Monday, March 29, 2010

Invest in Story

Video games are an emerging story telling vehicle. And let's not kid ourselves, they provide a good platform to tell a compelling story. But video games have to live a duplicitous life. They're first and foremost games and need to be enjoyable as such. Now, they have the added pressure of presenting an original and interesting story. It's not enough to just save the princess and jump on some mushrooms along the way anymore.

To illustrate my point, here's a promo for Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, an upcoming game from Ubisoft. It's awesome by the way. I've never played the previous game and had no plans to. After watching this, my curiosity is engaged. The story is front and center—there's zero game play footage. That seems like a big risk for a video game to take. It looks like games are trying to grow up a bit and not just by upping the mature nature of their content.

Game developers are redefining their industry. They're not just interested in pixels and user interfaces—it seems they are more interested in user involvement and engagement. And what better way to get humans invested in your product then to get them invested in your story?

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