It's not the Movies

By mikesimpson (1 posts) on October 2, 2009 at 12:54 pm

It's a funny business, making games. In one week this year the Empire team had artists illustrating game events by painting epic scenes in the style of old masters, and doing it so well they might be mistaken for originals. Modellers were creating 3d ships based on original ship plans licensed from the National Maritime Museum. Animators were setting up for a motion capture shoot, checking that the actors were all set and the scripts rehearsed and ready. We had teams of programmers busy creating new suburbs and fixing potholes in the millions of lines of code that is the empire codebase city. We had writers adding to the 4 novels worth of text carefully crafted from raw wit and eloquence, and linguists translating it in to a dozen or more languages. Our musicians were trying to figure out how to write oft repeated background music that conveys theme and mood without permanently burning it in to the player's brain. The Foley guys had dragged in an old dishwasher that they intended to smack with sledgehammers - I'm not sure what that was for. The tech guys from Intel were visiting, along with an assault team from Sega’s core tech group, helping the engine team squeeze the pips out of Intel’s integrated graphics hardware. Our historians were researching the finer details of the defences of 1750's Quebec, and an ex-management consultant was tweaking our mathematical models of 18th Century economics. Our AI guys were busy containing a "desires" subsystem that had gone chaotic. We ran out of address space again. We hired the Slovak national orchestra for three days, and a belly dancer for one.

It was an interesting week, but a typical one. We were working on Empire: Total War, an epic strategy/simulation game based on the 18th Century. Considering it was a game about the great age of polymaths, it is perhaps fitting that it required a polymath team to execute it.

It’s tempting to think of games as just another medium, one that is taking people away from music, TV and movies as a source of entertainment. But there are things we can’t do in games that you can do in movies. Schindler’s List is a good example – it’s a story you can tell to great effect in a movie, but it would be utterly unacceptable in any form in a game. The difference is that the movie is passive, but a game is active. You participate and make choices, and bear some moral responsibility for those choices.

We had to solve this problem with Empire with slavery. It’s a central factor in the 18th Century history of Europe and America, but a large portion of our audience would put it in the same category as the holocaust – any active participation in slavery in a game would be completely unacceptable, and yet we pride ourselves on the historical accuracy of our games. How can we model 18th Century transatlantic trade and the role of slavery in the economic development of the 13 Colonies without slavery? Is leaving it out editing history and potentially as offensive as putting it in? Do we become “slavery deniers” if we don’t allow the player to build his empire on a slavery driven economy?

In the end we found a reasonable compromise – slavery is there, bit it’s a passive feature, not something the player actively engages in. The player does however actively engage in its abolition, and the prestige gained from being the first nation to do this contributes to victory.

Maybe a movie might bring together almost the same variety of skills, but only games development has large numbers of the nerdiest of coders working alongside the most voguish artists and musicians. We end up with a group of people who are collectively average, but individually all extreme. It’s a recipe for a team that is way, way more than the sum of the parts.

It’s the coders that glue together the rest of the team. Nothing gets in the game without a piece of their code ripping it up, transforming, compressing, sorting, indexing, caching, accessing, decompressing, combining, transforming again, reassembling, post processing and pushing it out through a piece of hardware. How well they do that is a multiplier on the quality of the raw material, and the quality of the raw material fed to the programmers is multiplied by how well the designers and artists have interpreted and an expanded the initial concept into fine details.

The net result is that a given high level design can turn out either brilliant or atrocious, depending on how good the team are. The same is true for movies – it’s the quality of the director, the actors, the writers, and the production team that make a great movie, not the 5 minute pitch the execs base their initial decisions on. Most decisions based on pitch quality are bad ones, and a string of bad decisions on new IP makes the execs mistrust new IP rather than their own decision making process.

The end result of this for both industries is endless remakes and sequels. I’m sure the frustration of this is one thing we share.

Categories: Gaming, Visual Computing

Comments (10)

October 8, 2009 4:59 PM PDT

test-bernie6
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5
Registered User
 Mike - kudos on the view you give us into the complexity of making a top-tier game nowadays. I played around with doing development for a playstation in college and came away befuddled. Sounds like it's gotten harder not easier! Keep the posts coming, interesting stuff!
November 16, 2009 11:57 AM PST


offset:Devon		 What you talk about is essentially what separates the amazing games/companies from the not so amazing. I can't give too much insight on the correct decision about the slavery, because I do not know it, but if one can figure out the best way to implement something like that without offending the majority if the gamers, that is what will make them a great game designer :)

I'd imagine it would have something to do with the ambiance of the game itself. If its a serious game, with gore and murder and 'life' changing decisions, slavery is something that should be stated clearly and not danced around colorfully. If the game is more about being awesome and winning battles and taking over the world, then perhaps a euphemism should be used and have it be only a word of text on the screen without an background.

The trouble with recreating an actual, real place or event in a game is the fact that it is not all glorious. It is pretty harsh and brutal and sometimes its not worth it to make it an actual recreation.


offset:Devon
November 16, 2009 12:03 PM PST


offset:Devon		 (Great, I posted an entire argument about this and it didnt show up on the page.. I had flash disabled, if that matters)

Being able to decide whether or not things like slavery should be implemented is what seperates the great games from the not-so-great. I cant tell you which one is the right one because I do not know :) If a game were to be more serious and cynical, perhaps slavery should be used and stated clearly, because it is a fact of life. If it would be more adventurous, conquering the world and being awesome then perhaps the word 'slavery' should be traded in for a euphemism and it should remain a word on a statistics page.

The problem with recreating actual events and times/places is that sometimes the truth is too brutal to be interesting. In many cases it is not worth sacrificing the integrity and immersion of the game just to show that -this- person died -this- way at -that- guys hand. Also, sometimes the brutality is just too real and makes a person feel bad. It all depends on who you're target audience is.


offset:Devon
November 16, 2009 4:21 PM PST

Gina Harris (Intel)
Total Points:
115
Status Points:
65
Green Belt
 @Devon
--If you are not logged in when you post, your comment is held for moderation. That is what happened in this case.

Usually with a double post we will delete one and post one, but there were some different nuances with each so both were published in this case.

Regards,

Gina H.
Intel(R) Software Network Support
November 18, 2009 6:50 PM PST

sulman
Total Points:
20
Registered User
 Great piece; it is amazing just how much goes into a game. I think the more and more people observe this industry, the more they will realize that it is an art form on so many levels. The NPD numbers each year do gaming justice, though, so I'm not complaining!

But on the question of slavery, I think a good place to look would be COD: Modern Warfare 2. Without spoiling too much of the game, you are asked to join the bad guys in order to advance the plot and you do some pretty horrendous things (actively). It is a very uncomfortable feeling and one of the reviewers at Gamespot notes this as one of things which really detracted from the single player experience of the game (Check out that review if you are interested). In a time when terrorism is one of the things people are most concerned about around the world, to make the player one of them is a very risque thing to do.

Nevertheless, Infinity Ward decided to keep that element in there, and frankly, they could. COD sold 4.6 million copies and generated $310 million in 24 hours from just the U.S./U.K. alone--and I don't think people bought it for the deep story, but to drop missiles on their buddies in multi-player. So I guess as gaming companies gain more clout/have a higher demand, they might be able to do more without offending people; but then again, since so many more people consume their products, it may be harder to say what you really want (as opposed to an indie company).

So I guess, it's a decision that depends on a whole host of factors, and I think the way your team has handled it is apt! (i.e. Don't ignore it, but don't make it an integral part of the player's active experience). Good luck with the rest of the game, I'm looking forward to see how it comes out!

November 18, 2009 8:52 PM PST

spyderfreek
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25
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 Wow, I was positive this post would open up a can of worms with that last sentence (I'm pretty sure entire forums get taken over by the subject of too many sequels) but I'm happy to see the Intel crowd is a cut above such petty squabble :)

As far as the wonderful synthesis of talent that goes into making a game is concerned, I think you're mostly preaching to the choir on that point - I, at least, am actively working towards joining that self-same industry, so it goes without saying that I love the dynamics of game development.

On the more novel subject of player choice and the differences between movies and games, I would contend that in the days of Fallout (nuke a whole city for profit?), BioShock (use children as fuel tanks?), and Grand Theft Auto (use prostitutes to gain health, then kill them?), that gap is perhaps not so wide as you make it sound. My bet is that as long as shock value still holds appeal (i.e., always), video games will continue to plumb yet deeper depths of human cruelty. Alright, so the iTunes store DID end up removing the "Baby Shaking" app, and we probably WON'T see any spin-off titles from "The Passion of the Christ" anytime soon, but that doesn't mean they're not in our future.

Offset:spyderfreek
November 18, 2009 9:21 PM PST

spyderfreek
Total Points:
25
Registered User
 As if the internet read your blog and had to reply, I was browsing EA's internship program page, when a line about a particular intern in an article from a few years back caught my attention:

"He worked on the 'Darfur Is Dying' genocide-awareness game sponsored by mtvU, and his ambition is to work on games that make a difference; he hopes one day to create the 'Schindler's List' of video games."

That guy is part of the future of video games; don't count "Schindler's List" out just yet.
November 19, 2009 2:04 PM PST


Nicolas A		 Gaming industry has this unique blend of so many talents. And now they share so much of their skills & technologies with the big budget movie industry that they're literally blending nowadays. It's just digital entertainment.
November 19, 2009 2:45 PM PST


Nicolas A		 As for the example of the case of considering slavery in a videogame, you have to take a responsible approach. Gaming industry is slowly but surely growing up and tackling more serious subjects. It may still be awkward sometimes but it is surely evolving, and in a good way I hope.

offset: nicolas
November 20, 2009 2:23 AM PST


Lana Bachynski		 "Is leaving it out editing history and potentially as offensive as putting it in? Do we become “slavery deniers” if we don’t allow the player to build his empire on a slavery driven economy?"

Although I understand the logistics behind doing so, I always find it ridiculous to have to think about offending people with a work of fiction. I mean I get why a video game about the holocaust is a bad idea, but at the same time, as you're mentioning, movies revolve plots around that (or things kin to it) all the time and are wildly successful! Just because you're participating in it, doesn't make it immoral, because no matter what, it's still just a video game in the end.

There will always be those parents or those people who fight and say "What do you think you're teaching the children!" Well...if your child believes it, that's YOUR bad parenting, not bad video-gaming. If they can read it in books, or watch it on tv, or at the theater, why are video games the one looked down upon? Not to mention there are PLENTY of wildly famous video games that deal with some unsavory topics. i.e. GTA. I just feel like anyone who's offended by a story that isn't real (either missing factual details, or keeping them in.) really needs to evaluate their lives.

That being said, I heard PETA was pissed when Little Red Riding Hood got that wolf killed.

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