Punters don’t take game worlds “very seriously,” says Bleszinski

What little I’ve seen of the gears 2 plot I’d say it’s too hilarious to miss. A classic in the making.

Still not art mind

I’m waiting for my copy to turn up…

Come on Mr Postman!!!

Fallout 3 and Fable 2, two of the most dialogue heavy games of late, both have a skip function for their dialogue. But most gamers likely won’t skip through the dialogue because it’s actually interesting. What’s your point, Cliff?

To me, it seems like you’re whining about not having a decent stable of writers and you’re worried that people will be bored by the kind of place-holder script nonsense that Crysis suffered with.

You don’t need to worry about people skipping the dialogue so much if the dialogue is, well, interesting. Do you? And it’s not that hard to find decent script-writers, plenty of games out there are proof of that. Fable II was a particularly nice example of that, and though Molyneux was a bit whiny and overapologetic, at least he was humble.

Pro-tip: You only need to make excuses for something if there’s something to make excuses for. If you’re making excuses for people wanting to skip the dialogue, that means you’re trying to brush some exceedigly poor dialogue under the carpet. Smart people will pick up on that. That’s not good marketing, Cliff. Not in the least.

I’m starting to get tired of this guy, and his presumptions (fairly inaccurate as they appear to me to be.)

If what Bleszinski says is accurate, then why do you see a high value placed on art books, as pre-order bonuses? How would it be, that, in an interview on ubi.com an Ubisoft Montreal team member working on Prince of Persia explained that the strongest reaction, in terms of media that they received from the fans, was when they started releasing concept sketches? (which then, strongly inspired the art direction for the new game.)
I also think that he’s way off the mark, on beta testing, as far as enthusiastic fans of the game being tested, go.

Just because your game has all the depth and substance of a flan, doesn’t mean you should start making broad, sweeping statements about the value that games fans place in the worlds that designers work hard to create. Some games would be a lot less than they are, without the work of environment artists and lore scribes, to create a compelling location, and situation around which to play.

He’s very pretty.

I think on the whole he’d be right… but he’s obviously not taking into consideration those that care an awful lot about their game worlds.

I see plenty of casual gamers that try to skip through as much story / cutscene / etc as possible so that they can get back to the meat.

tbh, I’m pleased about being able to skip dialogue.

Not the first time, but when I’m replaying the game.

It’s annoying that in most games you have to sit through the same dialogue over and over again, each time that you play and you don’t even have the option to skip.

I just end up constantly tapping START or A, even though I know that it won’t make it go any quicker.

Game developer talks a lot about whatever topic he can think of vaguely related to his game which, coincidentally is out the same week. Lots of mentions of his name, his game and that his new game is, coincidentally, out the same week are, of course, pure coincidence.

Tomorrow’s soundbite will be how Cliff isn’t a PR man.

Ho ho

I’m not sure I play games to ‘believe’ in their world. For me, so long as the world I’m playing in is consistent in it’s portrayal and ruleset then that’s pretty much good enough for me. In that regard, Space Giraffe has as believeable a world as Katamari Damacy or Gears of War.

I wonder what pearls of the bleedin’ obvious Mr. B will honour us with tomorrow. Maybe he and fellow non-PR man Peter Molyneux (now a little on the quiet side, fancy that!) should have a pow-wow.

After my success with DJ Hero header recommendations, may I humbly suggest that this image be used for all Bleszinski articles in future. Very The Princess Bride don’t you think?

You should be in PR Shatner.

Who says I’m not already?

The fact that the company you work for is still in business?

(Yeah, cheap I know but I couldn’t resist! )

You’re cheaper than a dead 360 that’s fallen off the back of CliffyB’s ego.

…that’s a long way to drop for sure.

My copy finally arrived!

Just played it in co-op during lunch. Seems pretty intense.

I think I’ll be playing this for a good while yet…

I just want saw things in half………

I think that people read to much into what cliff says, as in esha’s comment. Sure there may be people who look for interesting dialogue in games but for most gamers we could give a shit less about how interesting the words coming out of a character’s mouth are. They’re called games for a reason, if i wanted to hear someone talk i would go watch a movie. I could be playing a game full of interesting dialogue but that doesnt mean I want to hear it

I never skip dialogue. Gears 1 never had that great a story. In action movie terms though it was good. Never felt the need to skip it.

I don’t think “Gears of War” gameplay is an effective method for getting people to take the world seriously.
Admittedly I have not finished the first game, but from what I did see, there wasn’t a whole lot of exposition for the world or the characters within. Basically you’re told, it was an amazing place, aliens are attacking, control this guy to blow them up.
If they had more dialog regarding the city or the society, then the player might be able to understand what the heck is going on. Realize what’s occurred, what’s at stake and be a bit more emotionally involved in the fight. When I jumped into the game all I got was, here are some amazing scenes, run through em and blow up whatever isn’t you and your group.

Gamers dont take a games world seriously? Hum, so whats all this fan boys that whine when a sequel/prequel screws up a plot element, all those heated forum discussions, all those dedicated sites, all those RP’s based in those worlds, the spin-off books people buy, feature films they watch, fanfics, videos… Obviously they dont care right?