If you’ve been reading my Edge column, you are truly blessed. May the reindeer and elves shine on you, ’cause I love this column and I’m having a blast, and your eyeballs are the reason.
Here are the last ones of the year. First off, I argue why we should stop paying attention to game stories (and how bad they are), and start investing in the thing games do well: creating memorable characters.
There’s an old debate about which is more important – the plot or the characters. But look across the pop mediasphere, and you’ll see that characters are winning. Television shows, comic books, movie franchises, and even lines of toys depend on characters as the hook that keeps the audience coming back, while storylines are just a fleeting way to give them something to do. If you have characters that people love, they will stick around while you flog the property years past its sell date. And if you don’t have good characters, the most radical plot twists in history will not save you.
… and then, I write a column about my abandoned plan for an altenate reality game about Santa Claus:
I would make a joke about how the kids at school are old enough to tell my son that there’s no Santa Claus. This would bother me, because hey, I’ve made it to my thirties without letting anybody convince me that Santa’s not real. In fact, I happen to know that there is a conspiracy out there, and they want us to think St. Nick is a myth, a dangerous hallucination. But I believe, natch, that Santa is real – and play my game, and you would get to save him.
And of course, there’s a reason I bring this up:
We don’t use our imagination in games, and our videogames rarely ask for it in the first place. Make-believe is the exception rather than the rule, and if we get really caught up in a game – if we scream “Oscar mike, stay frosty!” with gusto and spittle in Modern Warfare multiplayer – well, that’s kinda embarrassing. After all, what’s the absolute zero least cool game in the world? Live-action role-playing. I mean, those people run around in the woods in capes.
I’m taking it easy this weekend, but I’ve got a few ideas brewing for next year. The column has done really well, and some of them have been very well received. The voice is feeling more natural, too. So definitely expect to keep seeing this every week over at Edge Online. (And if you have an idea, a new game, or just something you want to talk with me about, don’t hesitate – chris [ at ] savetherobot.com.)
Some interesting thoughts here. I wrote a post not so long ago about what writers could learn about writing by playing video games and mostly it was about things writers shouldn’t do. People don’t play video games for the story (no matter what they claim). They just want great chracters and interesting play strung together by something that might be loosely defined as a plot.
Thanks for sharing this post.
I’ve only started reading your column recently, but I’ve really enjoyed it!
I’ve always wondered why gamers hate LARPers so. They have a lot more in common than gamers would probably care to admit. After all, what many gamers do in their basements, in the dark, alone is what LARPers do outside in the sunlight and fresh air with real-world friends. At least LARPers are getting some exercise!
Cassandra, thanks for swinging by and checking it out! And it’s interesting to read your site and see you deal with the same questions in your writing.
Alex, thanks so much for reading and for the kind words! And ha, I feel bad writing a dig against LARPers – I’ve never tried it, and I’ll bet I’d have fun. I admire that LARPers wear their imaginations on their sleeves, whereas I find it odd that, for example, WOW players can spend hundreds of hours as blood elves or what have you, but treat it as simply part of the backdrop.
I completely second your thoughts on the importance of character design in videogames. Personally, I am more of a follower of the character school in general (opposed to story). Television series like the Sopranos, Mad Men and Lost made me realize how important characters are in deepening the experience of fiction.
Just as with those series, the relatively long duration of games, as opposed to film, make them extremely suitable for the exploitation of character development. Although I believe a lot has yet to be done. Most videogame characters are still extremely flat and non-evolving. I was actually planning a column on the matter. As a white male in his twenties most game characters represent my demographic profile. Developers choose those characters because they want to target their main audience. But I would exactly prefer to have the opposite, more game characters that are in a different position than my own. I enjoyed the fact that Snake was an old dying man in MGS4, just as I would like to see more games with kids as protagonists. I want to discover the true and complex nature of a character, not command some lifeless doll. In the same vein, people are changing gender a lot in the online sphere. I believe it’s because they merely want to experience another identity. Interactive media possess these big opportunities for characterisation as you pointed out so clearly. Hopefully we will see more exciting evidence of this strength in the coming years.
Oh yeah, great column!