Drawing on Hollywood: What the game biz can learn

The convergence of film and games is a hot topic right now. Games are no longer a niche product targeting a narrow market: They're a key part of the entertainment industry, standing shoulder to shoulder with other media like music and especially film. But music and film have had a much longer life span. As a result, people working in these media have had more time to come to grips with issues that the game industry has only confronted recently. Today five game veterans came together to talk about what the game industry can learn from its big brothers in a panel discussion called "Coming to Grips With a Higher Standard: How Movies and Music are Influencing the Game Industry."

The panel brought together people from a wide range of backgrounds. Panelists included Keith Boesky, a talent agent at International Creative Management; Dane Davis, the president of a sound design/sound editing firm; Mark Lasoff, art director at EA's LA Studio; and David Perry, president of Shiny Entertainment. The panel moderator was Robert Levine, an editor at Sync magazine.

Most of the panelists agreed that the industry is facing some key questions. How do you write a good story? How do you make people care about your characters? How do you create a convincing, immersive experience? And, perhaps most importantly, "Can we learn more about these things from the film industry?" The answer: a qualified yes. Though the film industry is effective at many of these things, it can be a challenge to apply these techniques to games--a very different medium.

As Lasoff put it, "The challenge isn't finding a scriptwriter to write something, but finding a bridge between them and the developers. It's different and harder than when a director works with a scriptwriter." He mentioned two reasons for this: It's partially because developers are used to having a high level of control over the story and partially because over the course of a game with 20 hours of gameplay, it's very challenging for the developers to keep track of continuity and make certain that no design decisions contradict the story.

Perry agreed that it isn't hard to find a screenwriter, but he pointed out that it can be hard to find one that's qualified to work in game development. In his words, "Many screenwriters want to get into the business, but they don't know anything about games." These screenwriters also might not be prepared for the demands of the position. Boesky, a screenwriter working on one of EA's Medal of Honor games, said, "It's like writing three movies."

There was general agreement that story and character development was the area in which game designers could learn the most from the film industry. But the game industry could learn in other areas as well--including some in which knowledge transfer is less demanding. These include sound design, costume design, casting, and business techniques. For better or for worse, the Hollywood model of using contractors who are laid off at the end of each project is starting to be used in the game industry as a way to cut costs.

The panelists also discussed some blue-sky ideas they hope to see sometime in the future: exciting ideas like Turing Test-capable AI for use in generating NPC dialogue, realistic soundfields in which sounds are muffled when you hide under a desk and echoes are true to life, and dynamically generated character animation that's based on the computer's understanding of human anatomy and doesn't rely on motion capture of every possible situation.

The game industry has come a long way in the 10 years since the first E3, but today's panel made it clear that the industry can still look forward to a lot of growth.