Games are not movies. They are entirely seperate mediums, as different as painting and literature. But scores of uncreative game developers, including Tim Schafer, Peter Molyneux, and even Yoichi Wada, think that gaming's greatest goal is to mimic film.
But what is a cutscene? What is a "cinematic atmosphere"? What are beautiful graphics? In film, they are everything. In games, they are a gimmick. That's right - your beloved "hd revolution", games with 600,000 lines of dialogue and summer-blockbuster budgets, have nothing to do with gaming itself. It is a gimmick. G*I*M*M*I*C*K. Everytime you've finished a game and never touched it again, it's because you'd grown tired of the game itself yet hung around to enjoy the story, and once that's over so is your only draw to the game.
Games that focus on gameplay, that require immense strategy or skill are played forever. Look at Starcraft, Guitar Hero, Quake 3. These games don't need any frills, they're simple to pick up yet have nearly unlimited depth in terms of skill or strategy. They celebrate the medium of gaming, and don't try to hide it under frills and makeup.
Many gamers, including myself, used to marvel at watching a cartoon Sonic run around before playing the same old game, and we'd keep playing just to see another cartoon, but the fad is now over. It began with the Sega CD and ended with the PS2. Today's cutscene machines, 360 and PS3, are failing as people are no longer interested in "playing" a movie (except for the moronic hardcore.)
If you enjoy the cinematic experience, you can buy a machine for $100 that streams them to your house 24/7 for free. This cutscene machine has been active since the late 1920's, and there's none of that ho-hum gameplay to worry about.
So as one big gaming company after another lays people off, Sony, THQ, Square, while smaller companies roll around in record setting sales, many gamers are left confused. Trent Reznor is not one of them.
"I think a lot of the big publishers have gone the route of record labels and movie companies where it costs so much to make a game and they're so obsessed with the idea that games have to be cinematic experiences, that lots of money gets spent on the marketing and the rendering, and not a lot of money gets puts into anything innovative and interesting."
Trent knows this because he and his art director pitched their own game awhile back, and this is what they heard from the big publishers (who are no doubt laying people off this year),
"Well, it costs so much to make a game, we're really only interested in sequels or movie tie-ins," Reznor was told.
These days, Reznor says, he's much more interested in the kind of fare one finds on WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade, things like Geometry Wars, which as Reznor put it, "Have a very simple design, but offer great depth." In other words, Trent likes gameplay.
And so does the rest of the world, according to sales we see every day.
The fad is over. R.I.P. cinematic games.
Reznor's full interview is here:
http://revision3.com/diggdialogg/trentreznor/#seek=1595:1807
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