Creativity 101 : March 31, 2010 : 7:56 am

Less Talk, More Rock (Video Game Narrative)

Boingboing.net is hosting a terrific manifesto by Craig Adams (AKA Superbrothers).  It speaks about the narrative experience of video games, but storytellers of all sorts can find something here.

Here are a few excerpts to whet the appetite:

When there’s just a little bit of talk…it has a peculiar, haunting, poetic effect. It tickles the intellect just enough for it to stir, but not enough to irritate it.

An entire generation seems to have become used to experiences …choked by voice acting, mangled by incongruent narrative…These elements serve to undermine the aesthetic coherence of the work — they can dilute the magic, they can interrupt the flow, they can disrupt the basic audiovisual communication, they can break the spell.

Find the link to the whole manifesto below.

• Less Talk, More Rock

News : February 20, 2010 : 8:46 pm

One Step Closer to an Interactive Future

I’ve written before about video games as the future of entertainment.  I have another post brewing in me about the difficulty of merging the active video game experience with the passive entertainment experience we’re already familiar with (primarily the printed or moving image).

I just read a preview for a new XBOX 360 game called Alan Wake.  Read the preview here.

The game seems to offer a more matured story experience than what we’ve seen in the past, and that’s already a good sign as far as serious artists getting involved  in the craft.

But what caught my eye are the mentions of product placement.  Energizer batteries, for one, and an unnamed car company.

If this works, then I think we can expect to see a lot more of this in the future, and perhaps see much of the advertising dollars that have dwindled from television and print rush into this new medium.

Remember, no one was interested in California, new medicines, or that sticky gunk called “oil” until someone figured out how to make money from them.  Right now, video games have only tapped the existing models of income used by books and movies: develop a product, and sell it to consumers.

But if the video game — a fixed form product — could tap into the advertising model that supports the constantly-renewing products like newspapers and television, the potential revenue could be staggering.

Blog, The Business : August 14, 2009 : 1:32 pm

Indies Go Solo Part 2 (Video Games)

The other day I posted a link to a New York Times article about indie filmmakers self-distributing, and erosion of the mainstream film market.

The most interesting aspect of this discussion, to me, is the lack of discussion about the role of video games in eroding the film market.

By and large, the movies that sell the most are escapist entertainment. The problem is: movies don’t have the corner on escapism any more.
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