Chrono Compendium
Zenan Plains - Site Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: FaustWolf on December 02, 2009, 08:55:56 pm
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I keep wanting to start this thread with a cute anecdote about what "game theory" typically means in academia but I always end up with no time to make a nice introduction for it. So screw the intro, and here goes -- videogames have played a huge part in all our lives. In the same way that we are all armchair economists and armchair politicians, so we all have a little game designer inside. If I remember correctly we even have some DigiPen alumni here, and games will actually be what puts bread on the table for them.
There's so much ground we could cover in this discussion: ideas about different types of gameplay mechanics that haven't been tried yet; the balance between scenario design and player interactivity with the game world, and how videogame scenario design therefore differs from movie and book scenario design; where true Survival Horror went awry; 2D vs. 3D vs. immersive virtual reality; copyright law and the role of interactive fanworks; etc, etc.
But first I thought we might start off with something a bit more mundane, and that's the latest industry news ("latest" meaning I discovered it five minutes ago and I'm probably actually the last one to realize it), and that is that the videogame console as we know it is set to expire. (http://www.mcvuk.com/news/36665/Square-Enix-Consoles-set-for-extinction) That's right, Yoichi Wada himself gave the entire traditional videogame distribution model a Cease and Desist order.
How will the world change as a result of this likely evolution in the industry? Is it even all that likely?
As a matter of consumer convenience I welcome the idea. I think the last time I actually fired up a console was in 2006, since emulation on a computer is so much more convenient IMO. However, when I think of all the people who might be employed in physically manufacturing videogames currently, I'm given great pause: these people will likely be completely out of work in three to five years, or however long it's going to take for Wada's prophecy to pass. I wonder if rank-and-file game manufacturing and retail workers even know? And are their governments, academic institutions, and industrialists even doing anything to prepare them for the consequences?
So sad, that invisible hand. I might see if the game industry hires a lot of economists, that would be a fascinating career.
BTW, MCV (http://www.mcvuk.com/) appears to be the industry's main magazine...in the UK. Anyone know if such an animal exists focusing on other game markets, or is MCV the be-all and end-all?
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I don't know if you could call me a professional video game designer, since I only made a living from it for one year and the boss was a friend, but I've been an amateur video game designer for over a decade and I have plenty to say about the subject. For years I'd spent energy on things like advancing the non-combat-driven RPG, reconciling nonlinearity with plot, taking the numbers games and the coin-tosses out of character advancement (also in RPGs), and defining such common but surprisingly ambiguous terms as "RPG," "character development," "roleplaying," and so forth. During my professional stint I spent energy developing my own virtual world design theories, studying the philosophy in its present, nascent state, contemplating the practical questions of things like virtual ownership and player influence on other players' experiences, etc., etc., etc. In all of it, I'd say my current top focus is how to avoid the supposed inevitability of "player created content," which under its current definition is totally unacceptable as a singular vehicle for the furtherance of video games.
By the way, Mr. Wada is wrong by virtue of being only partially correct. The infrastructure doesn't exist to replace home hardware, and won't for some time. Maybe that's not such an issue in Japan, but in the United States it will apparently be decades before we get high-level penetration of the lines necessary to supply even today's games in real-time streams. Furthermore, what he's essentially proposing is a return to the mainframe-terminal paradigm of computing, which isn't going to happen. We'll never again see complete dominance by the mainframe paradigm or by the personal computer paradigm, because with the Internet it makes sense for some calculations to be undertaken locally, and some at the server. Assuming that games have far from topped out in their hardware requirements (which isn't so wild an assumption when you consider that much of the most time-consuming work in video games these days would be easily automated with sufficiently powerful core applications), we will continue to need local hardware power.
I think he's right, though, that the "video game console" will lose its purity and fade into the more general world of PC computing. If that happens, I would more readily expect to see standalone consoles progress into peripherals, providing extra graphics and computing power to PCs. The game medium itself, I expect will go fully digital, with downloads to almost fully replace discs within twelve years. (I say "twelve" because that makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about more than "ten" would.)
To wrap it all up on a completely different note, this game designer thinks that the industry is missing a very obvious truth, which is that not all games need to be super-juiced in the technology department. We could make a game like Chrono Trigger today with just six people, six months, and some off-the-shelf software--and we'd be free of the technology caps that made designing Chrono Trigger in the first place such a feat of expertise. This can be generalized: There was a lot of game in games of the earlier era. There are still markets for that stuff. I think the problem here is a specific instance of a much more general flaw in our society, which is that we are driven to a life on the bleeding edge when a life just modestly behind that edge could be far more satisfying.
Oh, one more comment on the Wada bit: They only recently stopped making games for the PS2, a piece of hardware which is ancient in technology terms. Rest assured that even if there is never another generation of consoles (a no-chance scenario, but I'm being generous today...) there is still plenty of life left in the current generation. Why, the PS3 only found its stride this year.
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I don't know if you could call me a video game designer, since table-top RPGs is where my heart lies, but I've generally found that at the theoretical level, a surprising number of concepts translate between "automatic" and "manual" games. Also, I've worked on a number of video game projects (even have my name in one, as the projects "grand poobah"), from RPG Maker creations to mods, from hacks and original engines. So I guess I'm the epitome of the armchair game designer; I've done enough to almost seem like I know something, unless I'm talking with people who actually do know what it's all about.
Regarding Yoichi Wada, streaming content cannot and will not take a significant portion of the market away from "physical-delivery," as it were, until we create a society in which it is possible to have excellent internet connection no matter where you go. It is quite possible to find locations even in our metropoleis where one doesn't have access to the internet, much less a good enough connection for game-play. With computers becoming more portable, the utter saturation of connectivity is necessary for the off-line content to be utterly done away with.
The music industry seems like it might be a good example, however, of how video games might progress. The physical element of the "purchase" might not be necessary (that is, people can download music instead of buying CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks, or records), but it is still around because people like owning physical things. Additionally, we notice that songs are downloaded, not streamed. This is an issue of ownership again. People don't like to rent, usually (unless it is so expensive to buy that they can only rent). Streaming games, then, has to work against two issues: the consumer’s desire for a physical product and the consumer’s desire for ownership. These are things that can be overcome, to an extent, but we have a long way to go before streaming gains a majority of the market.
To note, game-playing hardware seems to be here to stay, at least for quite a while more. The interface that the PS3, Wii, and other consoles provide is not duplicated well on computers. Sure, I can play Super Metroid on my computer, if I downloaded the right programs, but the use of a controller separate from the keyboard and mouse make it a more satisfying experience. There are, of course, console-like controllers for the computer, but again, these don't seem to have a sufficient saturation to replace the console experience.
Then there is multiplayer. Maybe I just don't hang around in the right circles, but it seems like pure computer games cannot match the experience of a bunch of friends gathering around the TV and a console and playing a game like Smash Brothers, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, or even single player games like Zelda. The console is moving towards a communal activity; computers can't yet compete with that.
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I know that you can call me a professional video game designer, because I've shipped several commercial video games in a design role, and continue to work on such projects. Announcements of the death of consoles (or the death of the PC as a gaming platform) are, in general, vastly overstated. What gets simplified out of the equation is that both types of platform (as well as portable, don't forget portable!) have specific strengths and weaknesses. I grant that some of these may be overcome over time, but not all of them. Each type of platform has certain distinct advantages that the others will not be able to replicate, at least not in any foreseeable time frame. What this is also means is, no, your preferred gaming platform is not the best gaming platform; it's simply the one whose distinct properties and library best match your gaming habits and tastes.
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Thanks guys, I really enjoyed reading your experiences! I'm sure I'm not the only one here who is impressed by your exploits in this arena.
J, it would be great to get a conversation going sometime on the role of violence in RPGs and videogames in general. I think conflict has its proper place (indeed, I'd rather see it take place as a vestigial virtual legacy than in the real world), but I'm nevertheless alarmed by some games that have entered the market recently. In a world where some form of violence seems to be the most accepted gameplay mechanic, it'd be great to see other possibilities arise, and for those possibilities to be marketable and enjoyable alternatives. I have to admit that I enjoy games featuring some sort of conflict far more than puzzle games, so the marketability aspect seems like a huge challenge, though it's possible my tastes aren't representative of mainstream consumers.
On the subject of recapturing ye good olde days of game design, I've taken extreme interest in the case of Studio Archcraft. (http://www.studioarchcraft.com/) Back in, I think it was June, they released Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awK39HLavts) in which they hoped to invoke a sense of nostalgia from gamers of our generation. The media completely panned it for the most part as copying too much from Chrono Trigger stylistically while failing to preserve some of the gameplay elements that made Trigger such a great experience. It looks like Archcraft isn't giving up, but it's too bad to see this reaction because it might make other developers think twice about the general idea of going back to the basics.
Black Sigil does have some problems gameplay-wise (namely a ridiculously insane random encounter rate), and the story hadn't been to my personal liking as far as I'd played it, but I think it's still a solid effort and that Archcraft fell victim to factors separate from game design. Namely:
*Inadequate beta testing. A few legitimate bugs did make it into the final game, most notably a missing tech for one of the characters and a non-functioning bestiary feature from what I understand. Also, the script still feels just a little rough in some places, but maybe I'm just being picky. It's possible Archcraft had to rush to meet deadlines, but I keep thinking back to what a tight ship Agent 12 ran during post-production of CE despite the CE team's own self-imposed schedule. It was really impressive, and leads me to believe there were probably avoidable flaws in whatever system Archcraft had adopted for this phase of production.
*Piracy and backfiring DRM. The game seizes up at inopportune moments when it's downloaded and played on an emulator according to numerous reports; but on the other hand the same media that panned the game on numerous other fronts reported no such problems. What I think happened is that the freezing up is a form of digital rights management, similar to how CT:DS wouldn't progress beyond the Millennial Fair gate. But the nature of the DRM made the game appear shoddily built and rumors of hangups might have steered consumers away from purchasing legitimate copies of the game. I.e., people confused the DRM for what happens in legit copies of the game. Only my theory, since I haven't seen any official statements on the game crashing problems many were reporting.
*Late release due to publisher cash flow problems. Graffiti Entertainment, the publisher in charge of bringing Archcraft's product to market, literally did not possess the necessary cash to get the game manufactured and distributor orders filled when it was finished in December 2008. It probably didn't make much of a difference since a January/February 2009 release and a June 2009 release would have happened under similar economic conditions, but the delays did lead consumers to believe extra beta testing could have been completed in the meantime. In reality that wouldn't have been possible from what I understand, since the game had been conveyed to the publisher and the producer's job was complete at that point -- but it made the bugs present in the final version that much more unforgivable for many consumers, or at least that's my impression.
*Weak rewards from viral advertising. Actually, I wouldn't have known about the game at all had it not been for Youtube, but viral advertising for Black Sigil began years before the game's release. It was probably forgotten by many of its potential consumers judging from what I've seen of the view counts for the online release ads. Both Archcraft and Graffiti being relatively new firms, neither had the kind of penetration into the consumer base that might be necessary for successful viral advertising. I think the twenty-million-hit Youtube videos you hear about in mainstream news, where people flock to see a cute baby or pet, promote a false impression of the average success of a viral campaign. But that's only my theory for now; I'm really interested in further studying the economic results of viral adverts.
I think Archcraft could have done more to communicate with fan communities built around SNES-era games, but the producer/publisher relationship may have hamstrung them in that regard in some way.
The point of all the above being, these could be considered barriers to market entry for brand new developers. Piracy seems the most damning problem to me, but I still need to research whether digital piracy is better or worse for the producer in the long run. Piracy is the ultimate try-before-you-buy, but it depends on how often people do that all important "buy" part, and whether product quality actually influences the purchase rate. But it's been a fascinating study for those who've been keeping an eye on Archcraft, and their blog (http://www.studioarchcraft.com/blog) has been pretty insightful too.
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On the heels of the news out of the Supreme Court today that it'll hear its first video game case--involving a law in California banning the sale or rental to children of certain violent games--and not entirely irrelevant to Faust's previous post, I had an interesting thought, which is this:
If we want to claim that virtual worlds are credible social communities, and will continue to become more so...
If we want to claim that virtual worlds may not be physically real but carry with them the full weight of human interaction...
If we want to claim that virtual worlds are extensions of the real world...
Then, I can see a certain logic in the premise of outlawing some of the same misbehavior inside virtual worlds if it is already criminal in the physical world. (This is not what the Supreme Court case is about, as that deals with banning access to the virtual world rather than the content inside the virtual world. Nevertheless, I will continue.) If we want legitimacy for virtual worlds, we're going to have to address the fact that legitimacy entails constraints on what virtual world content is allowable, just as such constraints exist in the physical world. That is an inescapable consequence of "legitimacy." And if you followed the recent brouhaha where Roger Ebert said that video games are not art, and the video game community went up in arms, you can appreciate that gamers want games to be taken more seriously than our society presently takes them. Well, let's explore that.
In a recent popular video game, the player is empowered to use their playable character to pick up an image of what is effectively a human being, who is blocking their way forward, and throw her into into the gears of active machinery, causing her to scream in the throes of death and subsequently stain the gears red with her blood and entrails. Such a reprehensible, inexcusable action would be murder in the real world. (Not to mention obscenely sexist.)
I am reminded that a virtual world is not the real world. No sentient entity was actually murdered. The victim was just an image. Indeed, this is the justification for permitting such content to exist in a virtual world. But if the experience I have described is more than just a fantasy...if it is in fact some kind of legitimate albeit nonphysical society, then what the player has done in choosing that course of action is to condone the idea of murder strongly enough to have committed it "in principle." And let us remember that the images of the action are very vivid, and inspire a visceral reaction.
Murder provides us with just the thing I am trying to describe. Murder is not "killing." It exists on top of killing as, more or less, "egregiously wrong" killing. What would entail "egregiously wrong" is a matter of opinion, not a physical fact. There is no physical component to murder; the application of the label is a value judgment. As such, murder is distinctive from the killing which it describes. In that way murder is separable from killing. If a player kills the image of a person in the way I mentioned above, then no killing has occurred in the physical world and thus the physical world charge of murder does not apply. But, in the virtual world, murder has occurred even if there has not been a sentient entity who died, because murder is a judgment of an act and is distinct from the act itself. At the very least, the playable character is guilty of murder.
However, the playable character is under the direct control of the player. Does that mean the player has committed murder?
The dilemma is this: We've all killed video game characters before. What's changing now is that these killings are becoming more realistic in images and sounds, and, more importantly, we're trying to create societies in virtual space. If a virtual world is more than an entertainment diversion, if we are extending human Civilization into virtual spaces, then it isn't a given any longer that all real-world value judgments are inoperative in virtual worlds. I don't feel that I've ever murdered a video game character, but I felt close to it when I played Grand Theft Auto, and I didn't like that feeling. Today the "game" aspect of virtual worlds competes more strongly than ever that video games in particular and virtual worlds in general are not an ethical vacuum like the human imagination is, but an actual social sphere. It takes two to murder: the victim and the perpetrator. If the victim is a figment of computer code but the society in which the murder occurs is a legitimate one, then something more than a fictional killing has occurred here: We have created a society where the principle of murder is acceptable.
I don't think we can have it both ways. I don't think we can claim "Video games and virtual worlds need to be treated with more respect as credible extensions of human society," yet then turn around and claim "Any behavior in a virtual world is acceptable because the action is all electronic and there are no direct real-world ramifications," without committing a hypocrisy. Are these virtual spaces mere occasions for art and entertainment, and devoid of inherent social value, or are they genuine societies where the laws of nature happen to be variable?
My personal opinion is that the specific act of murder I described probably should not be allowable player character behavior. This is an interesting position for me because I'm one of the most fervent anti-censorship advocates you'll find. But because as a gamer and a game designer I have such respect for virtual worlds, and their power and gravity, I find myself unable to justify that specific action. I certainly wouldn't move to ban all acts of murder in virtual worlds, but I can formulate no defense for that particular act. It is not art; it is not creativity; it is not free speech; it is not mere entertainment. It is exactly what it purports to be: the deliberate act of murder for its own sake, and the inevitable shock which follows...or at least which I hope should follow.
I'm fine with killing itself in virtual worlds (including video games). In my work as a writer I've written characters who killed all kinds of other characters. In my experiences as a gamer, I've played characters who killed other characters. I can vouch for not having suffered any ethical degradation because of it. If anything, I have come to better understand life and existence by my experiences with video games. Now, however, our video games are converging with society itself. They play more vividly to our senses. They ask to be treated as more than idle diversions. They want to be as real an experience as electronics can permit. I think that murder in this context is pushing the limit of what is defensible behavior. Something is going to have to give: Either the graphic depiction of deplorable behavior is going to face censorship, or we as a society are going to have to reevaluate what actually constitutes deplorable behavior. As it is now, we're living in a contradiction.
What do you think?
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What game is it that allows the player to toss someone into a set of gears? I was alarmed enough by the murder of civilians in the GTA series, and now this.
I find that my opinion on videogame violence is informed not necessarily by realism, but by the balance of power a game portrays between player character(s) and any targets upon which the player is encouraged to exert violence. Not "power" in the sense that "ZOMG, my Level 60 Squall just whaled on that poor Level 2 Blob," but "power" in the sense that the player realizes his or her character is being subjected to some kind of existential threat during a violent encounter, period. And moreover, that his or her character hasn't attained a sudden coat of invincibility by virtue of picking up a weapon.
In the videogames I've played over the years, I've invariably come away with the impression that aggression can only be a destabilizing factor with regard to one's own safety, rather than an empowering thing. The vast majority of my virtual alter egoes have spent their time dodging bullets, stomping on homicidal turtles, and quite often perishing. Games taught me that violence should be used with utmost care because supreme risk is attached to it; unless it's used in self defense or in defense of another, it probably ought not be used at all. Hypothetically I would welcome a gory ultra-realistic game depicting World War I trench battles inasmuch as it would be a statement on the fundamental futility of violence. If the lesson can be learned adequately in virtual reality, I would rather have it learned there than on real streets and battlefields.
With the above in mind, I can't help but find the "new violence" depicted in GTA and certain other games -- often conducted with impunity against unarmed civilians, and sometimes rewarded within the context of the games from what I understand -- anything other than disturbing, for lack of the "live by the sword, die by the sword" subtext that contributed to my own pacifist development. If J would be so kind as to loan me the "killing vs. murder" terminology, I would posit that "virtual killing" occurs when the subtext is present, and "virtual murder" occurs when the subtext is absent. I mean only to borrow the neutral connotation J gives to "killing" and the morally weighty connotation he assigns to the word "murder."
Maybe it's just the alien-ness of the "new game violence" that gets my goat, and it's true that I haven't found any convincing evidence to support the claim that this sort of thing somehow warps people. I suspect it's possible that "the new violence" caters to pre-existing attitudes and serves as reservoirs for those attitudes, but reservoirs are not necessarily a bad thing if they capture and seal up negative tendencies that otherwise would have been focused on flesh-and-blood people. After all, the "reservoir" effect is closely tied to my own defense of the forms of game violence I consumed while growing up; "better to experience aggression and its ill effects in virtual reality rather than real-reality," as it were.
Perhaps it all really does go back to how one is raised? At the same time I was doing everything from stomping on homicidal turtles in Super Mario Bros. to kicking ass (and having my ass handed to me in turn) in Street Fighter II, I was also listening to my parents reminisce on their vehement opposition to the Vietnam War back in the day. It's possible my interpretation of traditional videogame violence has been colored through that lens from the beginning.
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If Genesis doesn't mind...
I find it completely unfair to compare any movie game to a movie because films are relying on an art form (drama) that has thousands of years of experience to its name You put sympathetic humans on screen (or stage, or TV, etc.) and tell a well-paced, exciting story and we escape into their adventure. However, the director controls how the story unfolds, controls what you see and, if s/he knows what s/he's doing, delivers it to an audience based on a centuries-old formula designed to engage the emotions.
Games try to trump that with interactivity, letting you control the outcome. But the more control the gamer has, the more the pacing is ruined by brainless repetition (leaving the task to the gamer presents the possibility the gamer will fail 30 times in a row).
If they make the game tasks easier (as not to bring the story to a screeching halt), the gaming experience becomes much too short to justify the $60 price tag, and the more interactivity is taken away in favor of pacing and pre-rendered cinemas, the more they stop being video games.
Again, it's okay for a film to be scripted because you're in the hands of the director and charismatic actors who make you care about their situation, but other than the thrill of seeing what latest visual effects a shiny new console can show off, what's the reward for playing a scripted game?
What a great next step in our discussion here!
I feel there is great dramatic potential for scripted games. Few people want to sit in a theater for 20 hours while an epic drama unfolds over that amount of time, but the periodic saving and interactivity of a game can stretch out the consumer's attention span long enough to deliver some great stuff in terms of old-fashioned storytelling. Due to the "attention span lengthening effect," I suspect games rival both the novel and the miniseries in terms of maximum dramatic potential.
I have to question whether the dramatic potential of games is being properly explored on a large scale yet, but I remember the story of Metal Gear Solid being especially well delivered for its era. Xenogears (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFyVzej2OZM#t=02m18s) approached the very limits of what a silent RPG can accomplish. Xenosaga (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDpRA99iiCY#t=01m59s) was doing the same for the Talkie RPG until Tetsuya Takahashi and Soraya Saga were removed from the project and it jumped the shark once deprived of the gravity these excellent writers had lent Episode I.
Reflecting on the points Genesis made above, I think I've finally identified why I so abhor MMORPGs -- I fear that they might kill the console RPG through sheer crowding out, while the MMORPG itself is a much less suitable platform for quality storytelling (IMHO -- I've never played one, so it could be a groundless supposition on my part). But on the other hand, a game need not be an RPG to deliver an awesome story.
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Well, Faust, I too have a reason for abhorring MMORPGs. I bet you'll probably agree with the main reasons (http://www.cracked.com/article_16782_6-ways-world-warcraft-worse-than-real-life.html) I have found.
I feel there is great dramatic potential for scripted games. Few people want to sit in a theater for 20 hours while an epic drama unfolds over that amount of time, but the periodic saving and interactivity of a game can stretch out the consumer's attention span long enough to deliver some great stuff in terms of old-fashioned storytelling. Due to the "attention span lengthening effect," I suspect games rival both the novel and the miniseries in terms of maximum dramatic potential.
But each event in any game that you pick up and play is still carefully scripted. For the FPS: Run up to the busted-out brick wall. Truck pulls up. Six enemy troops spill out. Shoot them. Run down the hallway... get killed. Start over. Run up to the busted-out brick wall again. Again wait for the truck to pull out. Kill the six enemy troops. Run down the hallway. Pick up the First Aid Kit...
Rinse. Repeat. Memorize.
The experience of being able to stride down a hallway blowing up monsters with a rail gun was new to a lot of us. The first time you play a level, the monster around the first corner is a surprise. After that, it becomes homework. It's memorizing, via pure repetition, bad guy placement and ammunition deposits and card keys. "Okay, kill the mutant behind the crate. Duck behind the dual doors. Wait for guard to walk out. Kill him, take his key. There's two more of them in this next hall. Pick up the rockets..."
With movies and TV shows, you have no control over what will happen next. That's the draw and hook that comes from these mediums, the same hook which is impossible by definition in video games.
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Square Enix writer told that "games don't need stories." (http://kotaku.com/5548982/is-story-important-for-japanese-role-playing-games-ask-this-lady)
:(
EDIT: Jeez, though, so Miwa Shoda was responsible for this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raSsJUQRsnU#t=01m45s)!? I thought it was Matsuno, but maybe he was in charge of the "macrowriting" while she did the "microwriting," or their responsibilities were shared in another way. Plus, the translation team and voice actors just did a superb job -- I wonder how accurate the translation was?
I never played Final Fantas XII because I could never get past the battle system, but judging from the cutscenes I've seen, the writing was utterly top-notch. I bought it and left it wrapped just to support that kind of writing. Ugh, and Square Enix would just as soon toss such talent aside...
What a sad state of affairs. If what this article suggests about the future of the RPG is true, then some underdogs are just gonna have to enter this industry and kick some ass one day.
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Square Enix writer told that "games don't need stories." (http://kotaku.com/5548982/is-story-important-for-japanese-role-playing-games-ask-this-lady)
:(
I have but one thing to say.
WHUT DA FACK?!
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Whooooooaaa~! Miwa Shoda's wiki article says she did some scenario writing for Radical Dreamers too. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miwa_Shoda) I can't find any more info, but if Kato did the writing for the main scenario, then Shoda must have done writing for one or more alternate scenarios. Did the Compendium ever find out how the scenarios were divvied up, writer-wise?
In the end, everything comes back to Chrono. The world revolves around it!
EDIT: Looks like the Compendium doesn't yet have Shoda listed in the Radical Dreamers credits. Is she even credited in the Japanese credits for the game? I wonder if we can cross-reference the wiki information with another source. Her blog, maybe? It's the only primary source the wiki article gives.
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Ah, it's a different reading of the name!
The "Miwa Ikuta" on our credits is Miwa Shoda.
(The original name in the Japanese RD credits is 生田 美和, which matches Miwa Shoda's name in Japanese.)
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Well, it is M. Ikuta in credits list, I just double checked it.
I was in a rush so I just left a link to the Japanese wiki before I confirm it in the English wiki.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPEvAP_oe4k
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Great work guys, I didn't even see "Miwa" in the Compendium's credits until now. Hmm, so she wrote "The Shadow Realm and the Goddess of Death," and "Magil: Caught Between Love and Adventure." Very cool!
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Back to the facinating discussion of murder in virtual worlds. Reading this thread, I was reminded of a number of episodes of "Caprica" where much of the story took place in a virtual gaming world called "New Cap City".
For those who are unfamiliar with Caprica, "New Cap City" is a direct copy of the real "Caprica City" transmitted directly into the user's mind through the use of a "holoband" - the difference being that there were no rules in the virtual world, save one: If you died in "New Cap City", that would be the end of you. Not just of your avatar/character - you would lose your entire life in that virtual world. You would still be alive in the real world, but you would never ever be allowed to create a new character in New Cap City again. Game Over.
To clarify things a bit, New Cap City is essentially an environment of gangsters and sociopaths in a never-ending state of civil-war. Virtual killings between player/characters are commonplace. Now with so much at stake in a virtual sense, would it be considered murder if you headcapped another player crossing the street with the full knowledge that doing so is essentially banning that individual from the virtual world that he joined of his own free will forever? I think it is. With the direction gaming is taking in the form of virtual communities, the question of what constitutes murder is one well worth discussing. What does everyone else think of the "New Cap City" terminal world that can end so abruptly on a sadistic player's whim?
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Why would one want to institute a permanent "one life to live" policy? I would think that, after about 30 days or so, the place would be rather empty; with the combined results of avatars being killed off, and the subsequent lack of interest in a world that a good portion of the populous can no longer access.
What meaning is there for a multiplayer environment when there are no players?
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A valid question. I can only assume that the "one life to live" policy is appealing to realists - especially the realists good enough to stay alive. The really good players create criminal empires with themselves as the kingpin, and have dozens - if not hundreds - of player bodyguards to protect them from random acts of murder while they're online. I agree that the business model for such a game would be highly questionable, but "Caprica" is a sci-fi show, so we can suspend our notions of reality to explore interesting questions.
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What does everyone else think of the "New Cap City" terminal world that can end so abruptly on a sadistic player's whim?
The real world is often a wretched place for people, but it has the distinct advantage of being the only show in town. If you don't like reality, you don't have anywhere else to go. A virtual world is fundamentally different: People can dissociate from it at any time without giving up their core identity (although their identity-in-context certainly may change). Thus, I think that the most likely result of a "one life to live" policy would be more likely to marginalize such a virtual world. I don't see it retaining mainstream status for long (if at all) unless it included one or more aspects that are vital to real-world life. Having your player character murdered such that you yourself would never be able to return would be only one of many sources of negative pressure on the population. If the virtual world were to survive, it would require strong public safety institutions just as is the case in the real world. These institutions would in turn require at least a moderately stable society to underpin them, or else they would not be functional. Like the Biosphere experiments, artificial sociological spheres--virtual worlds--are prone to instability, primarily because people do not fully understand emotionally or conceptually the differences between the driving forces in them versus in the real world.
I haven't seen Caprica, but from the way you describe it it sounds as though this virtual world is actually a virtual reality in which people fully immerse themselves into a simulated environment, losing sight of their actual physical environment. If that's the case, then social instability (including murder) would be all the more powerful a negative pressure on people wanting to remain there.
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Yeah, putting on the holoband is like stepping into a holodeck on the Enterprise.
You make very good points, J. And some of them are echoed by one of the show's main characters. A middle-aged man is looking for someone in the virtual world and has an experienced young kid guiding him. The man asks the kid what the point of this game is, and the kid doesn't really have an answer. Caprica is a very dark show, much like Battlestar before it.
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I honestly, as much as virtual reality awes me, still would like to see the console remain in the long run. There is something about a tiny computer with controllers that can play a form of super-interactive entertainment that cannot be beat.
Especially these little guys. *pats on his SNES and his N64*
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Ooh! Interview with Soraya Saga! Gnarly. Still waiting for part 2.
http://www.siliconera.com/2010/06/04/reflections-with-soraya-saga-part-1/
Also, "JRPGs: Going Back to the Basics."
http://www.siliconera.com/2010/06/06/jrpgs-going-back-to-the-basics/
Hmm, I'm unsettled by the spirit of some of the commentary, which seems like it might be debasing the importance of stories in RPGs -- at a time when one of the biggest corporations in the 'biz has dissed their importance. However, I need to read more thoroughly. I'm hopefully just overreacting.
Xenogears totally got it right IMO, and the Chrono series wasn't far behind. What these games did was impressive: deliver both interesting gameplay mechanics and downright fascinating plots.
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Faust, I read through the depressing commentary in these articles and more with as open a mind as I could manage, and I've been thinking about it all weekend. I don't think you're overreacting. In fact, things may be more dire than any of us want to admit. I don't want to sound too pessimistic here, but unwarranted optimism risks ignoring the issue at hand. There is an unhappy reality in play, the way I see it.
The ugly truth? The role-playing genre as we know it may be on its last legs, and the failure of this genre may be a harbinger of worse things to come for the video game industry as a whole.
I sometimes wonder if RPGs have become a victim of their own success. Not so very long ago, the industry was begging for new technologies to make in-game worlds more realistic than ever before to entice gamers to buy the latest hardware. Now the technology is there, but game companies are finding out just how much money and talent is required to use this technology to its fullest. Recent comments by Square/Enix regarding a Final Fantasy VII remake are very worrisome. If a company with the resources of Square/Enix no longer believes it is possible to make a profit on AAA titles that push the boundaries of the genre, then RPG's (and maybe even video games in general) may be racing toward a very near and very solid brick wall. Right now, we are paying between $60 - $70 for most new games on the big consoles. The sad truth is that in order to create new RPGs of epic scope - whether they be old franchises like Chrono Trigger or something completely new - the prices of new games may have to go up. A lot. Under current economic conditions (don't be fooled, the stock market is going up but the overall economy is not) that would be problematic. Hardcore gamers might be willing to pay more for quality titles, but casual gamers would not. And game publishers like Square/Enix would not be content with the negative or stagnant growth that would result from pricing out a substantial slice of their audience. They want to always be moving forward, because that's what businesses do to survive.
What we are most likely to see in the coming years is the industry moving away from epic storytelling, world building, and character development in favor of less time-intensive game development cycles. In other words, playing it safe with less ambitious genres that can turn out new titles quickly and hoping that the dollars of the less critical casual gamer can continue to turn a profit, even if the alienated hardcore gamer bolts. This might seem to be an attractive option for corporate executives who see the hardcore gamers of the 80s and 90s pushing 40, but this conservative approach is not a sustainable business model. Why? Because we have seen a similar conservative approach fail in the past - 26 years ago. Some of us older gamers can still remember the malaise called 1984. It was a brick wall that brought the home video game industry to a screeching halt. I won't pretend to claim knowledge on all the particulars of “the crash” since I was pretty young at the time, but it was abundantly clear even to this little boy that games were all starting to look the same. The novelty of controlling stick-figures on our TV screens was wearing off, and people stopped buying.
The arcades and Nintendo thankfully broke us out of that funk, since they continued to innovate and take risks – both with gameplay and the way that games were presented. But the arcades are now gone, and Nintendo is no longer on the outside looking in. Nintendo is no less vulnerable to another “video game crash” than anyone else (and possibly more so with all of the shovelware ending up on the Wii). There will always be a market for the simpler games aimed more toward the casual gamer, but no way will that be enough to maintain the video game industry at its current bloated level if all of these games start looking the same like they did in 1984. Who will come to the rescue if the home video game industry fails again? There is no one. Innovation will have to come from within.
There is no way to sugarcoat this. The only way for the video game industry, as we know it, to survive in the long term is to innovate right now. That means, for the RPG genre, presentation, scope, and most importantly - character development, must become grander than ever. Not less so. Gameplay innovations in RPGs are certainly welcome, but this genre cannot rely solely on a new “system” to maintain interest from game to game. (We've all played the numbers game to death since Dragon Warrior I appeared on the NES.) RPG's do one thing particularly well that other genres really can't, and that is tell a deep and rewarding story filled with interesting characters in a colorful and unique world. As the technology available to developers has gotten better, we have come to expect more realistic depictions of these fantasy worlds and their inhabitants, and – graphically speaking – the developers have delivered. But things are starting to get stale. We see the same character archetypes game after game, and they are consistently played by voice actors of questionable ability. We've played this game to death, too. What's wrong with the writers mixing things up with familiar-looking archetypes and giving them character quirks you don't expect? Why not create a protagonist that knows exactly who he is and doesn't suffer from amnesia or the old-school malady of muteness? Why not have the characters have a lot more interaction with each other through the normal course of the game rather than just through intrusive intermission scenes? And why not use A-list actors to voice these characters and make them believable? These things would go a long way to improving the genre without using any more graphical power than developers are using now.
Of course, taking the time to develop more fully realized worlds and characters and adding experienced actors for the voice talent would be a significant investment. Smaller developers would not be able to do it. But Square/Enix can, or at least they could if they had their priorities straight. Square/Enix has no right to complain about the rising costs of developing quality titles, seeing as they are spending so much money gobbling up smaller developers in their quest to become the Electronic Arts of Japan. They are trying to grow their way out of a problem that cannot be solved through growth. Flooding the market with mediocre titles did not work in 1984. It will not work any better in the future. Imagine the kinds of games Square/Enix could be developing now if they invested all that money in-house? They could be remaking Final Fantasy VII, or Chrono Trigger, or maybe they could make Kato happy by green-lighting the Chrono sequel he always wanted to make. Yeah, the games would have to be more expensive to do them right, but if they are good enough wouldn't the volume of sales make up for the original investment? It sounds like a much more sensible plan than what they are doing at present.
Innovation can be risky, but Final Fantasy VII worked out just fine and it was in development for years. I wish Square/Enix would get back to its roots and do what it used to do better than anyone else: tell stories.
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That was a fascinating read Lennis, and with the weight of cited examples and further analysis of specific games, sounds like something that could be submitted to a game...journal...thingie, should any be out there. Or maybe a gaming mag.
I hadn't made a connection before between the era we're heading into and the early 1980s videogame crash, but I must admit your assessment appeals to my sense of alarmism. More importantly, I find myself agreeing with your insight about how the profit motive is encouraging developers to churn out simpler games, and how that simplicity could eventually replicate, or at least prove analogous to, conditions surrounding the earlier crash. I'm really getting this vibe from the iPhone games market, where everyone's producing huge innovations in gameplay but leaving scenario design completely in the dust in most cases. The result is a market glutted with some really cool simple games, but because they're simple, the player's experience tends to feel more like a flippant diversion rather than a grand adventure. One can only gobble up so much of this stuff before they get kinda bored.
Yeah, I've been noticing this topic come up more and more since the Miwa Shoda interview. I'm not sure if her quip set off some kind of firestorm or if I just hadn't been paying attention until that point. What unsettles me more than anything, though, is the number of rank-and-file gamers responding to these articles with: "Yeah, they're right, games don't need stories after all! Game developers just screw up storytelling, so they shouldn't even try!" When I read these comments I reflect on the first time I fired up Ninja Gaiden II (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnpAfBKUXGw) in my childhood, and something visceral inside me just screams: No, this anti-plot attitude is just not right!
Of course, a gaming effort undertaken today demands a far more complex story than some of the NES and SNES-era greats, and a well constructed plot takes time to germinate. However, there were some grand examples accomplished during the PSX era both inside and outside the RPG genre, the stories of which remain robust even when examined by today's standards IMO. It would seem that gamers agreeing with the companies on this one must stem from some disappointment with PS2-era storytelling, but that's grabbing at straws for a quick explanation on my part.
Harumph! In any case, now I'm more determined than ever to do a special "12 Days of Final Fantasy XII" on my Youtube channel, containing the game's cutscenes accompanied by an analysis of its storyline. I've really taken away some great writing lessons from both its strengths and its flaws, and I consider this a sign that there's some worth in treating videogame storytelling just as seriously as story delivery via novels, movies, plays, and other traditional media.
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Hmmm... Maybe I should send a modified version of my previous post to EGM and see what they think?
Unfortunately, the gamers who agree with the "less story is better" philosophy are considerably younger than the generation that grew up with Final Fantasy IV - VII + Chrono Trigger. That puts them in a very attractive age demographic for game developers. For every three or four old-school gamers who says a given title is not as good as it should be, a younger gamer says that it's good enough. That one positive vote outweighs the negative ones because it's within the target demographic. It's a sad state of affairs. It makes me wonder how the aging developers of the classic Squaresoft titles feel about the direction the industry is going. Maybe they feel as neglected as we do.
I'm 95% done with Final Fantasy XII, and I really should find the time to break away from my agonizingly slow fan-fiction work to finish that gem. I haven't gone through FF 13 at all yet, though I plan to.
I found a couple more links on the current state of JRPGs to continue this discussion. (please ignore all of the porn ads on the side btw) :oops:
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/06/16/the-jrpg-is-dead-5-reasons-why/ (http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/06/16/the-jrpg-is-dead-5-reasons-why/)
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/12/20/why-final-fantasy-xiii-is-a-bad-game/ (http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/12/20/why-final-fantasy-xiii-is-a-bad-game/)
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Faust, you're fighting a hopeless battle...
The video game industry is changing. The early adopters, the lifelong gamers who were into video gaming in the 1970s and 1980s, and even as late as the early 1990s, are now a small minority of the overall video gamer community. What we want—we the old RPG stalwarts who were but a slice of yesterday's gaming community and are an even smaller slice of today's—may well be story-rich plots and good writing. But what “we” want—we the entire gamer community—is good graphics, novelty gameplay, multiplayer options, self-righteousness, and genre content. It's important to remember that the industry we knew no longer exists. What was good for yesterday's industry may not be good for today's. Given the weak emphasis many gamers place on strong writing in the games they play, it may very well be the case that video games generally don't need good writing. Video games can be taken as art, but the industry itself needs to turn a profit. Profitability always trumps quality in a capitalistic system, and the video game industry firmly belongs within the private sector—it is one of the great contemporary icons of private enterprise.
What you need to recognize is that there are almost certainly far more gamers today who desire good writing than there were in the past. The difference is that the numbers of other gamers has grown much more rapidly, and thus the voice of gamers who desire good writing has lost influence in an increasingly vast marketplace. There are still development studios who will turn out games with good writing, or who at least will place a premium on good writing even if they fall short. What won't be the case is that these kind of games typically become “blockbusters” with universal appeal to the gamer market. The “good writing” segment of the gamer market is a niche; it has been a niche and it certainly will continue to be a niche. Developers usually can't spend the Big Bucks on games for a niche market. There will be exceptions, but generally we shouldn't look for sterling writing in big-budget games.
With the advances in technology over the past decade, today even you and I could create another “Chrono Trigger.” If you're willing to abandon the premise that RPGs must continue to remain on the cutting edge of technology, with ever more artists and programmers, and a production budget that increases without end, then the possibilities for games with strong writing instantly soar. Just look at the independent studios, and look to the amateurs. You'll find the good plots, the strong writing. They may be technologically reminiscent of '90s-era games—with synthetic music, 2D graphics, and other budget-saving production values—but they'll have good writing. And you can make your own, too.
Just don't expect these kinds of games to dominate the market, because most gamers are caught up in the idea that a game is no good if it isn't on the cutting edge.
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J, I'm curious if you could direct me to any currently operating studios that have released games with writing that is solid in your opinion. Studio Archcraft did a fair job IMO, and I'm glad to see they survived their first game and are moving on to another. Ironically their site's down as I write this, but I think that's a temporary thing...
It's interesting that when we speak of indie studios, what we're also implicitly talking about is a move away from the corporate model. The example of Square Enix suggests to me that corporations - with their rigid ownership of intellectual property and profit maximization goals - ought not be entrusted with the creation of things that have great artistic value. Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Chrono -- there were entire, rich, organic worlds in those games squashed not by the core development team's decisions or limited creative capacity, but because dispassionate managers made certain project funding decisions. I think all of these products turned a profit too, just not profits in line with the corporation's strategic policy. Such a sad outcome!
The constant churn of low tech re-releases and ports Square Enix and some other biggies are using to pad their profits instructs us as to the existence of substantial markets for comparatively low tech games, and it's certainly drawn in indies like Archcraft. What I'm most curious to see is whether, and under what conditions, these markets will shrivel. I think there's a good chance they'll survive long-term due to this huge portable console push we've been seeing for the past decade. The big devs - in what I suspect is an effort to dampen their own development costs - seem to be perpetuating a market for lower-tech games in which indie studios, too, might continue attempting to compete. A Chrono Trigger style game isn't nearly as out-of-place on the Nintendo DS as it would be on the PS3, and therein lies some hope!
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J, I'm curious if you could direct me to any currently operating studios that have released games with writing that is solid in your opinion.
I am sorry to say that I cannot. I do very little actual gaming these days. I recently played Twilight Princess and that was a big occasion for me. My energies are spent overwhelmingly on the production side rather than the consumption side. It was, I am a bit ashamed to say, a statement of faith on my part that there are games being made today that have strong writing--faith in statistics. It's hard for me to envision the scenario where there are no such games.
It's interesting that when we speak of indie studios, what we're also implicitly talking about is a move away from the corporate model.
Are you mistaking "the corporate model" with "large corporations"? In other words, are you saying that, essentially, the people who create games should also control their production and distribution? Or are you actually suggesting that this kind of intellectual property should not be commercially developed, in order to preserve its artistic qualities? Or is it something else?
A Chrono Trigger style game isn't nearly as out-of-place on the Nintendo DS as it would be on the PS3, and therein lies some hope!
Hah, now there's a thought! 32-bit games on the PS3. If consoles could laugh...
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Are you mistaking "the corporate model" with "large corporations"? In other words, are you saying that, essentially, the people who create games should also control their production and distribution? Or are you actually suggesting that this kind of intellectual property should not be commercially developed, in order to preserve its artistic qualities? Or is it something else?
What I'm most concerned about is the structured legal division of artists from their work. My line of reasoning when I posted above was that this legal wall is most likely to erupt within the context of the Corporation as a business structure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation). I guess "corporate structure" would be clearer than "corporate model."
When I think of a "studio" I'm envisioning a group of artisans who aren't managed aside from any agreements they might choose to make collectively; structures such as Proprietorship and Partnership would be more applicable here I think. I suppose particularly messy situations, like the breakup of a Proprietorship or Partnership, could also result in discontinuation of a franchise, and perhaps even a Corporation could theoretically allow contracts that don't prohibit game design teams from exercising rights over what their intellect produces.
Crimson Echoes was fascinating in that it nearly completed absent a profit motive, so I wouldn't balk at your suggestion that a large undertaking could be done purely for art's sake. What's so sad is that already-established intellectual properties are the most likely candidate for gathering talent all in one place and inspiring all members to completion, and yet fan projects are themselves prone to legalities. Once the Corporation has locked its iron fist around a piece of interactive art, all who dare defy it - be they the design team or the fans - do so bearing some risk. It's just, this, vicious creativity constricting cycle.
As for indie teams, the main place I can think of finding more with interesting stories to tell would probably be the RPGMaker communities. The iPhone seems very accessible to indie teams, but the market culture there is focused on making a quick buck with as simple a game as possible for the most part, so writing is often nonexistent or left severely undeveloped even by smaller teams. Ironically, a Square Enix product - Chaos Rings - has probably delivered one of the best stories available on that platform.
Speaking of which, I just read Square Enix is re-releasing Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy Tactics on the iPhone. Big corporate love for low(er), cheap(er) tech continues! I wouldn't put a Chrono Trigger release on the iPhone past them at this rate. Maybe it would be good for the Compendium.
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There's no question that the videogame industry is changing. Faust brings up a good point with how much bigger the portable console market has gotten in the last ten years. In fact, I would go so far as to say the growth of the portables is the single biggest trend gaming has seen this decade. Bigger than high-def gaming, downloadable content, and motion controllers. It may very well be a push by developers to tone down the ever-increasing production costs of games demanded on high-end consoles. From a business standpoint, that's smart - at least in the short term.
I have to say, though, I'm not optimistic that an independent developer can bring a high-quality storytelling experience to a portable console. For one thing, playing that kind of game on a portable would be extremely uncomfortable. (RPGs are supposed to consume entire evenings, not 30-minute chunks.) And secondly, they would run into the same problems that the big developers experienced with the previous generation of hardware. The technical limitations would make it very difficult to raise the bar. Voice-overs take up memory that could be devoted to other aspects of the game, including the script. You can have superb writing, but without quality voice actors to bring the script to life, you would be left with a silent RPG of the PS1 era. The majority of gamers have moved on since then and expect a fuller experience. A new silent RPG would appeal to only a niche audience.
Back to the issue of change, the fundamental question to ask is if the path of that change is sustainable. Sometimes a change that seems perfectly reasonable at the time can lead to serious problems down the road. Sometimes a change can create short-term financial conditions that are so appealing to game companies that they decide further change is not needed. That can lead to stagnation, which was my argument for bringing up the 1984 example. Gaming has evolved drastically since then, but it is by no means immune to an industry-wide downturn. If you can equate the gaming crash of 1984 to the Great Depression, then a future downturn could be equated to the great recession of today - not as catastrophic, but still painful. And as was the case with this recession, there are going to be casualties. It is too difficult to predict what gamers are really going to want in the years to come, but one thing is clear: the companies that give the gamers what they want are going to survive and flourish, and the companies that don't are going to wither and die.
So the question, for Chrono Trigger, becomes one of increasing mass-market appeal to the point where Square/Enix would have to consider releasing an update to their beloved franchise to counter gamer apathy about the future state of gaming - if such a downturn comes about. (This is where the Compendium comes in.) :) A future discussion between S/E executives might go something like this:
Exec A: "The market is really down right now, but we need to come up with something new in order to maintain marketshare. Any ideas?"
Exec B: "We can't do it. It would take up to five years to create a breakthrough product. The financial risk is too great."
Exec C: "I agree. Five years is too long to work on anything. A lot can change in that timeframe. We should just do what we're doing now and ride out this storm until attitudes change."
Exec A: "But Final Fantasy XV has sold well below expectations. Metacritic gave it only a 74. Attitudes are turning against us right now. What is to be done?"
Exec B: (dismissively) "Those reviewers are old men who are stuck in the past. They've had it out for us for years. Their scores mean nothing."
Exec D: "Old men or not, the sales figures have been consistent with their scores. Marketing tells me our target demographic is also disappointed with the game."
Exec C: "You are being defeatist! 74 out of 100 is still a majority in our favor. There is no need for anxiety. We are still making money."
Exec A: "But the trend is moving unmistakably downward. If our flagship title cannot do any better than this, what will it mean for our smaller projects? We may very well be at a crossroads where staying the course is the long road to failure."
Exec D: "Then we should take the other route and try something else while we're still able to."
Exec B: "And where do you propose to get the money? You've seen the reports from our development department heads. We can't launch a new flagship product in anything less than five years. Pre-production alone would take almost two."
Exec C: (nods) "The board would never approve it. We need quicker sources of income."
Exec D: (thinks about it) "What about Chrono Trigger?"
Exec B: "Are you daft? We already did that on the DS, and there's still a market for that old relic. We can't sell a 20-year-old game on a modern portable for anything more than $20. The board would laugh us out of the room!"
Exec D: "I mean do it for the PS4."
Exec C: (laughs) "You've been surfing around those fan sites too much!"
Exec D: "Actually, it may be quite feasible. It's an already existing property that has a well-established storyline. Pre-production time would be greatly lessened if the developer didn't have to start over from scratch. We could make the game in four years instead of five."
Exec A: "I don't know. A lot would have to be changed to remake that game on a modern system. Players would expect a greatly expanded experience. The pre-production time may be greater than you realize."
Exec D: "Perhaps not. The fan community has already expanded the world of Chrono far beyond its original vision. What if Kato-san incorporated some of their ideas to the game in addition to his own? We might release the game in under four years."
Exec B: (derisively) "So we are to put our fortunes into the hands of amateurs?! What do they know about videogame design? We are wasting time even talking about this crackpot idea!"
Exec A: (thinks about it) "Let us bring in Kato-san and see what he thinks."
(Of course, I'm being very optimistic here.) :(
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What? We haven't had a good Game Theory discussion since June!? Pish posh! Time to fix that up.
There's a great article on 1UP (http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?publicUserId=5379721&bId=9037841) about the Tactics Ogre update for the PSP. Besides the significance of this game as far as SE getting an old "Dream Team" back together for another round, it had a fantastic branching story. With Alexander O. Smith at the translation helm, the game's story can only benefit from a once-over. I'll go ahead and quote from the 1UP article:
...See, not only did Tactics Ogre have a powerful story, it had a branching story. In fact, every time someone argues that a game can't tell an interesting story and still offer player control over the outcome, Tactics Ogre is my go-to counter-example. Sure, these days we have BioWare's works and the Fallout series to show the potential of player input, but ten years ago the idea of a heavily story-driven RPG that allowed the player to determine its ultimate outcome was fairly novel.
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In some ways, Tactics Ogre was a more compelling game than its successor [Final Fantasy Tactics]. The player-driven story had a lot to do with that, because the plot branched several times at significant moments in the story. Players had to make tough choices -- choices that were taken out of their hands in FFT. At the end of Ogre's first chapter, for instance, Denim is forced to choose between obeying an order to kill innocents or going rogue. The plot is rigged so that Vice will always oppose your decision, but the action you choose there radically changes the story and battles you experience in subsequent chapters. Imagine if the end of FFT's first chapter forced you to choose between helping Delita's sister or teaming up with Algus/Argath to fight alongside the nobles, and you begin to understand how affecting Tactics Ogre's dynamic story can be.
I'd have to heartily agree with the power of this story branching concept. It's been a long time since I played Tactics Ogre, but that was always its defining quality for me. On the other hand, Matsuno & co. must have burned quite a bit of midnight oil composing the plot's multiple branches in such a way that each branch felt like high quality writing. I'm curious as to how this worked in the BioWare games the 1UP blog post author mentioned, since they might be more recent examples. Did the branches in these games make the player feel like they were experiencing something hugely different, and how long were the storyline branches in Fallout?
When branching a game story, is it better to have lots of small branches and make the game shorter each playthrough, or a few branches and make one hugely epic?