Making Steven Cry

Game talk
10 Comments

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. 🙂

10 Comments

  2. Pingback: categories | The Cesspit.
  3. Pingback: Faith

  4. 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.

  5. 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

  6. 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.

  7. *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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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?

Comments are closed.