hi, i need some information from people on what they feel games can take from the film industry to improve the overall quality of this growing medium. i personally feel that games have the potential to become the next form of storytelling medium. with the graphics and the growing increase in cinematic imput games have the potential to reach another level of entertainment. I wanna know from people what they think the films industry can give the games industry and where u think this will eventually lead. any feedback i get would be welcome thanks p.s. this is for my dissertation

I have to say I'm not a fan of the "games as storytelling" hype that's been going around. Games are interactive experiences; movies and films are essentially passive experiences. The interactive part of the game is what makes it a game, by definition, and that is the part that should be emphasized.

I'm not saying there aren't a million ways to make a game tell a story. But I just don't believe the hype. The games I've played which I consider to have great plots are games that would be fun to play anyway*, and I've spent a lot of time playing games with a mediocre "story" just because they were fun. Some games, (I'm thinking Fallout 2) don't have a good story so much as they have good art design--it's still fun to play, though, because it's such a great game.

Story and art don't make games good. Story and art make a good game great.

*Also, I probably wouldn't have finished the game and traced the plot to the end had the interactive element not been good enough to play that long.

Games have already taken so much from the film industry I'm really not sure there's anything beneficial left to take.

when i say take from films i dont necessarilly mean games that are long drawn out story floggers. i think that half life 2 is a very cinematic game, the environments, sounds, and playability seem to be very carefully planned so its shows you exactly what they want you to see without making the player feel locked in to a certain situation, there is nothing i hate more than playing a game and feeling that there is only one possible way of solving a problem.

but i feel that interesting stories, character development in the story, atmosphere, music and lighting are all very important in games. and these are all departments that have been mastered over decades in film

Quote: interesting stories, character development in the story

I don't think so, though I do think that serial forms like TV series should be given more attention; a lot of console RPG's going for the twenty hour mark end up following a similar sort of thing.

Quote: atmosphere, music and lighting

yes, yes, yes

Go more with this.