Interview Developers are not Shakespeare, should not write books

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Blizzard Entertainment

Jokes about Gaider aside, in an inspiring presentation, <a href="http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/57890">some guy from Blizzard who worked on World of Warcraft said</a>:
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<blockquote>"Basically, and I'm speaking to the Blizzard guys in the back: we need to stop writing a fucking book in our game, because nobody wants to read it," he explained.
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"We need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game," Kaplan, who left WoW to work on Blizzard's next MMO, explained. "We need to engage our players in sort of an inspiring experience, and the sooner we accept that we are not Shakespeare, Scorsese, Tolstoy or the Beatles, the better off we are."</blockquote>
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Somebody should note that neither "Scorsese" nor "the Beatles" wrote "fucking books" either. The former made films which had very few words compared to a book and the latter wrote songs which had even less words than a film, so I'm not quite certain what standard he's shooting for here.
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I can't also say I was ever aware of there being "a fucking book" in Diablo or Starcraft or World of Warcraft. Though <a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/game/StarCraft/">that hasn't stopped the fans</a> from writing them.
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Thanks <b>Veneral Disease</b>!

 

[Jasede]

o.O

 

[Gragt]

Jeff Kaplan: too edgy for you. It's as if he believes he's talking about something no one in the industry ever talked of yet.

I'd also like to see his standards for a good story. Now I'm curious.

 

[SuicideBunny]

do not care

Blizzard's next MMO

do not want

 

[spacemoose]

they should write choose-your-own-adventure books

 

[Syraxith]

Is he talking about the in-game books, tomes, etc that are readable or is he referring to the storyline itself?

 

[User was nabbed fit]

Maybe by putting the Beatles and Scorses together with writers he meant of them as artists. i.e. games shouldn't try to reach the point of nearly being art. And by that, I'd guess he means he isn't a fan of lore in games. It's true that the ADHD kiddies skip over that most of the time, so it looks like he just wants to appease his target audience!

 

[Zomg]

I wept when I read the fluff text for the one where you have to collect ten fish fins.

 

[poocolator]

We need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game," Kaplan, who left WoW to work on Blizzard's next MMO, explained. "We need to engage our players in sort of an inspiring experience, and the sooner we accept that we are not Shakespeare, Scorsese, Tolstoy or the Beatles, the better off we are.

I am confused.
How is what they do "engaging the players in sort of an inspiring experience?"
Also, how does anything Blizzard do even qualify as a "story?"
I'm sorry, but even though I like their (original) games, I never noticed any story worth mentioning. Blizzard does gameplay, and they do it right. That is all. They rinse & repeat tried formulae.

 

[Dire Roach]

Actually most of Blizzard's game manuals are filled with lore fluff and relatively big. He's probably talking about the lore books and quest descriptions from WoW which probably less than 5% of players bother to read.

 

[Dolar]

Jeff Kaplan is a former MMO, "big time" EQ guild leader, that was hired by blizzard as publicity coup a few months before WOW came out.

His influence on wow was never a good one. Now that he is gone and working on that other game, the design philosophy of wow and its endgame are much better. Much more balanced and fair for the entire fanbase now.

He has a habit of saying stupid shit like this, and being made to eat crow later. So just ignore him, most of the blizzard fanbase, and hopefully the other devs at blizzard do so as well.

 

[Lurkar]

However bad it might be that he's the one who said it, I do agree.

When game designers try to write books or movies as a game, you get shitty railroad plots where you can't deviate AT ALL (except maybe to choose the "evil" path at the very end) with lots and lots and lots of unskippable cut scenes.

 

[MetalCraze]

Blizzard's next MMO

So the sweet dream of becoming a zerg diplomat will finally come true?

 

[Rushan]

i did download some diablo books few month ago

did not read them yet.

 

[Korgan]

Hmm. I kind if see what point he's making here, but this particular argument is retarded. "Uniquely video game" examples of story delivery are, in my opinion, Another World, King of Dragon Pass, etc - hugely dependant on player interaction even when linear, but none of those is really like Blizzard's games. Which were excellent in the story and mood department until WoW came along.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Why is Blizzard keeping this tool around? He seems to be universally hated even among WoW players.

 

[poocolator]

Actually most of Blizzard's game manuals are filled with lore fluff and relatively big. He's probably talking about the lore books and quest descriptions from WoW which probably less than 5% of players bother to read.

Well those are the manuals... what about during gameplay? Cutscenes are decent, but the graphics during play, and representation are usually laughable (Warcraft III). The story I think is common fare anyway IMO. The usual orcs vs. human, mumbo-jumbo.

 

[Twinfalls]

Somebody should not that "Scorsese" nor "the Beatles" wrote "fucking books" either. The former made films which had very few words compared to a book and the latter wrote songs which had even less words than a film, so I'm not quite certain what standard he's shooting for here.

Don't be daft. The point he's making is pretty clear, and though nothing new, still relevant. It's game, not book, movie or rock'n'roll. The 'we're making an interactive movie!' mindset is something that plenty of developers still need to have beaten out of them. God I can't stand those pretentious 'opening credits' that you still find in games.

Maybe by putting the Beatles and Scorses together with writers he meant of them as artists. i.e. games shouldn't try to reach the point of nearly being art.

Actually it's the complete opposite. You get art when a medium is used in a manner unique to that medium. Otherwise it's a recording of art of a different medium. No fucking way should games ever be considered incapable of being art. But of course making a shitty and pretentious thing because you set out to make 'teh art' can happen to anything, game, movie, music, whatever.

 

[bhlaab]

I think what he's saying is:

Games in general are either trying to be like films or books, telling their stories through cutscenes, blocks of text and preset events.

The idea should be that games aren't films that you control bits of, they should utilize their ability to be interacted with to stand for themselves as a medium. Think Fallout, where you can more or less carve your own path through the story and affect how it ends, only more so and I think you're onto a good thing.

 

[Azael]

Hmm. I kind if see what point he's making here, but this particular argument is retarded. "Uniquely video game" examples of story delivery are, in my opinion, Another World, King of Dragon Pass, etc - hugely dependant on player interaction even when linear, but none of those is really like Blizzard's games. Which were excellent in the story and mood department until WoW came along.

You know, a RPG game where the story was delivered in a similar manner to KoDP would be very interesting, many small "random" stories that you get depending on your stats, reputation and previous actions while still having some kind of main story frame.

 

[Hory]

"We need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game," Kaplan, who left WoW to work on Blizzard's next MMO, explained. "We need to engage our players in sort of an inspiring experience

Problem is that "inspiring experience" is not "uniquely video game".

 

[Shannow]

Just to make that part clear...

Anyway, as others mentioned I'm pretty sure he meant:

a) don't try to copy other media, but play to the strengths of your medium.

b) few players bother to thoroughly read lore books/extensive quest descriptions/etc in WoW. And, as much as this might surprise the average codexer, he is probably right. Whether that should lead to scrapping them altogether or simply improving the writing and stories is another matter.

 

[Xor]

Many WoW players don't even bother to read quest text, they get addons that visually show you where to go...

I'm not even sure why I play that game anymore.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

I agree with this sentiment. Most game developers are not (literary) writers, and when they try usually it's clichéd and disposable. Their medium is video games and if they have a story to tell or point to make the way to do that is via gameplay. In other words: ideally a computer game should be the best way to tell that story or make that point.

Braid, for instance, is a game whose medium was utilised effectively to explore the themes that it did. Your playing was integral to its making its point: the player looks for his princess, in classic computer game fashion; you can manipulate time, an effective puzzle game mechanic; and at the end you discover (spoilers) you've played the whole game backwards and the princess is actually trying to escape you. Gameplay, themes and story are artistically intertwined. There's also the more subtle theme of nuclear bombs and all that, but I admit that kind of passed me by.

But anyway. The themes and story were enhanced by the fact that they were explored and told respectively in a computer game.

PS:T is an example of a clunkier, yet still effective, marriage between computer game and book. And I think it only worked because Chris Avellone happened to be a pretty decent literary writer, unlike 99% of game developers.

 

[ghostdog]

If you are not Shakespeare you should not write books. Period.