There is a growing sentiment among a lot of gamers that cutscenes are an inherently bad means of telling stories in games. These people say that cutscenes are nothing but an imitation of film, with the argument being that games are different from other forms of entertainment and should tell their stories in a way that is unique to video games.
The story in part 3 of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Naughty Dog's The Last of Us series may explore a "congregation of immune people."
Former Naughty Dog artist Gabriel Betancourt explains why the "sweet spot" for game teams is under 200 people and how AAA "factories" kill creativity.
There’s definitely some truth to this. When teams get too large, coordination starts to outweigh creativity—layers of approval, risk aversion, and tight deadlines can turn bold ideas into “safe” ones. Keeping a team under ~200 people sounds ideal for maintaining clear communication and a shared vision. That said, massive AAA projects also come with huge technical demands and expectations, so scaling up isn’t always avoidable. The real challenge is figuring out how to keep that small-team creativity alive inside big studio structures.
More than that, it's logistically untenable. Inevitably, when teams get too large, how do you keep tabs on accountability? I suspect this massive team size is a consequence of the perfectionism streak Naughty Dog has.
I wish we could have so many people working on something and it turns out great because I'm all for collaboration in spirit - the problem is too many people as part of the larger team and smaller units. Suppose for example that you have too many people in the art department; you will very often come up against fiercely competing visions for how things should look. That competitive vision will cause friction between team members, team doesn't work as a unit, the back and forth can further delay parts that the other departments are waiting for, etc etc.
A 200-person team says, to me, that we need to scale back game development. Even if it means we go back to PS2 era costs and scale, why not? Those games are still great fun, the budgets were in check, and you could literally break the 200-man team into like 10 20-man teams working on different projects.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD have been delisted from digital stores without warning.
Stupid headline. Should state that they are being updated or discontinued. This makes the crazy people that only read headlines think it some kind of conspiracy to take away peoples already purchased games.
If you want to all of a sudden own them now and haven't played them yet because a remastered is coming out, shame on you. I can't believe people are complaining about this 15 years later when it was bound to happen anyway. "A new remaster is out, quick, I'd better buy the original from the shop."
Gamers: "Physical? who needs physical? everyone knows that digital online games are the future. stop living in the past. we don't need no stinking disc drive"
Same gamers: "How dare the delist a digital game that I own!!!!"
And? What is your point?
Same gamers: "How dare the retailers to delist (quit selling) a physical game that I own!!!!"
I think you just read the headline and don't know how dilisting works with Sony. It's common knowledge that:
"Players who already bought the games will still have them in their library and can download and play them as usual."
So again, what is your point?
Yes, Metal Gear Solid 4 is like a friggin movie.
"There is a growing sentiment among a lot of gamers that cutscenes are an inherently bad means of telling stories in games."
Who are these gamers? I love cutscense its been a part of gaming for years and I hope it never changes. I would love to see who these are that are hating on cutscense. Next they are going to say that a game does not need a plot, oh wait.
Cutscenes are a tool, and like any other tool it can be used incorrectly. Cutscenes aren't inherently bad but there are games which use them poorly.
I enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 4 and loved the cutscenes, but that is from the perspective of someone who is used to the way Kojima makes games. I don't think anyone else could get away with how he tells a story, at least not with the way AAA works right now.
Too many cutscenes IS a bad thing in my honest opinion. Especially if the writing of your game is not very good despite all the relatively sad attempts to imitate film. Many developers that are praised for their storytelling are actually part of the reason why storytelling in video games is held back, because they are not good storytellers in anyway shape or form to anyone who has any knowledge of storytelling, screenwriting, and characterization principles. Games that are guilty of this are games like David Cage games and every metal gear solid besides 3. (and only if you consider it to be a parody that's not supposed to be taken seriously and remove the overly long exposition).
Games are an interactive storytelling medium so taking away the control from the player for long times on end to spill exposition is the opposite of what's good for the medium. Games like the dark souls, journey, and brothers a tale of two sons take advantage of interactive storytelling by integrating the story into the actual gameplay by using lots of mise en scene, (or at least a video game equivalent of it) while not spoon feeding the player every little bit of detail.
One of the main problems of video game storytelling and making grounded realistic relatable characters who speak like actual modern day people is the fact that video game dialogue usually has to end with "go there, do this" in some way shape or form to let the player know where to go next. Western games have been very successful at integrating that line into realistic human dialogue. Most recently, Infamous Second
Reggie:Hey Delsin, I found that control tower you were looking for.
Delsin:Oh really? Where is it?
Reggie"Well you did say that you wanted to see it while we're here."
Delsin:"Shut up...space needle?!"
Reggie"Space needle."
^This feel and sounds like how people in the real world talk. Hell, some games like the Left Behind DLC of The Last of Us even decided to not include that kind of dialogue in exchange for grounded realistic characters.
What people like Kojima and David Cage don't seem to understand is that video games are NOT films and are not a substitute for films. Video games will NEVER get something like "Wolf of Wall Street" So their graphics engines can be as pretty as they want but in the end it always turns out that much worse looking games end up telling the better stories. That is especially true for anything David Cage puts his hands on.
i.e
-Journey
-Walking Dead
-Papers Please
although that's not to say that triple A games can't tell fantastic stories too
-Last of Us
-Infamous Second Son
Btw, please don't try to defend David Cage's writing, I know there are fans of David Cage games, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking he's a good storyteller or writer.
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
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At least Kojima is a genius when it comes to good cinematography and takes advantage of the fact that video game cutscenes have a controllable camera, as seen in Ground Zeroes, where the entire intro is one long camera shot with no cuts. Something that would be pretty hard to pull off in an actual film.
Metal Gear is the worst!