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Video in Games: The State of the Industry
Video is one of the most commonly used and least understood elements of modern computer games. Ever since the CD-ROM offered a medium able to carry significant amounts of audio and video, game developers have worked to incorporate video into their titles. Although there have been many missteps along the way, video is still a critical element of the game designer’s palette. When used well, it can create mood, set up game play, introduce characters, and forward narrative. When used poorly, it can rip you out of the game faster than a direct rocket-launcher hit during a deathmatch. A Brief History of Video in Games The first game using video was the arcade classic Dragon’s Lair. However, this game was based around an analog LaserDisc, not digital video. The first game using digital video in any significant way was Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, released back in 1992. It had a budget of over $1 million and was shot by experienced filmmakers with professional actors on real sets. Given the limited quality of the playback technologies of the day, the quality of the presentation was poor on most platforms, but the game used video well and it was a pretty fun beer-and-pretzels game. The first big commercial hit in the burgeoning interactive movie genre was Trilobyte’s The 7th Guest. In retrospect, the success of this title was probably more due to the novelty of seeing video on a computer, rather than the game’s design. Functionally, the game was a series of barely related logic puzzles that used cut scenes as a reward for solving those puzzles. The video was poorly produced; actors were filmed in front of a blue sheet with a home video camera. It was impossible to make a clean key from this, and so the actors were left with ugly blue halos. The game’s signature effect of transparent ghosts with blue halos walking through rendered environments wasn’t originally intended — rather, it was a last-ditch attempt to make the best use of this artifact. The 7th Guest’s success set up some basic fallacies for the genre: quality doesn’t matter, video is enough of a reward for users, and game play doesn’t have to be tied to the video narrative. Needless to say, this model isn’t seen in games anymore, at least in games in which the actors wear clothing.
The standout success of the early digital video era was Myst. While reviled by some game purists, Myst remains the most popular game of all time, and immeasurably contributed to expanding the mass market for interactive entertainment and CD-ROM drives in general. Myst used video in an appropriate manner — in short snippets, inside the overall game environment, advancing plot in a plot-oriented game. The expectation grew in some quarters that "Interactive Movies" would prove to become the dominant form of computer game, and prove to be another outlet for the talents of second-tier stars. Some of them were even quite interesting, such as Phantasmagoria. Wing Commander III was another turning point in the genre. It melded The 7th Guest’s model of video sequences between game play elements with the plot-integration of Myst, and added big name stars such as Mark Hamill and Malcolm McDowell. And it was moderately successful, both creatively and financially. However, the costs for producing what was effectively a TV miniseries in parallel with game development were very high, and the games had to be hugely successful to break even.
The way video was used in Wing Commander III remains dominant today, even though our video budgets are a small fraction. We see video in short, plot-advancing sequences that alternate with game play and give context to what happens in game play sequences. Most of the budget and energy goes to an impressive opening sequence that sets up the plot and is endlessly repeated at game retailers as an attract loop. ________________________________________________________ |
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Features
A
Brief History of Video in Games
