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This is a great article. It's made me think a lot about why people play games and how certain games attract certain people. I do feel the need to write some sort of rebuttal however. In my article on writing in games, I sort of pigeonholed myself; I only talked about dialogue and story. This was perhaps an overly simplistic way but they matter a lot to me. What I didn’t mention was tone and world building with language. Full disclosure here, hopefully it doesn’t invalidate my article, but I’ve never actually seen a game script. I don’t know exactly how they work. I hope that they resemble a comic script or play but I’m fairly sure they don’t. My assumption is that in most cases a game is made, with a vague story in mind, then a writer may be brought in to fill in the cracks, round things out and make it into something of a story. I would love to be wrong about this.
Like I said, I didn’t mention tone or world building in my article and this was an oversight. Look at most screenplays or a play scripts and you’ll see that there’s a lot more too them than just story and dialogue. There are stage directions. Some of these are utilitarian and are there just to let the audience know where they are, but many go far beyond that. They set tone, mood and build basic blueprints for directors, actors, or in the case comics, artists to reference when they continue to create a world, a scene or a panel.
In screen writing, the first thing you learn is to tell a story through pictures. This is also a rule that comic writers have to follow. In most movies there are pages of text that the audience never reads and never hears. They do however see these words, they feel these words.
A little bit more disclosure here; I am a playwright, another fact that I hope doesn’t invalidate my previous article. There is nothing more fascinating to me than writing a script then giving it to a group of other artists to turn into a play. I am even more interested in finding ways to have the audience participate; help tell the story, to be a part of it.
This may be an idealistic view but I see games as collaborative storytelling. No other medium really does this, no matter how hard we try. All game participants are mutual creators. They are all responsible for what happens in a game, from the designers to the players, and I think writing should be a part of that.
On the other hand I understand why companies do this. They want money. They like it. It's good for them and frankly it's good for us to give it to them, if they make a game we like. When we buy a title used the developers don't get the money they feel they deserve, meaning this effects their bottom line which effects the budget for future projects.
I know this sounds like trickle down economics and all that voodoo but it's a very different animal. When we buy something new the developers see a sizeable chunk of cash go directly into their coffers. They either don't get the money from a used purchase or they can't really track it. If they can't track it, it might as well not exist as far as profit is concerned. From where they stand, used games make no money. They don't care if you buy the sequel new.
On a third hand, I hate the petty solutions they have. I abhor that they omitted pieces of Arkham City's story if it was rented or bought used. This feels childish and despite how awesome that game looks, and how much I want to play it, I won't.
The game developers have so many better solutions and it's only a matter of time before all games are simply downloaded. If I buy a game new, I download it. It's been years since I've bought a console game new.
I can't really decide how I feel about this. Can you tell?"
As someone that lived in Japan for extended period of time I suspect that their faltering game industry is symptom of a much bigger issue; a population crisis. For years now there haven't been enough people born per year to replace those who are passing away. The government actually gave tax benefits for having more than one child. Recent years have seen an increase in births but I'm not sure how much progress has been made.
This created a smaller games market in Japan. They focus on handheld games because everyone you see on a train has a DS or a PSP. Not everyone can afford a fancy HD TV and gaming console. We like to believe that all Square-Enix games are destined for our shores but for the most part Japanese developers make games for Japanese audiences. If they think it will sell here, they will certainly send it over but their market takes precedent.
It has also been argued that many of Japan’s business have lost touch with the youth of the world because there seem to be so few young people in Japan. Those in charge have age and they have been accused of looking solely in instead of out.
