Real content

[arpad]

Two things:

1) When the book with really interesting content come out - these hopeless-computer-addicts immediately left their playstations and started to read.

Moral: Content is the most powerful driver. Not media. Not pretty graphics. Content.

2) So what is that content hidden in videogames? What makes them more interesting than books and movies?

Comments

[my-play.livejournal.com]

Worlds. Harry Potter has A LOT of complexity; it's a world. Very few books are "worlds" in this sense, they are rather "paths"; but many, most videogames are worlds. It's a definition of a game, really, to be a world.

[zigmar.livejournal.com]

Evey self-respecting fantasy or sci-fi have a believable, detailed world. And in this aspect Harry Potter is not so good. It have an interesting plot and characters, but the world described in the books, lacks of basic inner login and hardly believable.

[my-play.livejournal.com]

I don't quite know how to explain this; it's just a feeling. There is definitely a world BEHIND every half-decent book; yet some books are just linear paths through a world, while other books have complexity and divergence for the reader. Maybe my feeling comes from somewhere else and is irrelevant here...

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Feelings are usually more relevant than logic :)

I think I can understand what you mean by this world-versus-path impression.

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Not quite sure... Majority of videogames are linear to the boots.

MMOG aren't mainstream of computer games.

[my-play.livejournal.com]

Is there something in interactivity/visual presentation that makes it a "world" despite linearity?

[arpad.livejournal.com]

I suppose it is. My bet is on iteractivity that brings visible results.

[e_mir]

Хороший вопрос.

На самом деле, кроме уже упомянутых ответов могу дать еще один - свежесть. Видео/Компьютрные игры как вид творчества и способ изложения контента очень новы - даже телевидение и кино по сравнению с ними - динозавры. Поэтому в этот жанр на определенном моменте попало множество талантливых энтузиастов. Представим, что понятие стихов и техника стихосложения появились бы только сейчас - уверен, следующие 5-10 лет прошли бы под маркой рифмования всего со всем.

Кстати, компьютерные игры сильно поблекли после расцвета в начале 90-ых.

[veyasar.livejournal.com]

Immediacy, I think is a big thing. Video games stimulate more senses, they feel more real and immdiate.

Also, games are interactive. Even in the ones where you ride on rails, you're taking actions and getting feedback. In the best cases, you are creating your own story. You can't zone out while playing most games, because then you'll lose. In other words, the user by his attention and efforts and decisions INVESTS himself in his game.

Finally, coded games by definition create a consistent world. What I think my_play and zigmar are getting at is suspension of disbelief. Internal consistency is certainly one very important ingredient to it. Consistency of feel and mood helps too. The thing is, an author has an image in his head of how his world works. If he can't communicate it, then even a good character or plot becomes uncompelling.

A computer game may not have much in the way of mood, but usually it gets consistency because the coders are forced by definition to produce rule-set to define what the players are capable of. This isn't always successful, but those games don't become hits.

World of Warcraft, for example, is VERY consistent internally because all frost mages will have frost shock, and it will do about the same thing for everyone. It isn't consistent with previous warcraft products, and its plot obviously isn't internally consistent either (since onyxia dies about 12 times a week on my server). But you have a sense that it is a cohesive world, and I think that's what my_play means.

That's why Tolkien is so compelling. You have a setting that doesn't feel like a disney ride. In a disney ride, you move along on a monorail, but you can't climb out lest you see that it's all a fake (you can even see it from your train if you are looking for it). In LoTR, you can climb out of the monorail and explore for miles each way without seeing scaffolding and construction equipment. Plus, its mood and tone are incredibly consistent. You get a sense that everyone is living in the same world and it feels real to them.

Like you said, it's emotional.