Rich's Video Game Presentation

The main goal of Rich's presentation was to trace the development of narrative in video games.

Though I missed the latter part of the lecture to go to the Huffington Post, I was able to catch some of Rich's points.

One of his contentions is that creating a good story in video games is not necessarily dependent on excellent graphics. He also sought to show us how sometimes in video games a good story sometimes comes at the expense of good game play.

To demonstrate these fact, he showed us an old game, Final Fantasy IV, that had relatively simple graphics, but a rich, complicated story that gamers could experience by clicking through dialogue exchanged between characters. The clicking, Rich explained, is actually a much more active way of experiencing the story than some of today's games. Those games use cut scenes that take the control completely out of the gamer's hands.

Rich also showed us a newer game, Heavy Rain, that had better graphics and a complex environment but had game play issues. In the introductory scene, we are a father looking for his son in a shopping mall. As he runs around shouting his son's name, the only option the gamer has is when to shout.

The other problem with this game is that the character design is close to reality, but not quite close enough to seem real. Rich showed us a chart that explained the range of realism in characters and how that relates to our suspension of disbelief. We are able to connect to a stick figure because we know he is meant to be merely a symbol of a real person, but when we see a figure who is meant to be human but does not fit the bill we cannot believe it as easily. He showed us a scene from Mass Effect 2 to further prove his point.

The field of video game development, Rich said, has expanded beyond the big game makers to every day consumers. As an example, he showed us a game he developed using software that you can purchase. Today, playing video games is not a passive activity, but one that can involve creativity and individual expression.

Later, Rich showed us an example of a game that combined great storytelling with great graphics. The scene we saw was the climax of the game in which the protagonist kills a crazed character, and learns that he has been motivated to kill all along by a string of code words. Rich' assertion, that video games are an art form, seems to be proven by this scene, which shows the potential of a form that many once belittled.