GDC Europe: Quantic Dream boss David Cage jokes at narrative standards in today’s games
The writer and director of PS3 title Heavy Rain has made a lengthy, penetrating criticism of today’s cut-scene standards.
Speaking to a packed audience today at GDC Europe, Quantic Dream boss David Cage made the enlivening observation that today’s game cut-scenes are of little conceptual difference to the opening small-talk in pornographic films.
Conversations between the pizza delivery man and the preoccupied housewife are not a million miles apart from a cut-scene of enemies filling into an arena, he said.
”They both do the same thing, they prepare you for the action, which is all you really want,” he said.
Cage’s observation aroused much laughter from the packed room of game developers, but underneath the sniggering was a serious criticism. The French developer’s problem with game cut-scenes, as he inferred, is that they are too often seen as disposable sticky stuff between a game’s combat set-pieces.
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”Most of them don’t make sense,” he added, “they are just there to prepare the audience for the next action scene.”
Quantic Dream’s latest title, Heavy Rain, won near-universal acclaim for the emotional thrust of the game’s narrative. Cage said that the game’s commercial response (1.5 million sold worldwide so far) was a testament to how the games market is ready for more emotionally sensitive games.
Elsewhere in the lively and loudly-applauded speaker session, Cage criticised what he saw as senseless censorship in video games.
”You show tits in a movie, prime-time, and that’s fine. But when it’s in a game, [classification groups say] ‘oh we have to give you an 18 rating’, depending of course on how big the tits are’.”
Cage half-joked that, under current game classification rules, Michelangelo’s David – an sixteenth century Renaissance sculpture – would have to be classified ‘Adults Only’ for “graphic or prolonged depictions of nudity.”
The Frenchman urged developers to make more emotionally-aware content for adults. “No one has tried to create interactive entertainment for older people,” he said.
”When you are watching a film, you don’t get pleasure from the pictures moving, you get pleasure from what you feel.”
And in closing his speech, he asked developers to take on board what Quantic Dream did with Heavy Rain, and take risks.
He said developers should fight for the right to make something more daring, to design a game in the face of today publishing world’s remit which – as he put so gracefully – “has no balls.”
By his logic, you could make the same case against slow points in a movie, interludes in music, and short chapters in a book without any of the main characters meant to provide background (Stephen King is well known for this). I agree that game cutscenes can be a bit pointless in most games, but this is mostly because most games put only a Michael Bay like effort into the story.
But, in typical David Cage style, his criticisms of the industry come off as nothing more than passionate ego stroking. Heavy Rain was a decent game with a decent game story. However, by the standards of the mediums David Cage wishes so whole heartedly to emulate, he is an absolute hack. He may have seemingly appointed himself as the Dalai Lama of game writing and exposition, but doing so after the contrived "please please, I'm begging you. Please feel something while playing this, I want you to feel something so badly," mess that was Heavy Rain simply because it is the only big budget game trying to offer some decent exposition would is like Stephenie Meyer calling herself the master of writing about teenage vampires in love because there aren't many love based vampire stories for teenagers.
I respect the man for trying to do something gaming sorely needs, make a game for grown ups through the use of complex human based stories. But the fact that he is constantly stroking his ego in public as though he had actually succeeded in his quest to make an emotional masterpiece takes him down a few notches in my book. Gaming may need to grow up, but David Cage needs some humility and an editor.
that is all
Red: bang on. Cage is insufferably smug and his sub-made-for-TV drama is a million times worse than any given porno exposition. It's hugely depressing that this man is given any credence whatosover, yet alone being allowed to place himself as the intellectual vanguard for upping the maturity of games. If this so-called maturity is to consist of lowest-common-denomintator sentimentalism, a grab-bag of devices and compositions nabbed from the most derivative horror films you could imagine and the occasional pissing scene, then we're all fucked.
Compared to MGS4, porn is massively different... it's shorter for one thing, plus you're not reaching for the skip button all the time. ;)
Most developers don't care to put too much thought into their cutscenes. Even if the only purpose they serve is to bridge sections of gameplay there is plenty of opportunity to make them about something more than just that. But most gamers are immature. Look at any mass of posts and many 'gamers' are also proud porn addicts and supporters. No surprise there, they are just pleasure seekers and parasites. Thankfully there are developers like David Cage who want to make gaming more than just stimulation, and there are devs like Kojima who craft amazing cutscenes that you could easily put together and still watch them as if they were an interesting movie. If you tried to do the same with other game's cutscenes, they'd just be a random bunch of non sensical clips.
to Johonno
parasites, thats one way to describe customers.
I wonder if you label customers that buy an fast car for looks and pleasure the same way..?
"Conversations between the pizza delivery man and the preoccupied housewife are not a million miles apart from a cut-scene of enemies filling into an arena, he said."
And the best game to demonstrate this is Heavy Rain. I played through the entire game and saw at most mediocre writing, bad, soulless cutscenes and a cliche-ridden story. What do people see in this game? Not even the controls were decent...
Mister Cage should tone down his ego. Heavy Rain's success was a marketing thriumph and nothing more.
I noticed this and came up with several ways to have all the drama and narration as a drama/action film while keeping a huge factor in how they connect with the characters and environment. I liked how Splinter Cell did interactive cutscenes but it wasnt very dramatic . But the truth is you have like any other respectable film have action as bonus or plus and not fill like the core way of driving the story but a by-product of the story. If I'm explaining this correctly
This man is correct, the cutscene's in the vast majority of games is woefully bad. When I saw Heavy Rain I am was a game finally came out that actually had a decent story.
The extreme majority of games have narrative of simular quality to porno flicks.
As for Red, Insufferable Charlatan and Apostolos... I bet you are either Halo fans or MW2 fans! Yeah, supporting that type of sh1t you don't have the right to comment on depth of stories in games. You opinions are null and void!
Why are developers continually trying to make games into movies? If I want to watch a movie I'll watch a movie, otherwise I just want to feel the pure satisfaction of blowing shit up without having to watch some ugly uncanny valley-like 3D twat prancing around - wasting my gaming time after a day at work.
I wonder if we'll see movie makers trying to introduce interactivity into their medium by pausing the film and making the viewer roll dice in order decide which scene is played out next?
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating my point a little and I concede, there is room to explore games with greater substance in the story. However, I'm partial to a pretty bad porno-like cut-scene too - it just means I get to the action that much quicker (so really, no need for ivory towers and high horses when it depends on context).
