As one of the authors of Halcyon Sun and an outspoken critic of film/game tie-ins in Newtype USA magazine, I was approached by Movie Insider and asked to comment on writing for games. The magazine folded before the interview could appear, and it is published here for the first time.
Movie Insider Interview
1. How important is plot and character in the creation of a modern videogame?
I hear that Doom originally had a whole set of cut-scenes detailing the lead character's fight against evil… At some point, someone realised they weren't necessary. The plot was simple enough without "character". You're under attack, here's a gun, fight your way out. There will always be a whole rack of games for which plot and characterisation are not required. You don't need motivation in chess. You get on with it. Doom works fine with its minimal plotting.
Some games need plot. Mainly it's very simple. There are none of the stages of the "Hero's Journey". Normally it's a case of escalating trouble, gradually increasing its level of difficulty along with your skill. That is a plot of some sorts, and ultimately most games can be reduced to that level.
Character, however, is a different matter. I think that character is a vital component in many modern games. If we are playing human characters, we like them to act like human beings. Dialogue, AI, heuristic enemies; these things are all things we can enjoy playing against. If playing a computer game is a solo experience, then giving our opponent some form of humanity will always make it more palatable. It enhances the playing experience, in something that psychologists call Audience and Co-action.
Get a boy to wind up a fishing reel, and he'll do it at his own pace. Get another boy to do it next to him, and they will both do it faster. They know they are being watched, they might not be actively competing, but they still do it anyway. If you feel your computer is "out to get you" when you're playing Command and Conquer, it will be a better gaming experience.
2. How do you find the balance between a linear narrative and giving the player freedom when developing a game?
It's important to distinguish between marketing hype and practical game design. Hype would have you believe that modern games aspire to infinite choice. More practical industry insiders know that most games are played on rails: the trick is in making the rails appear invisible. When we were all less sophisticated, this was done by having easier early missions, or "training areas" where we could learn the controls.
Grand Theft Auto is, to my mind, one of the best modern games because its illusion of freedom is almost total. You really can drive around town all day. Work as a taxi driver if you want. Be a runner for the Mob, if you want. Go crazy and kill pedestrians, if you want. But you're still on rails. Instead of limping through dull training missions, you can pick and choose what you do. Approach the city in any order you like, but ultimately, all you're doing is learning the streets and getting ready for the real game. If you want to unlock new sectors of the city, you are eventually going to have to play by the games-designers' rules. But by then, you will think it's your choice. Very clever.
Of course, films are "on rails" too. Screenwriters are encouraged to have an Option Lock, where the hero runs out of choices, or a Time Lock, where the hero has a set time limit to do his task. Either way, by the final reel, James Bond is going to have no choice but to attack the baddie's hideout.
But a game is much longer than a movie. The average game still occupies a player's time for maybe 50 hours. It demands an investment of time more similar to a TV series. The best games invest the same amount of humanity and characterisation in their cast as good TV.
3. How do you see games developing as far as story and character are concerned?
Let's face it. Plot and characterisation in gaming is just another form of user interface (GUI), hiding the fact that you are operating a machine. At the basic level, it's like having a chess set that talks back. Take away the "feedback" in the controls, and there is very little at a basic level that differentiates Gran Turismo from some old 1980s Formula One game on the Atari. You're going faster, slower, left, and right. The PS2 version gives you whistles and bells and cooler looking graphics, but ultimately, you're going faster, slower, left and right.
I see games in the future enhancing the feeling of being in the real world; finding ever more innovative ways to hide the fact that you are only influencing the action with primitive technology - they might have more buttons today, but a joystick is still a joystick.
Grand Theft Auto has great characters, and situations, and marvellous world-building that must have taken an immense amount of creative effort. It's a fun game to play, but also an interesting game to watch. It recreates a movie experience in an often neglected group in the gaming world - the watchers on the sidelines.
Put someone in front of me playing Tomb Raider or Final Fantasy, and I will get bored very fast. But with Hitman or Grand Theft Auto, I feel like *I'm* watching a movie. That's a mark of a good game, and encourages all-important replay, and more time spent with that particular game in the console. I think an untapped area of "interactivity" is between the Player and an Observer. Wouldn't you like it if your girlfriend snuggled next to you on the sofa and *asked* you to play another level of something while she watched? Wouldn't that solve a whole bunch of modern problems…?
4. Where do you think games can offer something that movies cannot, and vice versa?
Modern movie-making is already interactive. It tries to predict what choices you would make if you were playing it as a game. This is why it has screenings and focus groups - Jerry Bruckheimer wants to know what you might want to happen, and he wants to give it to you because he wants you to be a happy customer. The trouble is for most film fans is that modern film-making has to decide what audience it wants to appease the most. And it invariably decides that you are a fourteen-year-old boy in Nebraska who can't read.
I feel that gaming's influence on movies has been chiefly detrimental. From Super Mario Bros on up, through Street Fighter and Tomb Raider, movies based on games have been dire. Even at their best, such as Resident Evil, they still only seem to replicate the experience of watching someone else play the game.
Movies' influence on gaming, however, has often been positive. There will always be poor cash-ins, but movie money and star power has upped the ante on what constitutes good cut-scenes. When we get James Earl Jones and Michael Biehn appearing in Tiberian Sun, it shows to the world that, well, we're not talking about just "games" any more.
Games are starting to work more and more like blockbuster movies: years in development, a marketing build-up, and then all their main business done in just a couple of weeks. This means that, just like the movie business, the risks are great, but the rewards can be spectacular.