Anime How come games dont use real actors anymore?

[TheGreatOne]

Since directing movies that the players watch with little to no input is the biggest ambition of majority of AAA developers, how come they don't just make proper movies rather than waste their time with cutscenes and scripting? If Origin Systems could afford big name stars to act in a space sim game series in the 90s, I'm sure modern popamole AAA developers have enough money to direct their own B-movies to fill in the gaps between gameplay. Paying real actors money to do motion capture feels so ass backwards when you could just as easily have them act themselves in the game for less trouble. And hey, if the there's no gameplay during the talky bits, maybe the designers could actually focus on improving the gameplay bits?

Isn't all that different from

The illusion of player agency is just that in most games, illusion. Like Half Life I guess you can throw trash at people and bunny hop on their heads, but you still have to listen to what they have to say before you can progress.
Dividing the story and gameplay doesn't work in games like Desu Sex, but games like that are a tiny minority. In most modern AAA titles you have no influence on anything during the storybits, even if in theory you're in control of your character. Hell, many games punish you for deviating from the plot and force you to redo sections if don't follow the damn train script

inb4 immershun&CyberP

 

[DraQ]

TheGreatOne

Nope.

Also, ban the OP.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Also, ban the OP.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Since directing movies that the players watch with little to no input is the biggest ambition of majority of AAA developers, how come they don't just make proper movies rather than waste their time with cutscenes and scripting?

Because making a film requires effort, adhering to certain standards and talking to unions, just to raise a few points. And all that while having the history of film in the background.

In gaming you need less effort, there are no standards to adhere to, you can treat your peons like shit and gamers are too stupid to know gaming history.

 

[TheGreatOne]

Also, ban the OP.

First explain in detail how a scripted scene where your only possible input is moving the camera or choosing a dialogue option differs in any meaningful way from watching a cutscene where your only possible input is choosing a dialogue option.

If you possesed simple reading comprehension skills, you could see that I'm not advocating for turning games into movies. The games industry of the past 15 years already has that covered. What I'm asking is why they don't just use real actors like in the 90s, since there isn't any practical difference between the two options in most cases, as Looking Glass style design is in the minority in big budget 3D games. In fact games like Thief (animated cutscenes between missions, same thing as FMV cutscenes), Terra Nova and Wing Commander are far better and more interactive video games than heavily scripted garbage like Heavy Rain and GTA 5 missions which give you the illusion that you're playing a video game during the story portions. Just as Gabriel Knight 2&Tex Murphy: Overseer are a lot more pure blooded adventure games than anything that Telltale games has ever put out.

 

[Raghar]

Too expensive. High school dropout with talent and 300-500 $ salary can do better and cheaper.

 

[JarlFrank]

Too expensive. High school dropout with talent and 300-500 $ salary can do better and cheaper.

A game with real actors instead of cutscenes, where the actors are all high school dropouts without talent and 300-500 $ salary, would be a lot more hilarious than the shittily animated cutscenes we have nowadays.

 

[TheGreatOne]

You can skip cutscenes but you'll always have to sit through scripted scenes (like the beginning of Half Life), so it does make sense that self important wanna be movie directors would be for moving games from FMV gaming to intergrating the story in to the game.

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/11/best-video-games-big-budget/
According to IMBD, Wing Commander 4 had a budget of 10 million, which is 15 million in 2015 money (14,3 in 2011) according to inflation calculator. So it was cheaper to produce than modern AAA games. Heavy Rain was 21 million and 52 million with marketing budget. I don't know whether Wing Commander numbers account for marketing or not. Though graphics are more expensive to produce today (Crysis had a budget of 15 million), development tools are better.
While it was ported to PS1, WC 4 was primarily a PC game. These days games are multiplatform, so it would be a smaller financial risk to fund a production like that.

A game with real actors instead of cutscenes, where the actors are all high school dropouts without talent and 300-500 $ salary, would be a lot more hilarious than the shittily animated cutscenes we have nowadays.

That would be

 

[Drax]

 

[Raghar]

Too expensive. High school dropout with talent and 300-500 $ salary can do better and cheaper.

A game with real actors instead of cutscenes, where the actors are all high school dropouts without talent and 300-500 $ salary, would be a lot more hilarious than the shittily animated cutscenes we have nowadays.

We already have that.
But a person with talent to allow it to make it properly, high school dropout - to make the person work for cheap, and passion for the industry - to be willing to work willingly for retards who are paying peanuts for professional PhD equivalent level of work, can accomplish much more and make it better looking. Actors have unions, game developers have nontransferable skills.

 

[TheGreatOne]

That's not as epic as being attacked by a dragon and having to fight for your life 4 realz

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Too expensive. High school dropout with talent and 300-500 $ salary can do better and cheaper.

A game with real actors instead of cutscenes, where the actors are all high school dropouts without talent and 300-500 $ salary, would be a lot more hilarious than the shittily animated cutscenes we have nowadays.

Perhaps you've never played Turbodweeb Hunt for PS1.

 

[pippin]

Voice Acting for videogames has become professsional and affordable enough to leave the occasional "celebrity" role as some sort of marketing bait (Beyond Two Souls is a clear example of that). I also have the impression that you can get away with mediocre shit in videogames more easily than in movies. Any kind of "big" videogame would barely be something like a direct to dvd movie these days.

And of course most devs would prefer to show off the latest graphix thingy instead of trying to do something creative. And smaller studios would try to ape that, which ends up in hilarious youtube meme fodder. The guys who did Max Payne did something really creative with the cutscenes and that was the result of being on a tight budget. The issue is mostly on that field, in my opinion.

I liked how Wasteland 2 had a live action intro, though.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I think it's because of the 90s vibe.

That's also why it just today made a come back in a hipster "game":



http://www.herstorygame.com

 

[No Great Name]

I really liked how Riven: Sequel to Myst integrated live actors with game graphics. Wish more games would do that more often.

 

[Wilian]

I wouldn't mind if I got more of this.

 

[Creamy Muffin]

They do. Liam Nilson was in Fallout 3, don't you know.

 

[darthaegis]

I think it's because of the 90s vibe.

That's also why it just today made a come back in a hipster "game":



http://www.herstorygame.com

By the way, can anyone tell me if Her Story is actually any good? Because even though it looks kinda interesting, it also looks like indie shovelware.

 

[Excidium II]

The intro sequence in SitS uses a real actress

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

 

[MilesBeyond]

Has OP played Oblivion? Remember when they blew their entire budget on Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, and that other guy? And had literally six different voices populating the rest of the game world?

See, companies like Black Isle and Lucasarts had the right idea here. Don't hire big-name actors, hire big-name voice actors. They'll give a much better performance for a much lower price. Plus it makes for funny connections. I love the fact that Nordom = Homer Simpson, or The Master = Winnie the Pooh, but my favourite has got to be Xan being done by Johnny Bravo. That one's just perfect. There's a sitcom in there somewhere.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Considering how much voice acting seems to be done without any direction at all, just people cold reading their individual lines in a booth with no context, I'd say the selection of actors isn't really the issue here.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

I just love how people don't bother to read the OP post and write crap about voice acting or show their relatively low experience in games.

 

[DraQ]

Also, ban the OP.

First explain in detail how a scripted scene where your only possible input is moving the camera or choosing a dialogue option differs in any meaningful way from watching a cutscene where your only possible input is choosing a dialogue option.

If you possesed simple reading comprehension skills, you could see that I'm not advocating for turning games into movies. The games industry of the past 15 years already has that covered.

No, but you don't advocate for turning around and getting the fuck out of the spot we're currently in which is the only sane course of action.

Short answer is "both are shit".

Long answer is:

• Having a bunch of nerds script shit using existing assets with maybe a little romp by a dued with some white balls glued all over complementing those assets is going to be cheaper than actual filming.
• Once filmed cutscenes are there to stay - want to change a small asset that would make the cutscenes inconsistent with the rest of the game? Either don't or re-record everything. Scripted scenes don't have this problem since they use the same assets.
  
• Scripting can have varying rigidity and allow for varying amount of input. It can be anywhere on cutscene-gameplay spectrum. FMV is binary.
  
• Scripting is more flexible allowing for variants of the same scene depending on character customization and sometimes location. FMV can only be one particular variant of given scene.
  
• Scripted scene will always look consistent with the rest of the game. FMV usually won't.
  
• Scripted scene is always going to be more efficient as far as storage medium is concerned.
  
• Scripted scene is locked into the exact same technology as the rest of the game, if the game will work, so will scripted scenes. Meanwhile if some codecs become obsolete or prevalent aspect ratio changes the FMVs will look funny or stop working at all, possibly crashing the game.

(animated cutscenes between missions, same thing as FMV cutscenes)

Nope.
Animated cutscenes are much cheaper. Slides are even better in that regard.

and Wing Commander are far better and more interactive video games than heavily scripted garbage like Heavy Rain and GTA 5 missions which give you the illusion that you're playing a video game during the story portions.

They would still be if they featured exactly 0 FMVs, so that's besides the point.

Anyway, having posted this thread you have outed yourself.
Yours is an uncodexian mind thinking uncodexian thoughts.

 

[Drax]

Fuck.
Now I want a Planetscape: Tournament GOTY edition with 3 hours of FMV co-directed by David Lynch and David Cronenberg while they snort blow from each other's freaky heads.

Edit: With a young Patricia Arquette playing whatever.