 | Making Steven CryMarch 28th, 2006 |
This PDF of a presentation by Janet Murray is wide-ranging and challenges many basic notions about games and story, especially the whole “a game that makes you cry” meme.
I’d say more, but it’s lunchtime and I am starving. 
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
Reader Comments
Awww…It’s suppertime and I’m starving too. Mhmm.. Soup.
Oh, btw, you gotta see this video.. It’s hilarious! ;] ..Sorry if it’s old or something.
He really likes his new Nintendo 64…
For some reason, your caption reminded me of Kevin Gilbert’s “Making Kristy Cry,” which is a nasty tongue-in-cheek spoken-word piece about ruthless emotional manipulation:
http://www.kevingilbert.com/40abc/makingkristycry.html
The assertion (in the slides) that games can evoke emotions that films aren’t very good at evoking is a very good point. There are absolutely emotions that we get directly from games, which we can only enjoy vicariously in film. When you see George Peppard chomp on his cigar, and say, “I love it when a plan comes together,” that’s nowhere near as emotionally compelling as when YOU feel the pride of seeing YOUR OWN plan come together.
That said, “Beyond Good and Evil” would have to be my favorite candidate for a tear-jerking game. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I won’t say why. (And you should all go play it, if you haven’t, anyway.)
I remember players being actively angry at FFVII. They were angry because they lacked the ability to prevent the inevitable tragedy in the narrative. There was absolutely nothing they could do. They felt cheated — because they lacked sufficient interactivity to change the course of the narrative.
RP-MUDs evoke all kinds of strong emotions, but they’re a bit of a special case. Gameplay is considerably more freeform than it is in other games. It’s a bit like realtime cooperative fiction.
Remember that the whole “a moving-picture that makes you cry” was also at one time scoffed at.
Robin’s got a great quote on her blog today:
“The public has seen too many trains, trams, and autobuses. And with the exception of a few films whose humor is too French to please the British, one could say that no one up to now has begun to exploit the possibilities of moving pictures, to make us laugh, cry, or be amazed.”
– Robert W. Paul, British film pioneer, 1898
I don’t think it’s so must that we can’t make games that make you cry, as that it doesn’t seem to be a good idea for a game we are trying to sell. Computer games can tell stories, but quite frankly my wife never played past that point in Final Fantasy VII. When a movie is sad, you generally feel like sitting still and maybe the mood changes or maybe the picture ends there. A game wants you to keep on turning on the play station and going on to the next level, and sadness doesn’t really motivate that way.
I’ll let you know when Hollywood cranks out a movie that I feel is worth 100 hours of my time to watch. Most are not worth a second viewing.
*Talking to myself, now. You should see me two-box*
I was reading over on The Daedalus Project and in an article called “The Psychology of MMORPGs” found this quote:
“When respondents were asked whether the most positive experience they had experienced over the period of the past 7 days or the past 30 days occurred in an MMORPG or in real-life, 27% of respondents (n = 2170) indicated that the most satisfying experience over the past 7 days occurred in the game, and 18% of respondents indicated the same when the wording was changed to “over the past 30 days”. With regards to the most negative event, 33% of respondents indicated that the most negative experience over the past 7 days occurred in the game, and 23% of respondents indicated the same when the wording was changed to “over the past 30 days”.”
So 1/3 of MMO players said the worst thing that happend to them last week happend in a game. That’s no just a whimpy movie tear, that’s taking on the boss telling you there’s no raise, or the girlfriend telling you she’d rather go bowling.
There are many different reasons for crying.
If one wants to cry, one can watch sappy dramas, listen to sad music, get drunk, get stung by a bee, chop some onions…
Games supposed to be fun, entertaining, and perhaps even educational.
Why would anyone play a game to cry? I can’t comprehend Spielberg’s basis for comparison in the first place. Besides, which male is going to confess that he cried over anything, seeing that the majority of gamers are still male 
On the other hand, I’d dare bet that quite a few MMO players would at least sniffle a little if one of their long time in-game playmates decided to quit, and did it right in front of their eyes.
Or, if you had accidentally paid 1 million virtual gold on an item that is only worth 1 gold.
Why would anyone play a game to cry?
Most people don’t watch movies or read books to cry. While many people appreciate a good tear-jerker, most people really don’t set out with the goal of crying. In fact, that sort of emotion can be very effective when it happens unexpectedly.
I used to sing in the Arundel Vocal Arts Society. I had never seen the musical “1776,” when I first joined up. They handed out our season’s sheet music, and we read through a few pieces. When we pulled out “Momma, Look Sharp,” from “1776,” I had no idea what to expect. The choral arrangement had the sort of minor key harmony that makes your hair stand on end. I like that. But, as the words unfolded for me the first time, it was all I could do not to choke up partway through the song. I was, for the moment, completely transported. There was something almost transcendant about the experience.
I’ve argued vehemently before that games should be fun. If we’re making something that isn’t fun, I’m not sure if it’s actually a game. (Is it “interactive entertainment” then?) Is it possible to pair a fun game mechanic with a sad theme? Certainly, in the theatrical sense, we can pair a fun game mechanic with a tragic theme. Theatrical tragedy can be quite fun. But there’s a very real difference between “Macbeth” and “Schindler’s List.” What if you had a tycoon game in which you had to play Oscar Schindler, and had to save as many Jews as you could?
Found this article on video games and crying
http://wired.com/news/games/0,2101,69475,00.html
Page optimized by WP Minify WordPress Plugin
Art (13)
Game talk (1764)
Gamemaking (69)
Mailbag (16)
Misc (212)
Music (116)
Open thread (22)
Reading (115)
The Sunday Poem (129)
Watching (50)
Writing (113)
All contents of this site are ©Copyright 1998- 2012 by Raphael Koster. All rights reserved.
The views expressed here are my own, and not necessarily endorsed by any former or current employer.
A Theory of Fun
for Game Design
Available as MP3 download
$14.99
Gator and Penguin
Mousepad
$12.99
"The world the way they thought it was..."
[...] Bloggers Making Steven Cry 2 hours 2 min old, Raph’s Koster Website CGW interview 3 hours 4 min old, Raph’s Koster Website Webbing games 3 hours 47 min old, Mischiefbox Summary of GDC 2006 3 hours 58 min old, Zen of Design – Ubiq What a difference a modern OpenGL reference makes 4 hours 11 min old, Mischiefbox Taylor Plays Between Worlds 5 hours 46 min old, Terra Nova – Academics playground Aggro Me Shows You What It’s Like 5 hours 50 min old, Zen of Design – Ubiq Kim Rom: manager, editor-in-chief, mouth-breather 7 hours 39 min old, Amber Night Sovereignty and Development 8 hours 55 min old, Terra Nova – Academics playground Live Update 21 9 hours 19 min old, Aggro Me Elder Scrolls: Oblivion 9 hours 34 min old, Tobold Wet Wet Wet 14 hours 40 min old, Moorgard (Steve Danuser) My monitor died 15 hours 8 min old, Raph’s Koster Website Raid loot 15 hours 42 min old, Tobold Junk Bomb 16 hours 20 min old, Geldon GDC: Developer Debauchery 17 hours 7 min old, Pitfalls – Krones Designing the Perfect MMORPG (Pt 1) 18 hours 28 min old, KillTenRats – Ethic I’m doing a Future Salon 20 hours 48 min old, Raph’s Koster Website Don’t Just Do Something! Stand There! 21 hours 12 min old, KillTenRats – Ethic WoW to open for-pay character transfers soon? 1 day 4 hours old, Terra Nova – Academics playground Uselessist GDC summary ever 1 day 6 hours old, Amber Night Koster Departs SOE 1 day 9 hours old, Aggro Me Raiding skill 1 day 11 hours old, Tobold Don’t Mess With Texas Bars 1 day 11 hours old, BrokenToys – Lum PlanetSide Reserves: Reporting for Fodder 1 day 14 hours old, Pitfalls – Krones more [...]
[...] Comments [...]