Having worked in video games and taken meetings in Hollywood, I would always be entertained by the cognitive dissonance. There is this deep condescension towards games that crashes into this dripping envy at the money. To a lot of people in the LA movie game video games are basically stupid toys for kids and incels that by some unfathomable cheat makes more money than they do. The problem is they want some of that gold. I exagerate, but not by much. So what you have had (with some notable exceptions) are projects mostly made from a deeply cynical and disdainful place. There are of course exceptions, and I’m talking about the business, not production side.
Put off reading this one until I could give it my most undiluted attention. Best decision I made all week. Love this, Ed.
1.) Yes.
2.) Yes.
3.) Yes.
4.) ...Yes, although vocabularically legitimizing that puts a culture at risk of losing sight of a game's most foundational elements (which a lot of modern designers have sadly lost the pulse on).
5.) Yes. Yes. Yes. Costikyan, you legend.
6.) ...Sort of. Less power fantasy and more giving you the tools to rise to a given occasion, ideally regardless of how much or how little the fantasy is actually bought into.
7.) Yes, but I wouldn't liken those movies to video games. Those movies tend to use structure as a means to exploring a certain philosophy (such as how we understand said narrative structures), whereas the structure of video games is meant to be entirely kinesthetic; there's space for emotional and cerebral elements, certainly, but too much of that can dilute the significance of our fundamental interactions with games.
8.) Yes, often precisely because a game's story is mistaken as its most effective engine. It never is, and never should be (because if it is, why is it a game at that point?).
9.) Yuuuuuuup!
10.) Not untrue, but we need to be careful to not mistake gameplay-centric telegraphing for environmental storytelling. You could spot a skeleton laying nearby, and suddenly be too busy ruminating on the narrative implications to be prepared for the surprise flesh-eating ghoul that killed the previous owner of said skeleton. When in-game, gameplay first.
11.) Yes, and we can understand it as such because movies are natural storytelling spaces.
12.) Haven't seen The Phoenician Scheme (am planning on it later this week), but yes, provided we understand that episodic heft as narratively-driven in the context of film, and as tension-based gameplay-driven in the context of a video game. Mad respect for shouting out Wrath of Cortex, too; a deep, delicious cut if I ever saw one.
13.) Yes, but I would replace "best" with "manipulative." I can guarantee you that your partiality to Elden Ring is because of how supremely robust its gameplay is, even if it feels like it's the worldbuilding. Cinematic worlds are often built with respect to what the stories in these worlds believe in thematically. A franchise like the MCU (which, for the moment, doesn't really collectively believe in anything outside of being a brand) will therefore suffer in its worldbuilding attempts.
14.) Ugh, don't remind me. I would go as far as to say that games will suffer even in the best case scenario.
Not a film, but the HBO TV series based on the game 'The Last of Us' is really good (especially S1). But the game was incredibly cinematic to begin with.
I have a hard time judging it because S2 is really half of the story they want to tell for the second game. So far, I don't find it as strong as S1, but I'm still glad I saw it, and depending on how S3 goes, it could go either way.
I did a podcast on S1 with Tinkered Thinking and Matt Reustle here:
Having worked in video games and taken meetings in Hollywood, I would always be entertained by the cognitive dissonance. There is this deep condescension towards games that crashes into this dripping envy at the money. To a lot of people in the LA movie game video games are basically stupid toys for kids and incels that by some unfathomable cheat makes more money than they do. The problem is they want some of that gold. I exagerate, but not by much. So what you have had (with some notable exceptions) are projects mostly made from a deeply cynical and disdainful place. There are of course exceptions, and I’m talking about the business, not production side.
Put off reading this one until I could give it my most undiluted attention. Best decision I made all week. Love this, Ed.
1.) Yes.
2.) Yes.
3.) Yes.
4.) ...Yes, although vocabularically legitimizing that puts a culture at risk of losing sight of a game's most foundational elements (which a lot of modern designers have sadly lost the pulse on).
5.) Yes. Yes. Yes. Costikyan, you legend.
6.) ...Sort of. Less power fantasy and more giving you the tools to rise to a given occasion, ideally regardless of how much or how little the fantasy is actually bought into.
7.) Yes, but I wouldn't liken those movies to video games. Those movies tend to use structure as a means to exploring a certain philosophy (such as how we understand said narrative structures), whereas the structure of video games is meant to be entirely kinesthetic; there's space for emotional and cerebral elements, certainly, but too much of that can dilute the significance of our fundamental interactions with games.
8.) Yes, often precisely because a game's story is mistaken as its most effective engine. It never is, and never should be (because if it is, why is it a game at that point?).
9.) Yuuuuuuup!
10.) Not untrue, but we need to be careful to not mistake gameplay-centric telegraphing for environmental storytelling. You could spot a skeleton laying nearby, and suddenly be too busy ruminating on the narrative implications to be prepared for the surprise flesh-eating ghoul that killed the previous owner of said skeleton. When in-game, gameplay first.
11.) Yes, and we can understand it as such because movies are natural storytelling spaces.
12.) Haven't seen The Phoenician Scheme (am planning on it later this week), but yes, provided we understand that episodic heft as narratively-driven in the context of film, and as tension-based gameplay-driven in the context of a video game. Mad respect for shouting out Wrath of Cortex, too; a deep, delicious cut if I ever saw one.
13.) Yes, but I would replace "best" with "manipulative." I can guarantee you that your partiality to Elden Ring is because of how supremely robust its gameplay is, even if it feels like it's the worldbuilding. Cinematic worlds are often built with respect to what the stories in these worlds believe in thematically. A franchise like the MCU (which, for the moment, doesn't really collectively believe in anything outside of being a brand) will therefore suffer in its worldbuilding attempts.
14.) Ugh, don't remind me. I would go as far as to say that games will suffer even in the best case scenario.
15.) Yes.
16.) Yes!
Hoping one day they'll make a film based off of Hogwarts Legacy 🤞
Not a film, but the HBO TV series based on the game 'The Last of Us' is really good (especially S1). But the game was incredibly cinematic to begin with.
I played the first game and enjoyed it, but never got around to playing the second one. I heard mixed things about the second season of the show?
I have a hard time judging it because S2 is really half of the story they want to tell for the second game. So far, I don't find it as strong as S1, but I'm still glad I saw it, and depending on how S3 goes, it could go either way.
I did a podcast on S1 with Tinkered Thinking and Matt Reustle here:
https://www.libertyrpf.com/p/the-last-of-us-going-deep-on-hbos