"Agency" always felt like a limited way of thinking about what sets games apart. You have basically zero agency in most classic console and arcade titles. But you do have presence.
I feel like the logical end point for storytelling in video games is to have games without a linear narrative where you make a story for yourself. A lot of big games coming out the last decade or so could've been TV shows or even just movies instead, which is obviously fine, people can make the games they want to make, but I'm a huge fan of games like The Outer Wilds (don't look it up if you haven't played it, just play it) that really push how you can do storytelling in a way exclusive to games. Mount & Blade is another interesting way it can go, where the story writes itself depending on what you feel like doing with that character. The interactive element can be absolutely massive for telling completely unique stories you can't do with any other medium and it's always super exciting to see it done well.
It's because that takes great effort and the willingness to make content that will be missed. Few take it. I remember the Way of the Samurai games for instance, they are rather short in length, but usually have more than +10 routes and ways you can interact with the world. Just like Temple of Elemental Evil. This is effort we sadly don't see too often. I myself work on a game myself right now, a tiny project meant for fun (maybe it will become more later). Doing story branches, I realized how much effort it is. You have to have many different dialogues more, many reactions, many more events. And what's more: You got to have different sides and reactions mapped out for every character. It's great when you pull it off. But if it doesn't work, you feel all that was wasted.
I feel there's enough games out there for both. I play a lot of games, and a lot of different games. I love Outer Wilds. I'd have it in my personal top ten. I'm also really enjoying Indika atm and that is absolutely virtually all story with game bits thrown in. Another game I've loved this year was Harold Halibut. I realized at the end that a chunk of it was a fancy walking simulator but it told a good story, and the art is stop motion and looks absolutely fantastic. I think the games are brilliant because they can be so many things, sometimes in the same game.
Some of the early access open world games (like Minecraft) when it was new just put you in a world and let you do what you want. Unfortunately, the masses tend to insist that a game must have a story and an end.
Kenshi is a great example of this style of game. Interesting setting and mechanics, but no formal story or quests really, the player chooses how they want to approach the game.
Fully agree. Video games are a particularly compelling way to explore philosophy and one's own values, moreso than books or movies because of your direct interactions with the game worlds. Great books and movies ask important questions about the human condition, but games put you in the position of answering those questions yourself.
Favorite moment I had in new Vegas was going straight to the fallen vertibird at a low level and had to dodge and combat sentry bots with a large pool of 5.59 ammo and managed to take out each of the bots by hiding behind a rock slowly dwindling their health down I even miraculously dodged their rockets too lol.
Your take on players causing certain situations and these situations being player's fault and not the game's is sooo on point. I'm going to be referencing this video a lot in the future. This is just beyond words on point! I wish more people would understand this instead of just banning certain things in games or just whole games because they don't care.
Technically minecraft, rainworld, holocure. None of them have voice acting or dialogue. Sure there are orher examples but we dont even need to go into racingames or puzzles where it seems dialogue would get in the way most of the time.
Glad to hear a shoutout for Deni Villeneuve! I also love movies that are open to interpretation, he's one of my favourite directors along with Alex Garland! I'd be interested to hear your interpretation of Enemy (2013) because it was pretty out there even by his standards!
Thank you, this kind of discussion was exactly the motivation hyper-charger I needed right now for a quest script I'm working on where almost all the content will not be seen by most players.
I've always liked games more than movies because they can only be experienced through actions. A movie "happens" to you, but you can't passively finish a game like you said. Also, I always liked the fact that a game can get to know you, check what actions you prefer, understand you and change its way to engage you based on what you do. I feel like you get to develop a way more personal connection with games because they track you to understand you as a player, however artificial and limited this understanding can be. All those games that predict very quirky and obscure ways that the player will interact with them, and then offer a consquence to that, even if small and insignificant, always manage to leave a mark.
I have a question that might be left unanswered, beacuse it might've been already asked: Mr Cain, what do you think about Game Jams? Do you participate in them? And if yes, then which one was the most fun for you?
That's what I love about games. No two stories have to be the same. Part of the reason my slogan is "Our worlds, your adventures!" Big reason why I like Elder Scrolls Like games. You go out and there's a main quest but you can run into all kinds of random things and go off in different directions.
I think literature can have an even deeper level of discovery because, though it can be something about the setting you miss on a first read-through, it can also help you discover something about yourself. For example, reading Tolstoy at 20 years of age is bound to be qualitatively different from reading his works at 30, 40 and so on.
I've drawn comparisons between games and books multiple times over the years, but I don't think I have gone about it to this much depth. Specially when it comes to choice and how scenes take place. Definitely something to think about moving forward. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on what I now realize is a very important subject.
One of my favorite examples of discovery in a game, comes from Jeff Vogels games, exile is amazing but the first geneforge game does this better than any game. You are stranded on a quarantined island, and you are discovering why that happened, what has been going on, how you fit in etc... But if you really search the oldest ruins and most difficult areas, you can figure out the origin story for the entire setting... And it may change your view on the events in the game... You don't have to, most people don't find it.... But it feels really fulfilling and to me it changed my choices and prefered path through the game... Great game!
I think a good example of this is companion in Portal, where your relationship is built entirely on the actions you take towards it; the player has a direct personal involvement with it. A book or movie could perhaps create a similar emotional attachment, but not in the same way.
I agree wholeheartedly, and have believed for many years that games (interactive media) will be one of the pillars of future entertainment. Imagine seeing an Avengers film, but also having the option to experience it as one of the characters within a VR environment, with advanced AGIs capable of adapting to player responses and choices on the fly - maybe even allow drop-in/out capability so the consumer could experience different characters/roles whenever they wish. It's one thing to tell a fable around a campfire and hope your audience gets the core themes and messages, it's another when they get to experience it themselves - to have an opportunity to truly walk a mile in someone else's shoes, maybe tread new paths the creator never anticipated. The artist learns from their viewer, the viewer becomes the artist. This is something that's available to us in reality - and imitated/experienced to a lesser degree by other mediums - but is most strongly felt within games. As an aside Mr. Cain, the relationship between artist/consumer fascinates me. I've wondered how the experience of creating a game can very much be a sort of game itself and how a piece of media can, in a way, present as multiple mediums simultaneously; The writer creates a speculative fiction, hoping it will be viewed through a particular lens; A story. The actor impacts the fiction in how they interpret the work, and is impacted in the process; A game. The viewer consumes the work - it may or may not have the impact the author originally intended - but they assimilate it; A personal adaption. Finally, all involved digest it and excrete it out in their future works; Thus sowing seeds of change. Birth/Life/Death/Reincarnation, tying all stories together into an oversoul. It's friggin beautiful dude.
Another amazing video, thank you!! As much as movies/books have provided me with fond memories, sometimes even shocking ones, the effect that specific games have had on me is second to none. It's exactly what you said, the ability to make the choice and live with the consequences of that. I would be very interested in hearing your opinion on interactive films, I'm not sure how many there are, but "Black Mirror Bandersnatch" is definitely a movie that traversed the waters of making choices in a movie environment, albeit in a sometimes chaotic way, in my opinion. In general, what is your take on interactive films, do you think that it could be an interesting medium, kinda like a hybrid between RPGs and movies?
Villeneuve's movies look amazing. Megalophobic, bleak, dangerous. Perfect director for Dune and Bladerunner. It always blew my mind that people thought of games a lower art form. Movies and books and paintings are considered artistic in part because the reader is able to interpret them - that's cranked up to 11 in games. It's unavoidable, your gameplay IS your interpretation. To play a game is to interpret it. Even games that I've made that are totally linear, story driven with heavy cutscenes, with no character creation or huge consequences to your actions. When I watch all the lets plays on youtube, I still never see the game twice. It's a unique little joy that only game devs (and probably music composers) get. It took movies like 20 years to get respect as an art form. If you think movies are just silly entertainment for fair grounds, then you see Metropolis, and you've never seen a real visual spectacle before, the mind blow immediately cements cinema as an art form in your mind. Games have been around for like 50 years now and people still think of them as children's toys. I think it's because you can't just quickly show someone the the special sauce of a game like you can with movies.
"Everything you get in a book, and more" - not quite. Books can have a lot of detail and nuance that can easily get lost in a movie. This can be seen in adapting books into movie, but also vice versa, when you read novelizations made after movies, you can get a lot of stuff that's not present in the original medium. I read novelizations after Terminator 1 and 2, and enjoyed them quite a lot, surprisingly as it may seem. Same for Star Wars original trilogy, same for Rambo 1-2-3. They are not just quotes. In fact, most quotes I remember and use are from movies, not books. Each has their own strengths, and beauties.
Yeah I agree. I think the same is true of the relationship between films and games too. Sure, each medium gains something over the other in a mechanical sense, but also loses something. Film can't capture human interiority the way books can, and games don't have the aesthetic precision films do.
you are missing the point. books are words. movies are images which can be words or anything; it is possible to display books page by page inside a movie. games are actions and can have entire movies inside them, i.e. cutscenes, and entire books too, like in Daggerfall.
exactly. i see it as, books are more suited to communicating intellectual information, while films are better at portraying emotional information, to be more immediate or "immersive", just due to the fact that the experience of watching them is closer to how we experience reality, with a combination of senses all at once. both have nuances of their own - they're totally different art forms, after all.
@@evoltaocao5078 I do get the point: Movies also use writing, like books, but on top of that give you video and audio. Videogames are like the movies but on top of that give you interactivity. *MY* point is that even if an art form contains elements from other art forms, it doesn't usually give you ALL the elements, or the same quality of elements. Video games never contain original cutscenes as good as the best movies, or original books as good as the best books. Best dialogues are usually in movies, where you have good writing combined with good acting, sfx, camerawork, lightning, and music. The new Dune movies - and all Dune adaptations, to be honest - cut out MASSIVE amounts from the book. I don't blame them: even though Dune is not a large book, it's extremely dense with information. That said, much of that information is important in understanding the world and the characters, and it's what made the novel a classic. So if you were to say that the Dune adaptations give you everything the Dune novel gives you and more, no, that's very much not true. You do get some extra elements: video and audio, but you also lose elements: much of the complexity and nuance of the original story, and the use of your imagination in bringing that world to life. Just because movies contain writing, like novels do, doesn't mean they can give you everything novel can give you. Instead, they give you other things, that the novel "can't" give you. Same with videogames. Yes, they can contain writing, and video, and audio. But that doesn't mean those elements will be as accomplished as in other mediums: for example, a book or a movie can give you a much tighter story, because their makers control the pacing. Videogames cannot give you that, but they compensate with interactivity. Etc., etc.
Games’ ability to include everything is not only a strength but a weakness - it must include and balance everything in harmony, with less “force” in any single element than it could afford on its own. This is why game music is “stronger” in the 16-bit era, with blaring melodies, huge ostinatos, etc. The simpler 2D representation and limited processing power made more “space” for other game elements, like the music. This is a current struggle of mine - where to cut the design not just for budget reasons, but to “make space” for the things I really care about. Genre probably defines what elements of the “space” need to be filled and to what degree. E.g. visual novels have lots of text, platformers strong music, etc.
0:50 hell yeah! (Also big part of what makes the Bethesda magic imo) 8:26 the key difference games: they are *active* while *all* others are passive. Also, I do tend to prefer games that let me take control as much as possible of the character instead of "outsourcing" it to the machine (e.g. I dislike lock-on). The first person tends to be the best for me since it gives the control to look and go in any direction.
I love videogames that have fantastic interactions or decisions. Some of Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty quest decisions, and Baldur's Gate 3 with the amount of interactions with the world, or Elden Ring's exploration and discovering were amazing. Games are all about memorable and fun interactions.
I'm currently playing Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty, and I encountered 2 things that I more associate with games from the pre 2010s. A battle arena and a boss fight with a giant robot. What is your view on these "bottlenecks" in storylines, especially for rpgs with sandbox elements and a tendency to multiple approaches. I felt overly challenged as I kept dying and reloading and had to sit down, look at my character's strengths and learn how to use the skills I had available to the max extent. At first I was so frustrated that I was close to bite a chunk out of my desk, but after I finally beat it, it felt like a bigger achievement, especially since I didn't have to lower the difficulty, although it was getting close. I don't really have the reflexes for high octane fps, so it was soo hard. But it forced me to learn more about the hacking system.
Thanks so much, this one really resonates with me. I know exactly what you're referring to here in a part of this video- the fact that you could kill child NPCs in Fallout 1 and 2. I totally sympathize with the faces you pull when you're like, "Why did the game _let_ you do that? *You* did that." When I was in about 10th grade, and I played Fallout 1/2, I remember finding graves and a shovel- "Woohoo! Free loot! Hey, what's this grave robber perk? Well, it has a funny illustration." Later on, "Hey, these kids are annoying. I'm in 10th grade! Let's just- whoa, the game actually let me smoke them! Lol! Hey.. what's this horrible reputation perk I just got?" When I finally got to one of the largest cities, I can't remember what it was called, I was so excited to trade all my nefariously-earned caps for some quality weapons and armor. Unfortunately, about 6 guys forced me into combat as soon as I got into line of sight, because I had become kill-on-sight to any person in the Wasteland who still had a soul. I was unable to complete the game and had to restart. I didn't know until I was older how serious a thing it was to put these features in a game, and also how much work it actually is to maintain narrative honesty and make players face legitimate, consistent consequences through quests and NPCs for actions like these. I don't know how many sales you guys lost because of this, but I did recently read that you guys had to make changes just to convince the entire continent of Europe to allow you to sell the Fallout games there!! Thank you for your courage with these features, they're some of the most memorable experiences I've ever had in an RPG, and they made me think a lot, even at that age!
When we discussed games as kids in the 90s with friends, the first thing we always asked was "what do you do in the game?" many especially newer games are like "oh you follow arrows and press buttons when the game tells you to" what an interesting game, maybe it should have been a movie or a comic book instead xD
I've played some games where the character I played said and did things I didn't agree with, and I had no agency in it. It's a frustrating experience. I agree that agency is paramount in gaming, otherwise what are we doing?
I would like to point your eye in the direction of Hidetaka Miyazaki's work, because I think he does this more than anyone else. People sometimes criticize him, even fans, due to the games not having "story." People on reddit or whatever argue about what the story is, because the story isn't told to you directly. You know your own experience, but you have to piece things together like in Star Control 2, to find locations. You also have a 4th person perspective, weird fiction style, that acknowledges the player as external from the game, like Ultima. It's neat. Hidetaka Miyazaki said he pursued video game development because they could do something books couldn't, and I think the way to sum this up is that you can watch a movie of In the Mouth of Madness, but you can't give the watcher that experience. Elden Ring puts you in participation within that scenario. You get to experience being that archaeologist, experiencing things that should not be, through dimensions that you shouldn't be able to think about. Genuinely, video games can present 4th dimensional objects to players, and then in the DLC, they can present the 3rd dimensional shadow of that object, and most people will not get it, because video games are not allowed to be art yet, and artists in video games are not allowed this level of complexity. I hope that I see video games as just another kind of art in my lifetime.
A mentor once told me that mediums try to communicate ideas, and the mechanics that make that medium unique allow it to convey ideas that can't be equally conveyed in other mediums. For me, it's not just that games have actions, but that they create new experiences and put the player into a new mindset that cannot be experienced or replicated in other mediums.
I think this is a big part of why discussion around games can devolve into endless mudslinging over whether a game is good or bad. People will more often than not say they didn't enjoy a book or movie instead of debating its quality as a film but with games the player has ownership over part of their fun in a way that isn't required by other media that can be enjoyed more passively. People playing the same game can have fundamentally different experiences based on their ability and decisions yet games frequently are discussed in binary good/bad terms.
I used to hear the quote a lot: "A picture paints a thousand words". Don't think I need to get into that (I like reading books about the games industry mostly) but anyways... I remember when I was in film studies and the teacher asked a question: "What medium is becoming more and more like movies?" and I answered with "Games". The funny thing is I never thought that was particularly a good thing. The games industry over the years has often looked up to films as being "the big brother" but that's not necessarily true anymore 😉. At that time though was when games were really pushing for cinematic quality (still are in some cases) which is probably how we ended up with things in the AAA industry being as they are now (games taking much longer to make with much bigger production budgets etc etc etc).
I misread the title and it made me think. What are your thoughts on Gaming addiction and the practices some games employ to manipulate the players? Every game has some aspects that are fun and can become addicting, where is the line for a game designer between making a fun game and making something so fun that it can cause an addiction.
Interesting way to see it I will definitely try to compartmentalize the healthy kind of addiction VS manipulation. I haven't seen those videos but I'll look for them. After reading your message my question is definitely more about the manipulative bad design. Although how to make a game so fun its addicting as a designer is equally interesting.
Awesome work as always Tim. Can we hear some of the mistakes, shortcomings, or and/or missed opportunities you yourself have had in game development over the years? As smart and tenured as you are, it’s hard to believe it could happen.
On choice and consequence: I think that games are unique in media in that they can make you feel both pride and shame. You are often complicit in and/or responsible for the outcome. It's not just that you take part in the action, you take ownership of the result.
I'm reminded of when the internet was becoming popular, and marketers were desperate to pump every internet buzzword into their ads. And then they would talk about "interactive games". My response was always, all games are interactive, otherwise they are a movie or a demo. Sure, game is very in terms of the degree of interactivity, but if there's no interactivity, there's no game
I generally agree but I don’t agree with the idea that film can give you “anything you can get with books”. There are certain literary techniques that just cannot be translated visually in an effective way. Things like stream of consciousness, use of meta text (a good example for this is “House of Leaves” and the use of footnotes of “Infinite Jest”), layered narratives as it relates to bias, and many more. Some aspects of story telling are just more effective when written and through language exclusively. For example, the perspective and mental state of the characters/protagonist will always be able to be rendered with more detail and nuance in books than in film, because one’s consciousness and perspective is largely linguistic in nature (consider how for most people thought consists not of clear imagery but instead internal verbal monologue). Film will always be better with things like imagery and juxtaposition, but it can’t hold a candle to literatures ability to capture perspective and consciousness of its characters. In short I’d say that film naturally a better way to explore the external reality of a narrative (e.g. setting, imagery, etc.) but literature is better for rendering internal reality (thought, feeling, perspective, bias, etc.). This means that while actions are not rendered as well in literature as in film and games, characters, when well written, are rendered more clearly and deeply. This is why some stories can only properly be told through certain mediums and not others. Each has a particular set of strengths and weaknesses and an authors goal is to harness those to tell their story in the best manner they can
ironically i think a lot of games can get a lot from books, and unfortunately they've been forced into a ghetto called "interactive fiction" for not having enough guns, coins, or balls
Hey Tim, I've been thinking recently about text in tutorials, specifically what's the most complicated mechanics or concepts you can convey to the player without requiring a text box, and how you would go about doing that. I think about this because there's an extreme hatred from many players of tutorials in general and text box tutorials in particular, but there are certain types of games that have relied on text tutorials so much that it's hard to imagine them without text. I don't think anyone is going to claim a game like Civilization shouldn't have text, as that's a big part of the core gameplay loop too, but games like Xenoblade are often considered egregious in their tutorialization even though I doubt you could explain their more complex mechanics without at least a pop-up on unlock.
This is why Baldur's Gate 3 is a great game that will stick with us for decades: Choices and consequences! Many games would fit in that category, but BG3 is fresh on my mind :D
There is a small niche where you watch your older sibling play something and yell suggestions at them, technically being somewhere between a game and a lets play :P I dont know how universal that experience is but since we only had a family PC back then it was the only way to enjoy gaming when my older siblings want to play
Hey Tim, I have a question about licensing. Im not sure if you were ever involved, but what does the process look like for acquire a license for a song/clip or even IP for one of your games? I would live to know if you have the time. Cheers
Funnily enough, Denis's quote is exactly what George Lucas has said as well. The Star Wars movies have always a huge component of visual storytelling, Lucas directly said he wanted people to be able to watch the movie in another language, and still enjoy it, the same way he could with Kurosawa. The dialogue is extraneous. THX1138, before Star Wars is an even starker example of this artistic choice.
Hey Tim! Not sure if you've answered this already, but I'm wondering about something i see affecting a lot of aspiring game devs and artists; Procrastination. Do you procrastinate? Have you over the years found a good method of avoiding it in the first place, or ridding yourself from It's vice grip, other than the Shia LaBeouf method of "just doing it." Love your vids, best subscription in a while.
While I totally agree, I do think one thing books and films still "have over" games is that those mediums are in a place where they can cover a lot of different subject matter and challenge their audience with difficult and uncomfortable ideas (books more than movies, and by movies I kinda mean not just Hollywood). There are absolutely games that have done this, especially in the indie dev space, but most big games still play it really safe with their stories. A game that beautifully subverts the agency Tim talks about, and plays with the concept of the player having the option to just "not do the thing", is Spec Ops: The Line.
My personal experience with RPGs is what in a truly great ones you are allowed, through the actions your character can take, to express your own thoughts, your reaction to the situation your character finds himself/herself in. So it transcends non-interactive media in that way, almost allowing you to communicate with game creators through your actions, as in a good game it(game) had react to your actions via its consequences. But that only ever makes sense if whoever created game's story had anything interesting and worth reacting in the first place..
I would say that what I like most about games is the experience. Or how can I put this, events I've made? Example from Fallout. My first ever run. It was goddamn tough for me, Fallout was my first ever RPG, so every fight, every new location, every encounter was a learning exercise. I've invested a lot of time and effort in my character, I fought for every crappy item in my inventory, and I felt dread. Dread for my future ahead, because timer was ticking, things got only harder, I felt the wait of mistakes on my shoulder, and was looking for an easy way out. I have found it, Brotherhood. Competent, strong, reliable faction that can get me the loot, help me with Vault, get me a good paying job. Just an easy test, huh? Walk into ruins, get the tape, ez. Well... Not so much. One not particularly successful and really hard trip later - I'm dragging my irradiated soon to be corpse through wasteland. I'm puking my guts out every other mile or so. My hair and teeth are falling out. I had spent all my money on supplies, rad x and radaway as well as Geiger counter. Didn't helped me much, now my expensive piece of tin is only good for telling me I'm dead. Gamble didn't payed off, halfway through the wasteland, I succumb to radiation sickness, and that's were my quest ends. Literally, I had 2 saves, main and backup one, both have me after I visited the Glow. I have to start again. But this experience, this event stuck with me in great detail after all those years. And this was legendary! All anxiety, gratification, challenge, excitement, and honest to god depression I've got from this journey made this so much more earned, and satisfying. Consequence, weight of my own decisions, and accurate portrayal of what it's like, to go through such struggle - that's what made it real. But this is just one way to do this, in all of my favorite games I have similar stories, those experiences, that made those games for me worth it
I like choice and consequence. I love it in RPGs. But I especially love it in the Supermassive horror games where I really think I made the right decision but oh boy did I mess up and I can’t fix it
Tim you would be very interested int the game called Noita, it has one of the most complex worlds ever in the history of gaming in terms of discovery. You must already know it by now but there is a whole rabbit hole going on with this game!
A company that I think did this very well (before their collapse - they restarted, but their newer products don't quite compare) was Telltale Games. They really understood just how cool it was to be *doing* these things that you'd normally just watch someone else do in a film. It really captures that sense of action and adventure when the action is defined by your own performance. I could never care about the new transformers films, but piloting a giant robot in Telltale's Tales from the Borderlands, and proceeding to fight a kaiju? Now that was fun. Of course, as far as I'm aware, they were also the only game development company that truly understood cinematography... something that's unfortunate given how many new games may as well just be movies given their lack of gameplay. Egh.
Another thought: So... it makes visual novel or "choose your own adventure" more game than linear first person shooter?😄 You make decision, which influence the story progression and in linear FPS almost all players' actions are almost the same.
I think it's fine to have linear stories until a certain point. But I think it's more important to allowed the players to continued playing their favorite games "after the stories".
Hey Tim! I feel the quality of satire in Outerworlds is fantastic and more relevant than ever today. Would love to hear your opinions on what makes good satire.
I'd like to add player movement to something only games can do. Games like Titanfall 2 or Mirror's Edge that immerse the player in the role of a character whose agency in the environment comes through movement is something that only games can do.
In books authors are constrained by how many words/pages they are willing to use to describe a location in varying degrees of detail. In TV/movies the director/editor is constrained by time, too quick and details are missed, too long and tedium sets in. In games players have the opportunity to explore at their own pace looking for hidden clues and potential easter eggs, or just not bother.
this is an interesting topic. i personally believe that since games are made with intent, both what is and is not in the game says a lot about the creators. I think people will always be inclined to do achievement-hunting and wiki-documenting. When someone really latches on to a piece of media, it becomes irrelevant which choices have consequences. To the interested player, this becomes more content to complete. I think Undertale's meta-narrative has spoiled me; no game manages to understand the link between immersion and ludonarrative dissonance like that one. Once you commit to the violent ending, the world never truly forgets what has happened, even if you return to it with more empathy than the last time. Undertale exposes the contradiction that lies at the heart of every game - we are in control, but we also have no control over our circumstances. The violent route has the hardest boss fight, and the least rewarding experience. It's downright miserable. The determination of a player is a part of the story - determination allows video game players to throw themselves at a problem time and time again. And those who love the game the most may end up doing worse things to the world in pursuit of challenge or content than those who have a passive enjoyment of it. very good video! thank you for all the work you do!
I agree with you. But then what about games like Senua, especially the second one with close to zero player agency (which I really do not like, but I respect the devs for trying something... well something, that is fundamentally to far from being a game for me. Video game does not mean great combat or action all the time. But it DOES mean you as a player have some agency in what is happening on the screen. Am I crazy?
Maybe this explains why I would rather play video games than watch TV/movies, because of the participation aspect. Some games have stories that are as long and complex as a season (or more) of TV but I get to be the star. lol
I would say books and films are just like games in the regard of discovery, since they are not for everybody the same. I mean I might look at the lines or scenes with a different perspective than you and I sure will have my own interpretation what the things mean. But yes, films are easy to just consume passively, but I engage with them just as much as I do with games. You mention the Marvel films, and sure one can watch them just as superficial entertainment, but one could take from The Eternals for example plenty of thoughts about being given purpose or having to create meaning for oneself. And I would argue that that is quite a deep theme to explore. But I guess it boils in the end down to how much people like to add in their own imagination to a work, and since I certainly enjoy doing so, and that is why I find books superior to films. And prefer TTRPGs over video games
The 8th Art? Another parallel with Literature and Cinema, is the way these artistic story telling means have all been seen as a shameful waste of time for the youth who first got in contact with them at a relatively popular and widespread level. I remember discovering that a young colleague of mine was into video games, not more than 6 years ago. It's so recent, and yet he still was somewhat "ashamed to confess" he played video games as a hobby, as if that was something no adult should waste their time on. He's 15 years younger than me, and so I was immediately taking the sage uncle role and telling him not to be ashamed, that Video Games are THE form of expression for his generation... Then I remembered, wtf, and I told him! "No, wait, you guys get it too easy like that. They're the expression form for MY generation: find yourself something else, you thieves!" (LOL!). Thanks for your videos!
Games are also remembered for great lines! "Updated my journal.", "Time is not you enemy, forever is.", "Elminster this, Elminster that! Give ME a few hundred years and a pointy hat and I'll kick his arse!", "You must gather your party before venturing forth." just to name a few.
Completely agree. Unfortunately though, you're describing a very small subset of games and I think that's sad. I think it's sad to see blockbuster movie-like games with none of the qualities you mentioned celebrated as the pinnacle of gaming.
I cannot believe players would complain at more choice, in any RPG/sandbox/open-world game the most annoying thing to me is when I stop thinking about "me", and start thinking "the character I'm playing." Even in great games like Read Dead Redemption 2 or Cyberpunk 2077 I have such a hard time dealing with the mix of choices and consequence and then being railroaded into situations that I lose any option other then to accept I have no control.
What I love and look for in a game is when actions have very direct consequences. I'd rather have a clear direct consequence to my action than something that changed the future outcomes by some obscure logic.
A book or movie may transmit the same images/words to everyone experiencing the thing, but not everyone receives the exact same imagery or words. That's not how communication works.
"Films can transcend books". The only book I've seen that happen to was "do androids dream of electric sheep" and bladerunner. And then after that the bladerunner game. The movie better than the book, the game better than the movie. This happens once in a century.
Case in point, Tim brought up The Glow from Fallout 1 yesterday. One of my favorite gaming experiences was leaving the Glow a lot more irradiated than I thought: I couldn't wait there, or take enough Rad-X to purge the system, or get to a doctor fast enough... My character died in fast travel, every time. That would be a lousy movie, book or TV show. But in a GAME, I've remembered it for over 10 years.
Hi Tim, Really love the discussion and comparison here. It also reminded me of my college thesis on defining what a game is. How would you define what a game is (not just video game but games as a whole). Thanks!
Books are tricky. Yes, everyone has the same book but each person's experience with that book can be different. I have spent the last 20 years debating the meaning of the Frank Herbert Dune books with other people. Everyone has their own bias and that colors how they interpret information.
In Modern Warfare 2's controversial mission "No Russian" most players will join in with the killing of civilians. But the game never tells you to do so and there are no consequences for holding fire.
"Games: Agency as Art" is a book that agrees with this take, but takes a more academic philosophy of art approach to exploring why it is.
Thank you! I am definitely reading this.
I agree with the title. It's about agency, i.e. freedom. Actions are derivative of that, and subject to choice.
"Agency" always felt like a limited way of thinking about what sets games apart. You have basically zero agency in most classic console and arcade titles. But you do have presence.
One of my favorite videos from you.
I wish more people would realize this.
One of my favourite game devs discussing a quote from one of my favourite film directors is just what I needed today!
I feel like the logical end point for storytelling in video games is to have games without a linear narrative where you make a story for yourself. A lot of big games coming out the last decade or so could've been TV shows or even just movies instead, which is obviously fine, people can make the games they want to make, but I'm a huge fan of games like The Outer Wilds (don't look it up if you haven't played it, just play it) that really push how you can do storytelling in a way exclusive to games. Mount & Blade is another interesting way it can go, where the story writes itself depending on what you feel like doing with that character. The interactive element can be absolutely massive for telling completely unique stories you can't do with any other medium and it's always super exciting to see it done well.
It's because that takes great effort and the willingness to make content that will be missed. Few take it.
I remember the Way of the Samurai games for instance, they are rather short in length, but usually have more than +10 routes and ways you can interact with the world. Just like Temple of Elemental Evil.
This is effort we sadly don't see too often. I myself work on a game myself right now, a tiny project meant for fun (maybe it will become more later). Doing story branches, I realized how much effort it is. You have to have many different dialogues more, many reactions, many more events. And what's more: You got to have different sides and reactions mapped out for every character.
It's great when you pull it off. But if it doesn't work, you feel all that was wasted.
I agree with this 200% 👍 I LOVE games like that!
I feel there's enough games out there for both. I play a lot of games, and a lot of different games. I love Outer Wilds. I'd have it in my personal top ten. I'm also really enjoying Indika atm and that is absolutely virtually all story with game bits thrown in. Another game I've loved this year was Harold Halibut. I realized at the end that a chunk of it was a fancy walking simulator but it told a good story, and the art is stop motion and looks absolutely fantastic. I think the games are brilliant because they can be so many things, sometimes in the same game.
Some of the early access open world games (like Minecraft) when it was new just put you in a world and let you do what you want. Unfortunately, the masses tend to insist that a game must have a story and an end.
Kenshi is a great example of this style of game. Interesting setting and mechanics, but no formal story or quests really, the player chooses how they want to approach the game.
Fully agree. Video games are a particularly compelling way to explore philosophy and one's own values, moreso than books or movies because of your direct interactions with the game worlds. Great books and movies ask important questions about the human condition, but games put you in the position of answering those questions yourself.
That’s a great point. I’m going to explore morality more in tomorrow’s video.
Favorite moment I had in new Vegas was going straight to the fallen vertibird at a low level and had to dodge and combat sentry bots with a large pool of 5.59 ammo and managed to take out each of the bots by hiding behind a rock slowly dwindling their health down I even miraculously dodged their rockets too lol.
Your take on players causing certain situations and these situations being player's fault and not the game's is sooo on point. I'm going to be referencing this video a lot in the future. This is just beyond words on point! I wish more people would understand this instead of just banning certain things in games or just whole games because they don't care.
Animal Well is a game with absolutely no dialogue.
It's like halo 2 meets halo 3
Noita is a game with no dialogue
Hyper Light Drifter too!
Technically minecraft, rainworld, holocure. None of them have voice acting or dialogue. Sure there are orher examples but we dont even need to go into racingames or puzzles where it seems dialogue would get in the way most of the time.
My game is a game with no dialogue because I have not started it yet.
Glad to hear a shoutout for Deni Villeneuve! I also love movies that are open to interpretation, he's one of my favourite directors along with Alex Garland! I'd be interested to hear your interpretation of Enemy (2013) because it was pretty out there even by his standards!
Yeah any movie that has me discussing it's interpretation afterwards, gets marks in my book.
Thank you, this kind of discussion was exactly the motivation hyper-charger I needed right now for a quest script I'm working on where almost all the content will not be seen by most players.
Hello, Tim. Have you ever taught about writing a book about game design? Or do you have any suggestions?
No, thank YOU, Tim, for another great video. My work breaks wouldnt be the same without you.
I've always liked games more than movies because they can only be experienced through actions. A movie "happens" to you, but you can't passively finish a game like you said.
Also, I always liked the fact that a game can get to know you, check what actions you prefer, understand you and change its way to engage you based on what you do. I feel like you get to develop a way more personal connection with games because they track you to understand you as a player, however artificial and limited this understanding can be.
All those games that predict very quirky and obscure ways that the player will interact with them, and then offer a consquence to that, even if small and insignificant, always manage to leave a mark.
I have a question that might be left unanswered, beacuse it might've been already asked: Mr Cain, what do you think about Game Jams? Do you participate in them? And if yes, then which one was the most fun for you?
Tim Cain describes Red Dead Redemption 2
That's what I love about games. No two stories have to be the same. Part of the reason my slogan is "Our worlds, your adventures!"
Big reason why I like Elder Scrolls Like games. You go out and there's a main quest but you can run into all kinds of random things and go off in different directions.
I think literature can have an even deeper level of discovery because, though it can be something about the setting you miss on a first read-through, it can also help you discover something about yourself. For example, reading Tolstoy at 20 years of age is bound to be qualitatively different from reading his works at 30, 40 and so on.
I've drawn comparisons between games and books multiple times over the years, but I don't think I have gone about it to this much depth. Specially when it comes to choice and how scenes take place. Definitely something to think about moving forward. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on what I now realize is a very important subject.
One of my favorite examples of discovery in a game, comes from Jeff Vogels games, exile is amazing but the first geneforge game does this better than any game. You are stranded on a quarantined island, and you are discovering why that happened, what has been going on, how you fit in etc... But if you really search the oldest ruins and most difficult areas, you can figure out the origin story for the entire setting... And it may change your view on the events in the game... You don't have to, most people don't find it.... But it feels really fulfilling and to me it changed my choices and prefered path through the game... Great game!
I think a good example of this is companion in Portal, where your relationship is built entirely on the actions you take towards it; the player has a direct personal involvement with it. A book or movie could perhaps create a similar emotional attachment, but not in the same way.
I agree wholeheartedly, and have believed for many years that games (interactive media) will be one of the pillars of future entertainment. Imagine seeing an Avengers film, but also having the option to experience it as one of the characters within a VR environment, with advanced AGIs capable of adapting to player responses and choices on the fly - maybe even allow drop-in/out capability so the consumer could experience different characters/roles whenever they wish.
It's one thing to tell a fable around a campfire and hope your audience gets the core themes and messages, it's another when they get to experience it themselves - to have an opportunity to truly walk a mile in someone else's shoes, maybe tread new paths the creator never anticipated. The artist learns from their viewer, the viewer becomes the artist. This is something that's available to us in reality - and imitated/experienced to a lesser degree by other mediums - but is most strongly felt within games.
As an aside Mr. Cain, the relationship between artist/consumer fascinates me. I've wondered how the experience of creating a game can very much be a sort of game itself and how a piece of media can, in a way, present as multiple mediums simultaneously;
The writer creates a speculative fiction, hoping it will be viewed through a particular lens; A story.
The actor impacts the fiction in how they interpret the work, and is impacted in the process; A game.
The viewer consumes the work - it may or may not have the impact the author originally intended - but they assimilate it; A personal adaption.
Finally, all involved digest it and excrete it out in their future works; Thus sowing seeds of change.
Birth/Life/Death/Reincarnation, tying all stories together into an oversoul. It's friggin beautiful dude.
OMG, this seems so obvious once you've heard it, but I never thought about it this way. Thank you! 🤯🤩
I love your channel! I love the fact you speak your mind.
Another amazing video, thank you!! As much as movies/books have provided me with fond memories, sometimes even shocking ones, the effect that specific games have had on me is second to none. It's exactly what you said, the ability to make the choice and live with the consequences of that. I would be very interested in hearing your opinion on interactive films, I'm not sure how many there are, but "Black Mirror Bandersnatch" is definitely a movie that traversed the waters of making choices in a movie environment, albeit in a sometimes chaotic way, in my opinion. In general, what is your take on interactive films, do you think that it could be an interesting medium, kinda like a hybrid between RPGs and movies?
I enjoy the little things you do to make "It's me Tim" a little different.
Reminds me of how The Simpsons always had the same intro, but different.
Villeneuve's movies look amazing. Megalophobic, bleak, dangerous. Perfect director for Dune and Bladerunner.
It always blew my mind that people thought of games a lower art form. Movies and books and paintings are considered artistic in part because the reader is able to interpret them - that's cranked up to 11 in games. It's unavoidable, your gameplay IS your interpretation. To play a game is to interpret it.
Even games that I've made that are totally linear, story driven with heavy cutscenes, with no character creation or huge consequences to your actions. When I watch all the lets plays on youtube, I still never see the game twice. It's a unique little joy that only game devs (and probably music composers) get.
It took movies like 20 years to get respect as an art form. If you think movies are just silly entertainment for fair grounds, then you see Metropolis, and you've never seen a real visual spectacle before, the mind blow immediately cements cinema as an art form in your mind. Games have been around for like 50 years now and people still think of them as children's toys. I think it's because you can't just quickly show someone the the special sauce of a game like you can with movies.
i genuinely think games need that new hollywood moment
We need more of this kind of thinking!
"Everything you get in a book, and more" - not quite.
Books can have a lot of detail and nuance that can easily get lost in a movie.
This can be seen in adapting books into movie, but also vice versa, when you read novelizations made after movies, you can get a lot of stuff that's not present in the original medium.
I read novelizations after Terminator 1 and 2, and enjoyed them quite a lot, surprisingly as it may seem.
Same for Star Wars original trilogy, same for Rambo 1-2-3.
They are not just quotes.
In fact, most quotes I remember and use are from movies, not books.
Each has their own strengths, and beauties.
Yeah I agree. I think the same is true of the relationship between films and games too. Sure, each medium gains something over the other in a mechanical sense, but also loses something. Film can't capture human interiority the way books can, and games don't have the aesthetic precision films do.
you are missing the point. books are words. movies are images which can be words or anything; it is possible to display books page by page inside a movie. games are actions and can have entire movies inside them, i.e. cutscenes, and entire books too, like in Daggerfall.
exactly. i see it as, books are more suited to communicating intellectual information, while films are better at portraying emotional information, to be more immediate or "immersive", just due to the fact that the experience of watching them is closer to how we experience reality, with a combination of senses all at once. both have nuances of their own - they're totally different art forms, after all.
@@evoltaocao5078 I do get the point:
Movies also use writing, like books, but on top of that give you video and audio.
Videogames are like the movies but on top of that give you interactivity.
*MY* point is that even if an art form contains elements from other art forms, it doesn't usually give you ALL the elements, or the same quality of elements.
Video games never contain original cutscenes as good as the best movies, or original books as good as the best books.
Best dialogues are usually in movies, where you have good writing combined with good acting, sfx, camerawork, lightning, and music.
The new Dune movies - and all Dune adaptations, to be honest - cut out MASSIVE amounts from the book.
I don't blame them: even though Dune is not a large book, it's extremely dense with information.
That said, much of that information is important in understanding the world and the characters, and it's what made the novel a classic.
So if you were to say that the Dune adaptations give you everything the Dune novel gives you and more, no, that's very much not true.
You do get some extra elements: video and audio, but you also lose elements: much of the complexity and nuance of the original story, and the use of your imagination in bringing that world to life.
Just because movies contain writing, like novels do, doesn't mean they can give you everything novel can give you.
Instead, they give you other things, that the novel "can't" give you.
Same with videogames. Yes, they can contain writing, and video, and audio.
But that doesn't mean those elements will be as accomplished as in other mediums: for example, a book or a movie can give you a much tighter story, because their makers control the pacing.
Videogames cannot give you that, but they compensate with interactivity.
Etc., etc.
@@resiseven7407
Exactly. You said it better than I could.
Games’ ability to include everything is not only a strength but a weakness - it must include and balance everything in harmony, with less “force” in any single element than it could afford on its own.
This is why game music is “stronger” in the 16-bit era, with blaring melodies, huge ostinatos, etc. The simpler 2D representation and limited processing power made more “space” for other game elements, like the music.
This is a current struggle of mine - where to cut the design not just for budget reasons, but to “make space” for the things I really care about.
Genre probably defines what elements of the “space” need to be filled and to what degree. E.g. visual novels have lots of text, platformers strong music, etc.
Thank you for making this point so well.
0:50 hell yeah! (Also big part of what makes the Bethesda magic imo)
8:26 the key difference games: they are *active* while *all* others are passive. Also, I do tend to prefer games that let me take control as much as possible of the character instead of "outsourcing" it to the machine (e.g. I dislike lock-on). The first person tends to be the best for me since it gives the control to look and go in any direction.
I love videogames that have fantastic interactions or decisions. Some of Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty quest decisions, and Baldur's Gate 3 with the amount of interactions with the world, or Elden Ring's exploration and discovering were amazing. Games are all about memorable and fun interactions.
I'm currently playing Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty, and I encountered 2 things that I more associate with games from the pre 2010s.
A battle arena and a boss fight with a giant robot.
What is your view on these "bottlenecks" in storylines, especially for rpgs with sandbox elements and a tendency to multiple approaches. I felt overly challenged as I kept dying and reloading and had to sit down, look at my character's strengths and learn how to use the skills I had available to the max extent.
At first I was so frustrated that I was close to bite a chunk out of my desk, but after I finally beat it, it felt like a bigger achievement, especially since I didn't have to lower the difficulty, although it was getting close. I don't really have the reflexes for high octane fps, so it was soo hard. But it forced me to learn more about the hacking system.
Thanks so much, this one really resonates with me. I know exactly what you're referring to here in a part of this video- the fact that you could kill child NPCs in Fallout 1 and 2. I totally sympathize with the faces you pull when you're like, "Why did the game _let_ you do that? *You* did that."
When I was in about 10th grade, and I played Fallout 1/2, I remember finding graves and a shovel- "Woohoo! Free loot! Hey, what's this grave robber perk? Well, it has a funny illustration." Later on, "Hey, these kids are annoying. I'm in 10th grade! Let's just- whoa, the game actually let me smoke them! Lol! Hey.. what's this horrible reputation perk I just got?" When I finally got to one of the largest cities, I can't remember what it was called, I was so excited to trade all my nefariously-earned caps for some quality weapons and armor. Unfortunately, about 6 guys forced me into combat as soon as I got into line of sight, because I had become kill-on-sight to any person in the Wasteland who still had a soul.
I was unable to complete the game and had to restart. I didn't know until I was older how serious a thing it was to put these features in a game, and also how much work it actually is to maintain narrative honesty and make players face legitimate, consistent consequences through quests and NPCs for actions like these. I don't know how many sales you guys lost because of this, but I did recently read that you guys had to make changes just to convince the entire continent of Europe to allow you to sell the Fallout games there!! Thank you for your courage with these features, they're some of the most memorable experiences I've ever had in an RPG, and they made me think a lot, even at that age!
When we discussed games as kids in the 90s with friends, the first thing we always asked was "what do you do in the game?"
many especially newer games are like "oh you follow arrows and press buttons when the game tells you to" what an interesting game, maybe it should have been a movie or a comic book instead xD
tbf older games were also this most of the time. people just thought they were just toys then.
Books -> Imagining
Movies -> Watching
Games -> Interacting
Each has it's own purpose I would say and all of them can be great for me.
I've played some games where the character I played said and did things I didn't agree with, and I had no agency in it. It's a frustrating experience. I agree that agency is paramount in gaming, otherwise what are we doing?
I would like to point your eye in the direction of Hidetaka Miyazaki's work, because I think he does this more than anyone else. People sometimes criticize him, even fans, due to the games not having "story." People on reddit or whatever argue about what the story is, because the story isn't told to you directly. You know your own experience, but you have to piece things together like in Star Control 2, to find locations. You also have a 4th person perspective, weird fiction style, that acknowledges the player as external from the game, like Ultima. It's neat.
Hidetaka Miyazaki said he pursued video game development because they could do something books couldn't, and I think the way to sum this up is that you can watch a movie of In the Mouth of Madness, but you can't give the watcher that experience. Elden Ring puts you in participation within that scenario. You get to experience being that archaeologist, experiencing things that should not be, through dimensions that you shouldn't be able to think about.
Genuinely, video games can present 4th dimensional objects to players, and then in the DLC, they can present the 3rd dimensional shadow of that object, and most people will not get it, because video games are not allowed to be art yet, and artists in video games are not allowed this level of complexity. I hope that I see video games as just another kind of art in my lifetime.
A mentor once told me that mediums try to communicate ideas, and the mechanics that make that medium unique allow it to convey ideas that can't be equally conveyed in other mediums. For me, it's not just that games have actions, but that they create new experiences and put the player into a new mindset that cannot be experienced or replicated in other mediums.
Actually made me think about design differently, which is very welcome.
I think this is a big part of why discussion around games can devolve into endless mudslinging over whether a game is good or bad. People will more often than not say they didn't enjoy a book or movie instead of debating its quality as a film but with games the player has ownership over part of their fun in a way that isn't required by other media that can be enjoyed more passively. People playing the same game can have fundamentally different experiences based on their ability and decisions yet games frequently are discussed in binary good/bad terms.
I used to hear the quote a lot: "A picture paints a thousand words". Don't think I need to get into that (I like reading books about the games industry mostly) but anyways...
I remember when I was in film studies and the teacher asked a question: "What medium is becoming more and more like movies?" and I answered with "Games". The funny thing is I never thought that was particularly a good thing. The games industry over the years has often looked up to films as being "the big brother" but that's not necessarily true anymore 😉. At that time though was when games were really pushing for cinematic quality (still are in some cases) which is probably how we ended up with things in the AAA industry being as they are now (games taking much longer to make with much bigger production budgets etc etc etc).
I misread the title and it made me think. What are your thoughts on Gaming addiction and the practices some games employ to manipulate the players? Every game has some aspects that are fun and can become addicting, where is the line for a game designer between making a fun game and making something so fun that it can cause an addiction.
Interesting way to see it I will definitely try to compartmentalize the healthy kind of addiction VS manipulation. I haven't seen those videos but I'll look for them. After reading your message my question is definitely more about the manipulative bad design. Although how to make a game so fun its addicting as a designer is equally interesting.
Awesome work as always Tim. Can we hear some of the mistakes, shortcomings, or and/or missed opportunities you yourself have had in game development over the years? As smart and tenured as you are, it’s hard to believe it could happen.
On choice and consequence: I think that games are unique in media in that they can make you feel both pride and shame. You are often complicit in and/or responsible for the outcome. It's not just that you take part in the action, you take ownership of the result.
I'm reminded of when the internet was becoming popular, and marketers were desperate to pump every internet buzzword into their ads. And then they would talk about "interactive games". My response was always, all games are interactive, otherwise they are a movie or a demo.
Sure, game is very in terms of the degree of interactivity, but if there's no interactivity, there's no game
I generally agree but I don’t agree with the idea that film can give you “anything you can get with books”. There are certain literary techniques that just cannot be translated visually in an effective way. Things like stream of consciousness, use of meta text (a good example for this is “House of Leaves” and the use of footnotes of “Infinite Jest”), layered narratives as it relates to bias, and many more. Some aspects of story telling are just more effective when written and through language exclusively. For example, the perspective and mental state of the characters/protagonist will always be able to be rendered with more detail and nuance in books than in film, because one’s consciousness and perspective is largely linguistic in nature (consider how for most people thought consists not of clear imagery but instead internal verbal monologue). Film will always be better with things like imagery and juxtaposition, but it can’t hold a candle to literatures ability to capture perspective and consciousness of its characters. In short I’d say that film naturally a better way to explore the external reality of a narrative (e.g. setting, imagery, etc.) but literature is better for rendering internal reality (thought, feeling, perspective, bias, etc.). This means that while actions are not rendered as well in literature as in film and games, characters, when well written, are rendered more clearly and deeply. This is why some stories can only properly be told through certain mediums and not others. Each has a particular set of strengths and weaknesses and an authors goal is to harness those to tell their story in the best manner they can
ironically i think a lot of games can get a lot from books, and unfortunately they've been forced into a ghetto called "interactive fiction" for not having enough guns, coins, or balls
Hey Tim, I've been thinking recently about text in tutorials, specifically what's the most complicated mechanics or concepts you can convey to the player without requiring a text box, and how you would go about doing that.
I think about this because there's an extreme hatred from many players of tutorials in general and text box tutorials in particular, but there are certain types of games that have relied on text tutorials so much that it's hard to imagine them without text.
I don't think anyone is going to claim a game like Civilization shouldn't have text, as that's a big part of the core gameplay loop too, but games like Xenoblade are often considered egregious in their tutorialization even though I doubt you could explain their more complex mechanics without at least a pop-up on unlock.
This is why Baldur's Gate 3 is a great game that will stick with us for decades: Choices and consequences!
Many games would fit in that category, but BG3 is fresh on my mind :D
There is a small niche where you watch your older sibling play something and yell suggestions at them, technically being somewhere between a game and a lets play :P
I dont know how universal that experience is but since we only had a family PC back then it was the only way to enjoy gaming when my older siblings want to play
Hey Tim, I have a question about licensing. Im not sure if you were ever involved, but what does the process look like for acquire a license for a song/clip or even IP for one of your games? I would live to know if you have the time. Cheers
Funnily enough, Denis's quote is exactly what George Lucas has said as well. The Star Wars movies have always a huge component of visual storytelling, Lucas directly said he wanted people to be able to watch the movie in another language, and still enjoy it, the same way he could with Kurosawa. The dialogue is extraneous. THX1138, before Star Wars is an even starker example of this artistic choice.
Hey Tim!
Not sure if you've answered this already, but I'm wondering about something i see affecting a lot of aspiring game devs and artists; Procrastination. Do you procrastinate? Have you over the years found a good method of avoiding it in the first place, or ridding yourself from It's vice grip, other than the Shia LaBeouf method of "just doing it."
Love your vids, best subscription in a while.
You’ll probably like my video Stop Making Excuses
ruclips.net/video/qqP6oa7ShRw/видео.html
While I totally agree, I do think one thing books and films still "have over" games is that those mediums are in a place where they can cover a lot of different subject matter and challenge their audience with difficult and uncomfortable ideas (books more than movies, and by movies I kinda mean not just Hollywood). There are absolutely games that have done this, especially in the indie dev space, but most big games still play it really safe with their stories.
A game that beautifully subverts the agency Tim talks about, and plays with the concept of the player having the option to just "not do the thing", is Spec Ops: The Line.
My personal experience with RPGs is what in a truly great ones you are allowed, through the actions your character can take, to express your own thoughts, your reaction to the situation your character finds himself/herself in. So it transcends non-interactive media in that way, almost allowing you to communicate with game creators through your actions, as in a good game it(game) had react to your actions via its consequences. But that only ever makes sense if whoever created game's story had anything interesting and worth reacting in the first place..
I would say that what I like most about games is the experience. Or how can I put this, events I've made? Example from Fallout. My first ever run. It was goddamn tough for me, Fallout was my first ever RPG, so every fight, every new location, every encounter was a learning exercise. I've invested a lot of time and effort in my character, I fought for every crappy item in my inventory, and I felt dread. Dread for my future ahead, because timer was ticking, things got only harder, I felt the wait of mistakes on my shoulder, and was looking for an easy way out. I have found it, Brotherhood. Competent, strong, reliable faction that can get me the loot, help me with Vault, get me a good paying job. Just an easy test, huh? Walk into ruins, get the tape, ez. Well... Not so much. One not particularly successful and really hard trip later - I'm dragging my irradiated soon to be corpse through wasteland. I'm puking my guts out every other mile or so. My hair and teeth are falling out. I had spent all my money on supplies, rad x and radaway as well as Geiger counter. Didn't helped me much, now my expensive piece of tin is only good for telling me I'm dead. Gamble didn't payed off, halfway through the wasteland, I succumb to radiation sickness, and that's were my quest ends. Literally, I had 2 saves, main and backup one, both have me after I visited the Glow. I have to start again. But this experience, this event stuck with me in great detail after all those years. And this was legendary! All anxiety, gratification, challenge, excitement, and honest to god depression I've got from this journey made this so much more earned, and satisfying. Consequence, weight of my own decisions, and accurate portrayal of what it's like, to go through such struggle - that's what made it real. But this is just one way to do this, in all of my favorite games I have similar stories, those experiences, that made those games for me worth it
I like choice and consequence. I love it in RPGs. But I especially love it in the Supermassive horror games where I really think I made the right decision but oh boy did I mess up and I can’t fix it
Tim you would be very interested int the game called Noita, it has one of the most complex worlds ever in the history of gaming in terms of discovery. You must already know it by now but there is a whole rabbit hole going on with this game!
A company that I think did this very well (before their collapse - they restarted, but their newer products don't quite compare) was Telltale Games. They really understood just how cool it was to be *doing* these things that you'd normally just watch someone else do in a film. It really captures that sense of action and adventure when the action is defined by your own performance.
I could never care about the new transformers films, but piloting a giant robot in Telltale's Tales from the Borderlands, and proceeding to fight a kaiju? Now that was fun.
Of course, as far as I'm aware, they were also the only game development company that truly understood cinematography... something that's unfortunate given how many new games may as well just be movies given their lack of gameplay. Egh.
if telltale is the peak of interactivity hear you should check out this obscure indie game called the legend of zelda breath of the wild
Another thought:
So... it makes visual novel or "choose your own adventure" more game than linear first person shooter?😄
You make decision, which influence the story progression and in linear FPS almost all players' actions are almost the same.
This is a realization I've had. You're not jumping around racking up points or getting triple kills, but you make actual choices that do something.
Are you involved in The Outer Worlds 2 Timothy? You are an amazing human being and an artist! Been following your journey on RUclips
6:20 "You CHOSE!.... I chose"
Amen!
I think it's fine to have linear stories until a certain point. But I think it's more important to allowed the players to continued playing their favorite games "after the stories".
Hey Tim!
I feel the quality of satire in Outerworlds is fantastic and more relevant than ever today. Would love to hear your opinions on what makes good satire.
I'd like to add player movement to something only games can do. Games like Titanfall 2 or Mirror's Edge that immerse the player in the role of a character whose agency in the environment comes through movement is something that only games can do.
"Hi, Every Tim. It's me, One."
In books authors are constrained by how many words/pages they are willing to use to describe a location in varying degrees of detail.
In TV/movies the director/editor is constrained by time, too quick and details are missed, too long and tedium sets in.
In games players have the opportunity to explore at their own pace looking for hidden clues and potential easter eggs, or just not bother.
well said
Similarly like Hidetaka Miyazaki said "A well designed world can tell its story in silence". About Dark Souls 1.
this is an interesting topic. i personally believe that since games are made with intent, both what is and is not in the game says a lot about the creators. I think people will always be inclined to do achievement-hunting and wiki-documenting. When someone really latches on to a piece of media, it becomes irrelevant which choices have consequences. To the interested player, this becomes more content to complete. I think Undertale's meta-narrative has spoiled me; no game manages to understand the link between immersion and ludonarrative dissonance like that one. Once you commit to the violent ending, the world never truly forgets what has happened, even if you return to it with more empathy than the last time. Undertale exposes the contradiction that lies at the heart of every game - we are in control, but we also have no control over our circumstances. The violent route has the hardest boss fight, and the least rewarding experience. It's downright miserable. The determination of a player is a part of the story - determination allows video game players to throw themselves at a problem time and time again. And those who love the game the most may end up doing worse things to the world in pursuit of challenge or content than those who have a passive enjoyment of it.
very good video! thank you for all the work you do!
I agree with you. But then what about games like Senua, especially the second one with close to zero player agency (which I really do not like, but I respect the devs for trying something... well something, that is fundamentally to far from being a game for me. Video game does not mean great combat or action all the time. But it DOES mean you as a player have some agency in what is happening on the screen. Am I crazy?
"This War of Mine" is a great game that has choice and consequence
Maybe this explains why I would rather play video games than watch TV/movies, because of the participation aspect. Some games have stories that are as long and complex as a season (or more) of TV but I get to be the star. lol
Choices. You mean choices, not actions. And you are right.
Choose your own adventure books
I would say books and films are just like games in the regard of discovery, since they are not for everybody the same. I mean I might look at the lines or scenes with a different perspective than you and I sure will have my own interpretation what the things mean. But yes, films are easy to just consume passively, but I engage with them just as much as I do with games. You mention the Marvel films, and sure one can watch them just as superficial entertainment, but one could take from The Eternals for example plenty of thoughts about being given purpose or having to create meaning for oneself. And I would argue that that is quite a deep theme to explore. But I guess it boils in the end down to how much people like to add in their own imagination to a work, and since I certainly enjoy doing so, and that is why I find books superior to films. And prefer TTRPGs over video games
The 8th Art?
Another parallel with Literature and Cinema,
is the way these artistic story telling means have all been seen as a shameful waste of time for the youth who first got in contact with them at a relatively popular and widespread level.
I remember discovering that a young colleague of mine was into video games, not more than 6 years ago.
It's so recent, and yet he still was somewhat "ashamed to confess" he played video games as a hobby,
as if that was something no adult should waste their time on.
He's 15 years younger than me, and so I was immediately taking the sage uncle role and telling him not to be ashamed,
that Video Games are THE form of expression for his generation...
Then I remembered, wtf, and I told him!
"No, wait, you guys get it too easy like that. They're the expression form for MY generation:
find yourself something else, you thieves!"
(LOL!).
Thanks for your videos!
Games are also remembered for great lines! "Updated my journal.", "Time is not you enemy, forever is.", "Elminster this, Elminster that! Give ME a few hundred years and a pointy hat and I'll kick his arse!", "You must gather your party before venturing forth." just to name a few.
RICHIE likes BALLS!
Hi Tim!
Completely agree.
Unfortunately though, you're describing a very small subset of games and I think that's sad.
I think it's sad to see blockbuster movie-like games with none of the qualities you mentioned celebrated as the pinnacle of gaming.
I cannot believe players would complain at more choice, in any RPG/sandbox/open-world game the most annoying thing to me is when I stop thinking about "me", and start thinking "the character I'm playing."
Even in great games like Read Dead Redemption 2 or Cyberpunk 2077 I have such a hard time dealing with the mix of choices and consequence and then being railroaded into situations that I lose any option other then to accept I have no control.
Tim Cain being right about everything
The Medium is the Message
What I love and look for in a game is when actions have very direct consequences. I'd rather have a clear direct consequence to my action than something that changed the future outcomes by some obscure logic.
Remember Final Fantasy 7?
Aerith's death?
The game made me do that!
I tried, I struggled, I cried...
A book or movie may transmit the same images/words to everyone experiencing the thing, but not everyone receives the exact same imagery or words.
That's not how communication works.
"Films can transcend books". The only book I've seen that happen to was "do androids dream of electric sheep" and bladerunner. And then after that the bladerunner game. The movie better than the book, the game better than the movie. This happens once in a century.
Books tell you how to feel, movies show you feel, games can let you feel how you want to feel
0:49 that's basically what Stanley Kubrik has been doing in his entire career.
My mind instantly went to From Software, the masters of environmental storytelling.
What's your take on the new Fortnite x Fallout collab?
Hi Tim it's us != Tim
Case in point, Tim brought up The Glow from Fallout 1 yesterday. One of my favorite gaming experiences was leaving the Glow a lot more irradiated than I thought: I couldn't wait there, or take enough Rad-X to purge the system, or get to a doctor fast enough... My character died in fast travel, every time. That would be a lousy movie, book or TV show. But in a GAME, I've remembered it for over 10 years.
Hi Tim, Really love the discussion and comparison here. It also reminded me of my college thesis on defining what a game is. How would you define what a game is (not just video game but games as a whole). Thanks!
Nier Automata is the ultimate example of art that could only be made as a game and nothing else
Books are tricky. Yes, everyone has the same book but each person's experience with that book can be different. I have spent the last 20 years debating the meaning of the Frank Herbert Dune books with other people. Everyone has their own bias and that colors how they interpret information.
In Modern Warfare 2's controversial mission "No Russian" most players will join in with the killing of civilians. But the game never tells you to do so and there are no consequences for holding fire.
learning this was hilarious
There are so many languages on earth, and yet again, Tim is only speaking facts.
Hi everyone, it’s me, jangly bells