The Convergence of Games and Film

Gamasutra has a piece on the ever-increasing convergence of games and films. The final chapter meeting of the IGDA's San Francisco chapter this year had an event focusing on, in particular, the preponderance of Star Wars games. From the article: "The convergence of film and game production has been predicted for years, but progress has been slow... cultural, logistical, financial, and computational barriers have kept the two worlds apart. Everybody sees convergence, most want it, but few know what it really means and fewer still have actually tried it."

Comments

What REALLY is the definition of "convergence"?

[WidescreenFreak]

Even after reading through the article, I still am not sure what they mean by "convergence" between video games and movies -- and I've been playing video games that are based on movies since before a lot of Slashdotters were itches in their daddy's pants! ;)

They talk about a common code base. Okay, so is "convergence" the use of the same graphics engine to create movie sequences and video game graphics? That sounds more like resource sharing, not the merging of two types of media.

Is "convergence" the use of movie or movie-quality sequences in video games? Hell, video games have been doing that for many years. A lot of games, such as the original "Jedi Knight" and the later "Wing Commander" series, used theatrical cut-scenes in the games to further the story along in a more engrossing manner. (I just use those as examples. There are obviously games from before that that used the same techniques.) So, it THAT "convergence"?

But wait ... TFA said that they were shown a series of works that ILM did, and that the results looked like a video game. I'm not sure that that's necessarily a compliment, but it again blurs the definition as I see it of what "convergence" means with respect to movies and video games.

Is "convergence" a game that plays like you're watching a movie? Again, there are many games that took that approach so that action blends seamlessly with cut-scenes and back again. If this is the definition, then is convergence related to the look or the feel or both?

Even looking at the threads here so far, the responses seem to go between video games and movies. So, it doesn't seem as though anyone here really has a firm grasp of what "convergence" entails.

Maybe if the developers/studios would come up with a concrete definition of "convergence", we'd be able to come up with a more credible target for when the two media actually are "converged".

Re:What REALLY is the definition of "convergence"?

[spyrochaete]

I'm with you on this one. Convergence is not really defined in TFA. It sounds like they're largely talking about the quality of effects - the sole factor in what too many journalists are touting as "next generation games".

These are entirely dissimilar media with one fundamental difference - movies are prerendered while games are realtime. It makes no sense to make a movie in the Quake 4 engine because, by movie standards, it will look like crapola. Short of inviting Sam Jackson to your house and smacking him with a glowing broomstick, I don't see how games and movies can converge more than they already have in terms of special effects.

There are games that have borrowed from tried and true cinematographical conventions. Sure, Alone In The Dark was a Lovecraft-esque horror game with a spooky house and monsters, but what made it truly frightening was the use of strategically-placed camera angles. Roberta Williams' Phantasmagoria succeeded as a thriller game not only because it was composed of digital video with actors and sets, but because of the slow pacing and three dimensional characters who themselves were afraid to open the door you just clicked. Wing Commander 3 and 4 introduced Hollywood actors (Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, and more) to cut scenes, allowing the player to interact with the story via branching dialogue menus. Enter The Matrix was "directed" by the Wachowski Bros., but that didn't result in a good game.

Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit in Europe) is the most movie-like game I've seen to date in terms of presentation, camera work, dialogue, and acting. It's obvious Quantic Dream designed the game to resemble a movie from the ground up, and it's impressive to see a game that looks and feels as polished as its cut scenes. As revolutionary as the interface is, the game is really an evolution of point-and-click adventures of decades past. I do hope to see many more games that tell a story in this way.

There are so many ways to tell a story other than movies. Why equate movies and games at all? Because they're moving pictures on a screen? That's incidental and ancillary. They both tell stories but they abide by different laws of storytelling. I say movies have as much to adopt from games as games do from movies.