Chris

Idle News Podblast - 03/09/09: Countdown to Tears

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It's a podblast five years in the making!

"Countdown to Tears"

Five years ago, prophecies by Steven Spielberg and EALA's Neil Young charted a course of new, untold emotional resonance, and the future of video games was irrevocably changed. As Game Developers Conference 2009 approaches, the clock ticks ever closer to the video game singularity: Prepare for the countdown to tears.

Games discussed: Steven Spielberg, Neil Young, the crying game

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No Nick in this blast because Steve, Chris and I recorded this while sitting around bored at Chris' apartment on Sunday evening. Nick might not know this exists. Hopefully he doesn't knife us or something on Tuesday night.

Also, from the Idle Thumbs E3 2004 press release referenced in this blast:

James Spafford noted, "I am very pleased to be working with such a talented, innovative, and passionate collective of revolutionaries as the Idle Thumbs staff. Truly, the launch of the Thumb is a momentous occasion in the chronology of the internet--nay, in the course of human history itself. I look forward greatly to delivering quality content relevant to all sectors of the bourgeoning interactive entertainment industry as it approaches its zenith of creative and artistic achievement. We are poised on the brink of a new era of gaming and of humanity as--" Before Spaff could finish his statement, he was swiftly and brutally stabbed by EA Vice President Neil Young, who soon afterwards burst into tears of remorse. "Finally!" he sobbed, "finally I weep!"

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I think that there comes a new title from Epic, Tears of War for the PSP so i think it's gonna be the weeping game...

They gonna announce that...

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The title/date on the RSS feed is wrong (copy and pasted from the previous newsblast eh?)

Will listen in shortly.

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What about a contest with the remaining DoW 2 from the cyborg contest "pitch us a game that'll make us cry" and then you'll propose it at GDC

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I thought it was a great little blast! I laughed a lot and it was a good primer for the whole "games will make you cry" debate/lolfest.

My vision definitely got a bit blurred (and it wasn't a graphic filter!) towards the end of Okami. But as you pointed out Japanese games apparently don't count.

I can also see Ossk's point of view in the doubt that actual ludic systems can affect you emotionally in the same way as non-interactive story. Personally I'm more optimistic that the two can eventually be fused, but that we have not yet been sufficiently imaginative in finding a way (perhaps if Sims could die, then the eventual death or heartbreak of a much loved sim could make someone cry, in the same way as losing a close friend. Just an example).

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That wasn't my point of view actually just one point of view that I find pretty solid.

But his argument mainly is in this paragraph:

This is the nub of the issue here: a story can make you cry by empathising with the protagonist (or another character), but a game (when viewed as a formal system) cannot do this. It follows that the only way that a Video game can make you cry is by using narrative tools that have nothing to do with games as formal systems whatsoever. So even though, for instance, many people report that they cried when they played Final Fantasy VII at the fateful scene (and indeed, several other cRPGs also show up in player studies as having provoked tears) the moment that actually brought the player to tears was a non-interactive cut scene. It wasn't the game (in the systems view) that made them cry – it was the story – and there never was a question as to whether stories could make you cry.

And so the whole thing to me is pretty clear: for now games haven't made me cry, but I'm a game designer now, I can try and integrate these systems, and I'm actually working on a make-you-cry project :)

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I'm not convinced by that argument. It's predicated on the notion that gameplay and narrative have to be two separate systems. I would argue that this is just a common practice and that the Jonathan Blow's of the world are showing us ways of bridging that gap.

My money's on Wanted: Weapons of Fate being the game to make my eyeballs leak.

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That wasn't my point of view actually just one point of view that I find pretty solid.

But his argument mainly is in this paragraph:

And so the whole thing to me is pretty clear: for now games haven't made me cry, but I'm a game designer now, I can try and integrate these systems, and I'm actually working on a make-you-cry project :)

That argument is silly to me. Why couldn't an event that happens within the formal system itself be meaningful enough to make one cry, if that's how one reacts to particularly meaningful things? An NPC could die as a result of the system--where there is also the potential for that NPC to live--and evoke an emotional reaction based on events that have occurred in the game.

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I cite this example too often, but the control mechanic alone in Ico got an emotional response from me. Just moving the analog stick too fast while holding hands and causing Yorda to jerk around unexpectedly, it surprised the hell out of me, and made me feel bad. Just moving an analog stick around. Not watching a cutscene or whatever.

I mean, would the argument against that be something like... since the player controlled object and the thing it was tethered to look like human beings, my response is irrelevant, because I was reacting to some sort of narrative event (a girl being startled and hurt) instead of pure collision of boxes? I can't imagine someone missing the point to that large a degree.

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Movies can't make people cry. It's the stories that do so, not the cinematography!

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That argument is silly to me. Why couldn't an event that happens within the formal system itself be meaningful enough to make one cry, if that's how one reacts to particularly meaningful things? An NPC could die as a result of the system--where there is also the potential for that NPC to live--and evoke an emotional reaction based on events that have occurred in the game.

Because you're the act in the game, you're the one that makes what is happening. If you miss something, if an NPC dies before your eyes, you're just gonna go "fuck I'll just reload the game where I last saved" and if it's not in a cinematic but while you're playing he just gets a bullet in his head and there's nothing you can do, you'll feel cheated.

He argues that the solution of killing an NPC and not giving you the ability to go back not to have him die will probably make you cry in anger rather than sorrow.

For instance you make a character sick and you have to live with him until he finally dies... You'll still won't be the one making decisions here or letting events happen.

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Movies can't make people cry. It's the stories that do so, not the cinematography!
Well, that's just wrong. All this shit combine their unique forces to evoke tears. If you take away all the various techniques and tricks of telling a story, be it in movies or books or comics, you'll never cry! Never!

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I mean, would the argument against that be something like... since the player controlled object and the thing it was tethered to look like human beings, my response is irrelevant, because I was reacting to some sort of narrative event (a girl being startled and hurt) instead of pure collision of boxes? I can't imagine someone missing the point to that large a degree.

Nope, that argument is valid, totally valid to me. Just as you or anyone saying you felt distressed in MGS when you had to shoot Sniper Wolf after the fight when the boss was unarmed and on the floor and the game was waiting for you to take responsibility for your actions.

Movies can't make people cry. It's the stories that do so, not the cinematography!

Surely, but could you make your own story watching a movie? Not really, the movie does tell a story, but everything in the movie does tell it, there is nothing you can do to influence it, it's not your pick not your story, it just exists.

And my actual project is a lot based on an assumption I made: what makes you cry comes from the outside, it just resonates with the compassion inside you that makes you sad for what happens but when YOU do something sad or something bad you just don't get it, because you did it and in your point of view you are not a person, you're you. Of course I do realize that it's not always the case, but my pick would be rather that try to make the player get into the character and feel distressed for himself, you'd better make a strong character in front of you interact with another strongly defined character and have them live a story when the other can not die.

Then, at a certain point, you just release the rule and let the other character die if you don't care about him/her but you musn't allow the player to go back

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And besides from Ico, Shadow of the colosus when at the end the world is just deserted and you're like "okay... that was already a wasteland, now it's a fucking nothing, just a beautiful paysage with nothing in it, and nothing will ever grow back..." I was really feeling something gripping my throat...

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, you say?

Oh man, every single thing that guy says is hilarious. :tup::tup:

People saying Nintendo had Final Fantasy before Sony? Nigga, you played the PS1? Nigga, the PS1 got Final Fantsy VII!
The PS3 is nice, like my hair
How'm I supposed to get some honeys with the Wii? It's like "Yo, baby look at my Wii." you know what they'd say to me? They'd fuckin' laugh. When I show them my PS3, the honeys get all over that shit. Get all the honeys with the PS Triple!"

Oh dear, I nearly wet myself. :clap:

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This video is not really a game but almost made me cry.

Fuck for once I felt my english was pretty good...

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I've personally been documented crying while unwrapping my present to find a Nintendo 64 console.

But on a more serious note, I was somewhat touched in the indie game The Passage essentially because having played it around my birthday, one gets the mantra of "One year closer to death". It made me ponder on my choices and the effects of that. I would also say another moment that in Silent Hill 2 the relationship James had towards Mary really put into perspective some of that problems I was having with my then relationship. Though, when looked at from an outsider's perspective, one could say I'm horribly reaching for an emotional outlet.

Great episode.

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I think the presence of suspension of disbelief, and the fact that human beings are human beings, both have a place in this argument. They are both aspects of the discussion which are dismissed by anyone who tries to dismantle games down to something so minimalist and theoretical that you could be talking about anything. Films or paintings or music or anything else can draw emotion from the tools of conventional storytelling and general human relations/experience, or they can blur and abstract themselves to all hell and evoke other responses. Games are no different to me in this regard, except that maybe they have an even broader potential than many other mediums to hit both ends of this spectrum while remaining accessible, both due to gaming's ability to so directly incorporate and access many other mediums wholesale, and because games are by nature about responding to someone interacting with them (versus being mostly passive). I feel like people going out of their way to refute that or dismiss it might be trying too hard, or are missing something.

I guess the thing that bugs me a ton about this in general is that, at least by the traditional definition of gaming, human beings are the primary input devices. Games are made interesting because of the exchange happening between the game and the person playing the game. If the game can do something which causes the person playing it to react differently (eg make a girl act hurt that you pulled on her arm), then that's a totally valid piece of design, and not window dressing painting an artificial/external response. I changed how I interacted with Yorda, became more conscious of how I navigated the world, because of the way the game made me feel.

Anyway, in conclusion: I have said too much and am digging myself into a pit of my own self-annoyance.

:spiraldy:

Edited by Jake

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