Mandatory cinematic sequences

Developers, developers, developers, developers. They know they make games. Probably. They might think they’re making films, though, judging by the amount of fake cinematography in them. One difference between actual cinematography and game cinematography is that filming in real life captures an action taking place outside of the cameraman, thus is a presentation medium.

Video games on the other hand are drawn and programmed, thus when you find yourself watching a lengthily cinema sequence, you can’t help but feel those who designed it are enjoying a spot of autofellatio. That is to say, they care far more about their work than they do about whether or not other people particularly want to see it. See, however good the map and graphics are, they are compliments to gameplay, not the gameplay itself. People don’t boot up video games for a passive experience, they do it for an active experience. The result is that however excellent the cinema, a large proportion of us will skip it.

Replay value

At some point, games reviewers started examining games based on a mysterious thing called “replay value”. It is the idea that, now games have moved more into storytelling, they threaten to be over as soon as completed, as opposed to being playable many times. Since most people buy rather than rent games, you would want a game on your shelf to have replay value, or the ability to remain interesting upon second play. Either that, or you would want a game so long that you forget the start before you get to the end – I doubt video games will reach that peak for a while, requiring as it does far more power and work than simply programming in some collectables.