the story, and I think at this point games have borrowed more than enough from film.


As for the other way around, we've seen what games do to film. We've got two cinematic masterpieces in the form of Tomb Raiders, as well as an upcoming Doom movie, a name largely associated with good story and narration.

All joking aside, surely games have made an influence, but only on an extremely shallow level. We get a different kind of camerawork associated with games (this game be often seen in Spider Man, as mentioned in the article) Different type of action, but nothing that actually helps the movies tell their story. The problem with today's films probably is that they are too much like games - gimmicky action without something to think about.

On a side note, in the Korean movie 'Oldboy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/)' (runner up at Cannes this year) paid an homage to old games by shooting the longest action sequence in the movie as if it's a sidescroller game, which is awesome, as is the rest of the movie.


I hope to end up getting a chance to direct games myself, focusing on the narration. :)

[Goon]

Surely games should try and achieve more on an emotional level, but to say film is needed for that is stupid and undermines games as an artform (which is what most game developers seem to do, apart from the art assets that is). Games should find their own means of getting the player's attention and try to get him to live up in the story, and I think at this point games have borrowed more than enough from film.

I will definitely concede you that. A participatory medium is significantly different from a vicariuos medium. The only problem is I can't think of a single truly successful particapatory story telling system. Roleplaying (dnd style, not LARP, which I know nothing about) fails less than computer games, but even there its significantly centered around points/stats, and quests. Again, no emotional involvement.

[Boone]

Video games and films are two different kettles of fish.

When we go to the cinema, we expect at least story and character. We need a begining, a middle and an end. We usually have a dramatic build up to a climax.

Games on the other hand really only need character. Story? No. What is needed is gameplay. Being able to do stuff that we usually wouldn't be able to do etc...

Not to mention that the two have different measures of pace.

[visualride]

Maybe it's just me, but when I want to play a game, I want to be mentally challenged and sharpen my reflexes. When the story line part comes in I quickly look for the Skip button.

Movies are the opposite, in that they may bring out strong emotion, or make me think about an idea that I hadn't thought of, or ponder life in a new way.

I guess that there's a large population somewhere that wants to put all this together, but I'd rather keep my roller coaster riding and reading separate.

[SkullboX]

The only problem is I can't think of a single truly successful particapatory story telling system.That is my point exactly. Why focus on story for emotional development, let alone base it on something as lineair as film? Emotions are not provoked by a story. You can make the holocaust sound like an uncomfortable statistic, or you can make schindler's list - which are in that specific case polar opposites.

The most important thing of being able to provoke emotions isn't the story, but being able to relate to the people in it, and that's exactly where games make mistakes.

I won't make this too long, but the most appearant example (in my opinion) of why games shouldn't copy movies related to the above aspect is the main character. Pretty much all movies provoke most emotions through the main character. He or she is the one the viewer should be able to relate to. Whatever world, time or situation - there must be recognisable aspects that make us think the character is alive, and there must be some kind of development to make us like (or dislike) that person.

Most games to exactly the same, but who relates to themself in the third person?

[Anthony Thorne]

Spielberg's inner child strikes again. I'd be happier if modern filmmakers worked long and hard to make their movies less like video games, not more, and I'm a video game fan.

[bentllama]

I was about to say the opposite! Hollywood is out of original ideas. How many "big" movies this year are sequels, based on a book, or a rip off of another movie we've already seen?

Exactly...or how many movies are based on games? Or comics?

Pop culture at its finest! ;)

[Kion]

damn alot of negative veiws on games. Games and movies have both borrowed from each other.

What story based games can do is take you on emotional interactive journey where you control the fate of the character(ie you). For example when you play half life you are Gordan Freeman, what you do effects the outcome of the game, thats not possible in film. I think that half the action scenes that we see in film today would not be the way they are with out the influnce of games. Example Spider 2 and Lord of the ring battle sequenses were filmed in way that gave you first person view of the battles. They were filmed at angles so you that you can see what the chracter see's, I think thats a heavy video game influence. The intro to saving private ryan played like a video game.

Games are benefiting from films story and cinematography. Film is getting games abitility to directlly involve the viewer in the film through first person experience. Anyway just my 2 cents

[Xorlium]

Anyone here played a norweian game called "The longest Journey"?

Now THAT'S some serious storytelling in a game...
Too bad the 'adventure' genre is dying (if not long dead).

I think there are stories that can be told a lot better in a game (for example, if anyone has played 'Sanitarium', you know a movie about this would have been boring), and some stories are just better for films. Games can surely learn from films, but films learning from games... I don't know.

[CENOBITE]

I know many hardcore gamers who would argue this, but I think videogames have yet to have their 'Citizen Kane'. A work that states to all that this media can truly be used as a legitimate art form.

As long as there are still commercials out there in the mainstream showing videogames in the same light as a fruit roll-up or kids cereal, or award ceremonies catering to those with attention deficit disorder, it will continue to be regarded as such. Bungie putting the HALO 2 commercials in theatres and keeping the tone fairly mature is a good start... but games have a long way to go yet. We shall see.

[gmask]

I was about to say the opposite! Hollywood is out of original ideas. How many "big" movies this year are sequels, based on a book, or a rip off of another movie we've already seen?

Are you saying the game industry does not churn out cannon fodder.. how many car racing and point and shoot games does the world need.

As soon as someone actually comes up with an original idea there will be droves of ripoffs of it.

At some point the novelty of cinematic game slash films will wear off as soon as the gameplay is the ams eas the last one you played and the stoyline is the same as blah blah.

Entertainment is based on novelty and that is what drives innovation.. more or less the games being played today are not so different from those played ten years ago except that the graphics have gotten much better.

In the future they will be saying that "kids need to play more brain implant games because they will change the face of holographic cinegames".

Technology does not make stories any better thant he person that is writing or telling the story.

[eks]

tetris does not have storytelling...

neither had pong, pacman, donkey kong, mario, etc etc...



eks

PS: i wouldn´t call mario´s story a story, it´s more like just a setting/universe where interactivity takes place.

[gmask]

tetris does not have storytelling...

neither had pong, pacman, donkey kong, mario, etc etc...



eks

PS: i wouldn´t call mario´s story a story, it´s more like just a setting/universe where interactivity takes place.
Exactly video games are a novelty and that is why they are technology driven. Visual Effects films are the same way some people lament the lack of storytelling in Hollywood when clearly the viewing audience prefers novel filmmaking.

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