Anyone else a bit offended at claims Heavy Rain's writing is Oscar Worthy?

[richardhutnik]

LordTheNightKnight said:

Helios said:

Succinctly put, my friend. I would agree with just about everything you said. The act of playing a game is indeed a form of performance art where an emergent story (that is guided by the plot) is created based on player actions. "Did the player walk up the ridge? If so, what does that mean? Does it symbolize anything? Is an event-state changed as a result of this exercize of player agency? If so, what is changed? How will the player react to this? etc." Improvisional theater (and, to a degree, any kind of role-playing) similarly creates it's story through performances, often based around a central concept or theme.

I have not played Heavy Rain so I'm not a good judge if it qualifies as a game or not. If it is not a game, what is it then? Interactive fiction/drama? I think if the game has gameplay - that is, the game progresses as a result of the input of a player acting as an agent in a goal-oriented system - then I would consider it a game. The question is thus, does the 'ineractive events' of Heavy Rain count as gameplay?

The thing is that a game's story cannot change like AI to react to a player. It all has to be scripted and recorded beforehand, and the game merely triggers them. So regardless of the player's actions, the story will happen the way it was written and then programmed into the game. So you can judge the quality of a scene by watching it (best with knowing context, like many stories), since that scene will only change in a way that is also scripted and triggered.

I believe the videogame industry will end up bankrupt if it attempts to create movie-like experience and have to script EVERY SINGLE response to what players do, and do it on a production level seen as a movie.  This is a recipe for unexpected bugs or bad cost overruns.  Of course, an approach to be able to end up managing this would be to go the sandbox route, and end up creating a game world that is a system that interacts, and player responses cna be dynamic and the world manages it.  This way, you don't script things, just set up the behaviors for the actors in the world, and manage them.  You could then end up scripting main story arch in it, but you don't try to end up scripting it all.  Of course, you can go the MMO route also and have players as actors in this world.