The thing is that the sole reason for a movie’s existence is to tell you a story. It’s what they’ve been doing since the concept’s inception.

I said this in my last post, but the entire point of a game is to be fun to play. It is either impossible, or will take a very very, long time for developers to figure out how to write both an elegant, mature narrative and integrate it seamlessly with gameplay. Cutscenes are always going to break immersion, and giving players control during scripted events (a la Half-life) removes the director effect from the experience.

Simply reduce both of the mediums to origins. Movies were telling from the day of their creation. Old school games were variations on Pong and Pac-Man.

Next…

“I differentiated between the casual gamers because, in my mind, for the most part, those who have been swept into gaming by the Wii and the Wii alone, still see it as just a toy. They haven’t and aren’t being slowly let into to gaming culture. They play the Wii, when the Wii goes away they’ll go back to doing whatever they did.”

The thing about this argument is that gaming isn’t so much a culture as a sub-culture. Tech is the real culture and we are a smaller piece of that.

The article is what’s going to happen in the future of games, companies only do what makes them money. Now the Wii and the DS are the highest selling consoles of this generation and I doubt any of them and would be surprised if even a good percentage of them are in tune with gaming “culture”.

If we’re speaking solely of the future, then the future is going to be filled with games being developed for these non-gaming “culture” people. We already see Microsoft working towards appealing to casuals, and Sony won’t be too far behind, the future is leaving gaming “culture” behind. You have to look at the blanket nature of your statement. It’s not just Wii owners that aren’t being indoctrinated into your so called gaming “culture” it’s people that buy Madden every year, the people that play Peggle every free moment, the kids that buy every single iteration of Pokemon and the subscribers to World of Warcraft that play nothing else.

I read Neogaf, subscribe to several gaming publications, and listen to entirely too many podcast, I’m as inscribed to the gaming culture as anyone else. I also understand that the gaming culture does NOT make a video game company as much money as those Wii and Peggle playing soccer moms and the Madden playing football heads do.

The Wii isn’t going way, Nintendo will find out what people like and give them that the next time around. These practices ARE the future of videogames. We aren’t going to be seeing so much focus on purely hardcore titles, it’s just not viable for a company to make one and risk it failing on the market. Unfortunately this is how things have to be.

I honestly would say that the 360 was overpriced until recently, and even the elite is still over priced (same price as the 80gb ps3 with no blu ray, no wifi) most people dont even realize the controller on the arcade 360 is wired not wireless so you loose features. the $300 360 is about the right price, but it should really be ab out $250 and the arcade should be $150, with the elite at $300 or so. I will not buy a new console if it were to come out within the next 2 years because the ps3 would still be going strong at that point, as the ps2 is now. I have the wii for my children and the ps3 for me, and I do not own the 360 becuase of all the friends I have had with the red rings (rrod) problem. I don’t care what games it has if it doesn’t work half the time or you have to worry about when it won’t work (I am only interested in gears of war and I am not a rpg fan).

For any of the big 3 to come out with a new console in 2 years would be a mistake (especially sony since they are just starting to break even or make a small profit in the very near future). Microsoft forced Sony to come out with the ps3 last time. Sony would have waited another year if the 360 had not come out in 2005, and that is what Microsoft is doing, changing the rules. Sony did it too, but now it’s a different ball game.

With blu ray and the cell, I feel as though the ps3 is the most future proof, and with blu ray the size of games won’t be an issue so they are just going to need to work on the graphics. With MGS4 and Uncharted to name a few, I do not really see how Sony can’t squeeze more out of the ps3 to compete with a new xbox if it does come out sooner rather than later. Microsoft also will have to deal with dumping tons of money into designing a new console, especially to fix the problems with the 360 as to not repeat history again. Either way I do not think it is a smart idea for any of the big 3 to release a new console before 2012, that’s just my opinion though.

While I am feeling the hurt of games increasing in retail cost as a result of increasing development costs, I feel that once the technology is improved upon, most likely as a result of forthcoming consoles, we will see price decreases. This is similar to the ipod, each generation they continue to improve on the design in cost effect ways, ultimately making them cheaper for the consumer. I think it will be similar for games.

Second, I have to wholeheartedly agree that story should be the future focus in game improvement. Game’s aren’t and should not be positioned as a story-telling medium primarily. They’re main focus should be on graphics and gameplay, and a good story should NEVER be implemented if it’s a detriment to the way the game plays. Unlike television, film, and novels which exist primarily to entertain its audience with a story, the purpose of a video game is to be fun to play.

I understand that games like Bioshock are a gross exception, but the whole philosophy behind the exception is the implementation of a system that gives the user more information only if they activate it themselves, a la the tape recordings. This was made twice as successful due to the fact that the gameplay was so tight, and the graphics and art design were entirely unique. It was something we’ve never seen, and a FPS we’ve never played before.

Another example you provided was Portal. Portal’s story was entirely minimalist in execution. The game never interrupted immersion for the sake of exposition, and it ultimately had fairly little to actually tell the player, it provided a context for the scenario to exist, and that’s really all that’s necessary. And while the game’s story is icing on the cake, the gameplay is the main attraction.

Lastly, I don’t understand what you mean when you differentiate one group of casual gamers from another, but casual gamers will do what all casual consumers of a medium do, they advance when they feel the technology is worth the price. That’s all any casual consumer does.

Lastly, technology is always going to advance. Not just in games, but in everything, everywhere. It’s always going to be expensive at first, but the cost of entry is always going to go down. It’s just how things work.

I’m not ready for the next generation either!