Nine times out of 10, developers get along with one another at the Game Developers Conference. That wasn't the case at this morning's "The Future of Story in Game Design" panel.
Though five members of the industry were featured, the fireworks were clearly between two in particular. Denis Dyack, President of Silicon Knights and Director of "Too Human," and Matthew Karch, Co-owner and Game Designer at "TimeShift" developer Saber 3D, were visibly and verbally butting heads over the importance of story in video games in the future.
The two split on basic philosophies of game development. Dyack, always the passionate visionary, said developers need to stop designing games based upon a gameplay mechanic. "Too Human," he said, came from a desire to comment on the continued melding of humans and technology. Karch, however, said gameplay is king and any story elements acts as a support for that gameplay, a motivating factor to keep going.
Karch pointed to some of the best selling games of last year, "Call of Duty 4" and "Halo 3," suggesting that their phenomenal sales had little to do with the narrative. "Yeah, there's stories [in these games], but I don't think people played those games for the stories," said Karch, who believes the visuals and visceral gameplay of both games were the main draw. "We can pretend that we want to elevate games to the level of Shakespeare, but the reality is, the audience that we're dealing with today wants that [gameplay focus]."
You might guess that Dyack vehemently disagreed with Karch's assessment. Read on to find out his reactions (one of many) to Karch during the panel's hour-long debate.