GDC gave Junction Point Studios president, Warren Spector, the chance to evangelize his favorite subject, storytelling. Despite the meandering nature of today's speech, which spent far too much time recapping his 2004 talk than actually discussing “The Future of Storytelling in Next-Generation Game Development,” he made a few key observations.
For one, game stories (obviously) suck. And while there are still “haters” who believe narrative should be abolished, Spector argued that stories are an integral part of reaching new gaming audiences. "We have to create emotionally satisfying, truly interactive stories in order to better reach a larger audience," Spector said. To do that, game developers must be willing to share authorship of their games with players through fully interactive and explorable environments (no more painted sets).
Make the jump to learn about the Junction Point philosophy.
Then he started talking about Junction Point. He is currently focused on creating new story telling modes. Particularly, his interest lies in tracking game play metrics. This isn't simply a marketing ploy. Rather he wants to establish story lines that are influenced by a player's overall gameplay trends. Moving through the game world, players tend to interact with a certain type of character, accept certain types of quests, interact with specific items and generally behave in a general manner. Stories should compensate for these long-term trends, adjusting themselves to the player's interests. While this seems rather similar to KOTOR and Fable, I infer that Warren suggests stories should adapt themselves to the subconscious actions -- opposed to rather deliberate choice of good or evil.
Spector also believes that "we have missed our chance.” Next-generation graphics are not the answer to the industry’s story problems. All this power means developers must focus on simply getting these characters maneuver through their world -- regardless of whether such movements are natural. Getting the level of detail requires too much time and money. He argued that graphics are actually distracting developers from story telling and character interaction.
That's why Junction Point is particularly interested in iconic characters. Warren has forced his studio to watch cartoons and silent movies so they fully appreciate the range of a face’s expression and how to convey a story without words. He indicated that he would rather design a game with characters like Mickey Mouse than a photo realistic
Chow Yun Fat.
Apparently, cybernetic mice are the future next-gen storytelling.
