If you don't want to take the time, or if the article is no longer up, it's about an ambitious video game project that was in development between EA and Steven Speilberg, that as of now is cancelled.
Especially on page 3: the aspect of the project that would be a two to three hour experience, but extremely replayable with hundreds of different things that could happen depending on the player's choices.
Not only would this model more better fit "a mature, adult media consumption habit," it resembles the experience of watching a film a lot more closely.
Most films are over quickly, but can be re-watched. Often people notice different things in the repeated viewings. Some people re-watch films over and over and over again, and if they're good films, they can mean different things as the person's life changes. In a sense, the EA/Spielberg video game idea is simply expanding the role of the viewer from choosing what to look at and pay attention to in the film, to actually being able to control what characters in the film do. In this way it has more in common with Dragon's Lair, than say, Starcraft. Starcraft has more in common with Monopoly than with a feature film.
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| And I'm sure there's a Starcraft version of Monopoly, but that's beside the point. |
This seems really exciting to me, as someone who loves telling stories and believes in the power of stories. Imagine if instead of simply relating to the main character of a film through empathy, you could see what he/she sees, and relate directly to what he/she relates to! It's like the difference between watching a home video of someone's trip to Spain and actually GOING there yourself!
I think video games are the natural response to the thought that I think everyone has had: "I want to be the one piloting the time machine/kissing the prince/solving the crime." I know I had that thought.
I have always liked video games, even though they have been problems in my life from time to time. I overplay them sometimes, and sometimes I get pretty pissed off. Which isn't good.
But regardless, video games provide the visual and auditory stimulation of a blockbuster film, with the personal connection of, like, playing chess. For someone as sensitive as I am, it's very tempting. And rewarding.
However, unlike a film, the story must be advanced by your own action, and sometimes, skill. If you don't beat the level, you can't see the cutscene. This is frustrating if you don't have quite the skill needed to move it along at a good pace.
Video games are a hybrid art, and I implied above. They can be so many things.
I think video games are art because they are a tool to create an experience in another person. Like music is to be heard, painting is to be seen, film is to be watched, video games are to be played.
What sets them aside from some other forms is the large amount that the one experiencing it has in determining what the experience is like.
side note:
If you're not familiar, Roger Ebert has had some comments about video games as art. Reading what he has to say is interesting.
However, there is a key aspect to video games that is much less like a work of art: the "game" part.
I'm going to use a semi-useful scale I just made up: Video games are like a combination between Monopoly and Jurassic Park. One is based mainly on human interaction, the other on passive experience. Most video games (heck, even tabletop games) are a combination of these two things, and fall somewhere on this line, depending on how much of each type of experience are present.
Monopoly <------------------------------------------------------>Jurassic Park
(mainly interactive) (mainly passive)
almost totally about gameplay almost totally about story
The closer to the left of the scale, the less a game is like art, because the large majority of the experience is determined by the "experiencers." The closer to the right of the scale, the opposite is true, because only a minute part of the experience of watching Jurassic Park is determined by the "experiencers."
I'm getting tired so I'm going to stop here. I get a little spastic when I feel like I have a good idea.
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