While industry veterans have been criticizing the state of storytelling in games, Naughty Dog lead game designer Richard Lemarchand thinks the situation is quite the opposite.
"I think we're in the middle of this incredible renaissance in video games," he said at the 2008 Games for Change festival earlier this week in New York. "We've had this huge explosion of creativity in the last few years."
Speaking on a panel with other industry bigwigs about how social-change games can be profitable for the mainstream games business, Lemarchand, who worked on "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune," said he evens thinks games can be as influential as great literature.
"Games are really starting to mature as a literary medium," he continued. He talked about Charles Dickens and explained how the author's popular novels based on his poverty-stricken childhood were largely credited with closing down debtors' prisons in Victorian England. "I think the kind of effect that literature can have on society is something to start getting excited about for video games."
"Games are really starting to mature as a literary medium." |
In talking about creating memorable, emotional narratives, Lemarchand spoke about the reception of his own game: "When we shipped 'Uncharted,' we got lots of great feedback not just about the fun of running around smashing enemies up, but from the nuanced emotional tones that the game had and the way that the characters were painted as more well-rounded, recognizable human beings."
Lemarchand also thinks there are more opportunities than ever for passive media consumers to become active content producers. He gave "LittleBigPlanet" as an example because of its level creator, saying that "there's plenty of room for social change and activism in online spaces with [these kinds of games]."
When the topic of distribution came up, Lemarchand said that marketing is an important aspect that needs to be considered from the very beginning of the process, and that there are many creative ways to sell social-change games.
"[Starbucks] seems like a place to get games in front of people who might not otherwise come into contact with them." |
"There are creative opportunities everywhere; we've been talking more and more about non-traditional physical retail spaces, like a point of sale at Starbucks," he said. "They used those opportunities in a creative way to start selling things other than coffee, like music CDs, for example. And that seems like a place to get games in front of the eyes of people who might not otherwise come into contact with them."
To those making games about social issues, he said, "I think more and more opportunities are arising, and I think you might be pleasantly surprised at this juncture in the industry."
Readers, what do you think? Can games influence social change as much as movies or books? And do you want to have those games available at the Starbucks counter?
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