On Bringing Emotions To Videogames

Thanks to MSNBC for its article discussing the process of bringing emotions to videogames. The article argues: "A game that can evoke complex emotions - longing, despair, empathy - is the holy grail for some in the industry", and highlights projects such as Facade, an "interactive drama" that "uses natural speech recognition and a [high] level of artificial intelligence." Although it's unclear "what... these new games look like", the piece ends on a snappy note, courtesy Deus Ex creator Warren Spector, who proclaims: "Finding ways to broaden range of emotions you can experience and express in games is the future of games as far as I'm concerned... If it turns out I'm wrong, I'm going to open a bookstore."

Comments

Re:Nothing New Under the Sun

[rufo]

Deus Ex: Invisible War wasn't actually a Warren Spector game - it was handled by Harvey Smith, one of the chief guys on DX1. Here's an interview from back in February in which Warren was kind of wondering about some of the choices Harvey had made, but didn't interfere. There's also some interesting quotes with regard to the supposed "dumbing down", and selling out, which are all pretty much things people accused Ion Storm of.

I haven't played DX:IW yet (I don't have a GF3 or better card), but from what I hear, maybe he should've stepped in more. (My understanding is that it's overall still a good game - it just doesn't achieve the same level of greatness of the first one, and is rather disappointing in some ways to fans of the original.)