The lack of game within a game

It is no understatement that game have become big, huge even. Moviemakers are starting to see the possibilities (with Steven Spielberg collaborating with EA to make a game) and developers are having more and more difficulty to make the cut; make a good selling game. It is also a fact that games have become a commercial business, and as with every commercial business; it is the sales that matter, not the innovation. Yet, as a gamedesigner, I look at the current games and am disappointed. This is because, I feel that there is a lack of game in the actual game.

Over the past few years, to day games have increased in quality is an understatement. In a few years, the technological capabilities of games (digital games) have skyrocketed, and now we are making games that can compete with movies, in terms of realism. We may not have passed the uncanny valley, but so have movies. If we look at games like for example Gears of War, and the news on its second iteration, it is hard to say that it is anything short of impressive. Realistic interaction with water, ambient occlusion, normal mapping, etcetera. But, where the games are technically impressive, they are extremely disappointing at the same time. This is because, even though the game media have an almost unlimited potential, games have more or less come to a standstill. They are just repeating that which "works", without any eye for the actual improvements of a game.

When people are calling a DS game named "The world ends with you" original, just because the graphics are different, it makes me sad. No doubt that game is going to be a good game, great even. But originality in games is not achieved by changing the art direction alone. In fact, I dare to say that we have come to rely too much on this visual aspect of the game. Not just that, as I said earlier; we have come to rely too much on too much that is actually not a worthy part of a game. And we have been accepting it, like the good little costumers we are.

I see games as a highly interactive form of entertainment. We have the unique ability in a game to alter the world with our own actions, unlike movies or books, where you are limited a world that was thought up long before you actually started reading or watching any of them. Yet, it is that very same interaction that has grown to be lacking severely, especially in the last few years.

I am now going to name two elements and their issues, to illustrate my point.

Cutscenes
One thing that I see as entirely obsolete, is the presence of the so called cutscene. While many specialists are still discussing whether cutscenes should be called a part of games or not, I believe that cutscenes actually wreck the gaming experience.

To answer the question whether a cutscene is actually part of a game, we once again have to look at the unique properties of a game. It is a form of entertainment where your actions can influence the world. If we look at a cutscene, or a movie, the properties are very different. With a movie, as the viewer, you are not part of the world. You look at the story unfold without any choice in the matter. In that sense, games and the cutscenes in games are two radically different entities.

By forcing a player "out of the game" into a movie, you can actually wreck the entire experience. After all, you forcefully take away control from the player to advance the plot. In that sense, seeing as how the technology in games have come that far, cutscenes are nothing but a relic of the past. Dinosaurs even. We have developed a lot of ways of creating situations where cutscenes are not even necessary, but because those are more difficult to accomplish that a "simple" cutscene, developers tend to take the easy way out and use them anyway. A shame really.

Soundtrack
Soundtrack is another thing that has become painfully stale in the last years. In fact, the sound in a game has become even more so stale that the cutscene; in that since the beginning of video games the role of the soundtrack has not changed one bit. The only thing that changed is the quality.

The soundtrack, for each game, is limited to only this: BGM and SFX. For each RPG, platform game, adventure game, these are the standards, nothing more. Even titles that used to propel games to a new level (Mario comes to mind) was not able to innovate on this particular piece of the game. Not by much anyway. As part of any game, soundtracks remain the most underestimated and also the most underdeveloped part. In a medium that is interactive, the sound is not. There have been tries to change this (in rhythm games, in a very small part of other games). It has even gotten so far that many gamers do not even see the importance of music. Even though sound is actually of utmost importance. I dare to say sound is even more important than graphics.

Sound is an extremely powerful component. The human hears before he even sees in many occasions, because of the limitations of the eye. We are mesmerized by sound just as much as we are with pretty graphics. Therefore, it is a shame to see that sound is still so underdeveloped in this day and age.

There are more points of discussion when it comes to the lack of game within a game, some even more serious than this. I believe that in order to truly create originality and innovation, we first have to improve on these elements. I hope that one day the developers, and especially the marketing division, can see this and stop limiting games in their raw potential. Because I believe that games are an extremely powerful medium, more powerful than any medium currently available in our lives.