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How is a videogame different from an `interactive movie` ?
I thought Heavy Rain was a fantastic game, but I've seen a lot of people critizicing it because it was too much like a movie. Games like Bioshock, on top of being a lot of fun, also bother to tell a great story. So I think "Bioshock is different from a movie because you shoot stuff". But isn't that the "interactive" part of interactive movie? Graphic Adventures blurred that line even more a long time ago. If collecting coins, shooting stuff, jumping on platforms is the interaction, then is there anything else that makes videogames something different?
There's also this idea that, as opposed to movies, games must necessarily be "fun". Because that's a game, right? The creators of Pathologic say that we expect all games to be fun and apply to our most basic emotions because it's a very young, undeveloped form of art; we do not ask for all movies to be fun to be brilliant. While Pathologic certainly wasn't fun, it was one of the most haunting gaming experiences I've ever had, and I know they're not the only ones that have posed this question.
I'm not trying to prove any point, I'm just thinking out loud (which is why this all read like a jumbled mess
). So, what are your thoughts on this? Is "interactive movie" just a meaningless description, like calling a comic a "book with pictures"?----------------
BTW totally unrelated, but... what are these llama badges? They were here when I returned from my trip. Do they serve a purpose other than putting a llama icon on your page?
Eager 
But also, I enjoy the customizable aspects of some, the homely feeling you get from designing where you live in a vast world, to how you dress.
The best ones imo, are the ones that bleed through the screen, and to your life.
You pick up bits of lingo, thought patterns, views you didnt have(good ones, or provoke thought on why the odd ones arent appropriate xD ). They mean something to you as a person, and life wouldn't have been as rich without.
I suppose what Im saying is, games that enrich your life, are the most worth it, and they wont ever die. Kinda like movies.
"I think of video games like porn. It's a bonus if it has a good story, but that's not really why I bought it."
I think to a certain degree this is still true. Heavy Rain or Bioshock probably would get much worse marks if the "gameplay" was poor. But now, there are games out there that have poor gameplay but still manage to keep their head above water just because the story is so well done. But on the flip side, if the gameplay is AWESOME, the "story" can be as simple as "save the princess" and the game is still successful.
There are a lot of factors with video games being "interactive movies", but truth be told, they're games first, movies second. The variable is the technology. It is getting easier and cheaper to create a good looking game, so what is going to set your game apart from the rest? The answer is "a good story".
I don't think "save the princess" games will ever stop existing, but I think the industry is moving in a direction where even the simplest platformer has to have some sort of story and character development.
What I'm trying to imagine is what games could be. Are games moving towards being more like interactive movies? Or will they move in a completely new direction?
Back in the day, what gave a game an edge was how good the "graphics" were. Now technology is so advanced that we're reaching a plateau in terms of "graphics" and visuals. Once we reach the point of photorealism at 60fps, we really can't go any further than that. And we are ALMOST there. I'm willing to bet we will see that in our lifetime. And when that happens, games can no longer rely on "graphics" to give them an edge. So then all we can rely on is how we use the technology. That is when artists will fully take over and games will be graded on how well the developers use the tools. In other words, games will be graded on gameplay, story, and cinematography. I'm pretty excited.
So gamers feel insulted when you call a game an 'interactive movie', when all you are saying is 'you sit there and make the funny pictures move yourself so they eventually reach an end (or not)' - I guess by adding a couple more words to that definition they'd (or we'd) feel more content. Or maybe they feel threatened that it feels like their form of art is being sucked by the flicks - why not then call movies "passive videogames"? That would be a valid argument! (but then gay people would complain). To put it in the right words: "les estás tocando el culo, y no les gusta"!.
So back to the question, what 'game' characteristic would destroy the 'interactive movie' definition... mmhhhh... let's stick to definitions, based on the Cambridge Dictionary:
movie - noun
[C] mainly US for a cinema film
So - the purpose of a movie is to start in a cinema; some don't make it and go straight to TV, but that's not their intention; clearly not the intent of a videogame!
Then:
film - noun
a series of moving pictures, usually shown in a cinema or on television and often telling a story
So we don't even need a story to be a film, or a specific place to show it - just a series of moving pictures. A videogame would falls here; although you have old school text games or single screen ones with no movement at all...
I bet people won't like "interactive film" either anyways, I tried!
Back to work!
En Pathologic hay que tomar decisiones dificiles todo el tiempo, elegis que tipo de persona queres ser en el juego, si haces sacrificios, donde esta tu limite moral. En Heavy Rain hay momentos similares, en donde el juego no te penaliza por tomar ciertas decisiones, si no que mas bien acepta que la diferencia va a estar en tu respuesta emocional. En las buenas peliculas ves momentos similares (se me viene a la mente el final de Seven), pero sentis la tension por estar viendo a otro tomar una decision dificil, no es realmente lo mismo.
De todas maneras uno también se puede sentir identificado con algún que otro personaje peliculense - lo que no implica que tan facilmente se te pueda hacer sentir lo que el asesino a sueldo de tu peli favorita sienta - pero puede llegar a ser posible.
Bah, pfff, pensandolo mejor tenés otro extremo: The Sims (la vida mesma!) - no jugué nunca, pero creo que no tiene ningún sistema de puntos, y suporongo que debe de haber muchas amas de casa sin vida que viven a través de esto... lo que estos MMRPG les ofrece no se los puede dar una película, y no solo viene por el lado de la interacción.
Para mí hay que inventar un nuevo término que no tenga la palabra 'juego' ni 'película'.
Genial! me acabo de fijar la definición de 'video game' en el Cambridge Dictionary:
video game noun
"a game in which the player controls moving pictures on a screen by pressing buttons"
Es re-limitada!
We could call something like Mario an "interactive movie" or a "adventure simulator", just as we could call the Mona Lisa just a portrait painting. It's when you just take something as it is that you don't really see it as it is.
I don't think "being able to choose the outcome" is it. CYOAdventure books are still books.
I do want to delve into its complexity!
Perhaps, because not everything is scripted out, and I don't just mean by choices leading out. In movies we are just passively watching characters go through events, but in videogames we are inhabiting the characters and doing the events. In that way we become responsible for their actions, less like how a CYOA would make the character act out our slightly influential choices. [If Mario dies, nobody says that Mario died again, they died instead.]
If that makes much of a difference. Also, the game part of them, there's usually some arcade like things about videogames that can make the experience more of a game (other playable characters/cheats or "tweaks").
However, the main reason videogame can get all "interactive movie" is because it uses (but it also limited to) the same senses as movies are. Unless you are using motion controls (which would maybe borderline as touch, but is more kinesthetic so not really accountable), it's just the eyes and ears.
I would suppose a game could instill senses of accomplishment that a movie could not do though...