Blog: "What videogames lack: Deeper intent"

[Adventurer4Life]

I think the meaning you are wishing for games is not achievable... like at all. games can make us laugh, or scare us (after fps were invented)... but make us cry.. make us really get emotionally involved? I do not think that is possible.

An actor just craps all over a drawing or sprites or 3d.. even mega hardcore things like Avatar and Lord of the Rings fail (with many peopole0 to emotionally engage us, as the characters were are looking at are simply unable to express the nuances of emotion that we see in a real human face,... or even a pets like a dog or cat.

No matter how complex and amazingly written a game is i do not believe it is possible for us to connect on a deep emotional level. At the very best we have a intellectual understanding of what the story is saying.. oh these guys are falling in love... we understand that on a intellectual level but we will not, imo, ever cry if they have some tragedy and do not get together like all those movie my wife balls her eyes out at.

I think this is due to 2 reasons, one I have already said concerning the inability of a game character to express complex emotions physically, the other is that WE are playing the game characters, usually involved in extraordinary events way beyond our own experiences, or even what we are capable of. I think this will always make a gap between us and computer games at this time. No matter how often the game says something like "your in love with this character".. you the player... just aren't... while watching films, reading docos or w/e we are relating emphatically to someone ELSE that is in love...

This is a HUGE HUGE difference, it is also why sub characters can evoke strong reactions while the protagonist you play can not... like say some side kick dieing, who had been with you form the start of the game.. this is a different response, an empathic one... witch it totality different to the experience of BEING the character yourself. Again... No matter how much we say "the character you are playing is emotionally disturbed by watching their parents die at the hands of the elves as a child".... we, as in the players... just ARE NOT emotionally disturbed....

A perfect example of sub charicters provoking responses beyond the character we play is in the recent fable 2. Were you had a dog that followed you the entire game, you taught it tricks all sorts of stuff... and then as part of the main story it dies, and in a reward for teh "love" ending is that gets revived back to life.... people raged quit teh game, tremendous reaction to this character death, and of course when it came alive at the end teh player felt awesome, witch complimented... even replaced the emotional high of the story concluding with the love story... though it happened at the same time so people got fooled.

(man i talk to much lol... home alone with teh wife and kids out.. bad news)