Video Games Should be Interactive NOT Cinematic

Video games have been becoming more cinematic with every passing year, they've always strived to emulate Hollywood and the success of the film industry. But video games are not films nor should they be.

Last week The Order: 1886 was released to a tidal wave of criticism, at first centered around it's shockingly short length, 5-6 hours, and later for it's more critical failures, bland game play, little variety, reused sections, and a general overly scripted feel. The games unskippable cutscenes reportedly add to the games already short length and the argument has been made that there isn't more than a handful of hours of actual game play in the entire game. It isn't my place to criticize the development team at Ready at Dawn for their creative choices, if this is the game they intended players to play than I will form a subjective opinion of the end result but it would simply be my opinion. My main problem stems from an odd trend I've seen developing in the video game industry that I think should be examined before too much money is wasted on a disinterested audience.

During development of The Order: 1886 the games creative director and executive producer, Ru Weerasuriya was interviewed by Play4Real where he expressed disdain for having to make the game and wished him and his team could have made a film instead. In the interview he goes on to call video games archaic and described how the team preferred to work on character animations rather than interesting game play mechanics. It's a fascinating interview I suggest everyone read: link. I can't reiterate this enough, I can not criticize Ready at Dawn for making the game they wanted to make, but I feel better criticizing that they shouldn't have made a game at all, if the feelings above represented how they felt during development. Video games by their very nature and definition are interactive, lately games like Gone Home and anything from Telltale have reduced interactivity to emphasize story and characters but those games alter themselves based on player choices. The Order has been derided for it's unflinching linearity and countless moments where all control is taken away from the player. The cinematic world is vastly different from the interactive one, I love both but they are inherently very different and invoke different feelings.  

Another game developer, Remedy Entertainment, has also opted to focus on this cinematic experience in their next game, Quantum Break, a video game that is tied to a live action television series. How this will work has yet to be fully revealed but the game will somehow incorporate this show that Remedy themselves produced and inter-cut game play sections with the show they developed. Again I wonder why make a game at all, develop a television show if that's is what they want to do, in this day an age an entertainment company could be as diverse as they wanted. They can make games, television series, short films, feature films, comics, etc. But all of these mediums require a different skill set and offer wildly different experiences for the viewer/player/reader and they typically don't cross over. 

Telltale, a favorite developer of mine recently announced a project they've dubbed a "Super Show" where through a partnership with Lionsgate Entertainment, a film and television company, will produce a series that is "one part interactive playable content with one part of scripted television style content". It's still very early for Telltale and whatever it has planned but as you can see there seems to be a trend developing in the video games industry to develop content that is less game and more video. 

Again we are living in one of the most diverse and creatively charged eras of entertainment media, anything and everything is being developed and there are more avenues to distribute this vast array of content. But I fear game developers are developing projects that are half this and half that, which has the worrying chance of satisfying no one. Video games are interactive and the people who play them like them that way, just look at the response to The Order or the idiotic comments that Gone Home is a walking simulator. And films and television are very different beast and while these game companies are free to pursue different projects they should commit to one medium and not split their audience in half, by having one foot in the interactive space and one in the cinematic.