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The Production Process

Upon initial contact with the game industry, you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of responsibility involved with creating a new game title. In addition to the pressure associated with creating a game that will sell well and be received with enthusiasm by the gaming public, the actual work involved with development weighs in heavily. These responsibilities include working with the game’s budget, streamlining the production process, and managing a team and assets that grow and change on a daily basis.

A typical game title can cost many millions of dollars and involve a very long-term commitment (sometimes as long as four to five years), so the pressure to create a franchise or successful title can be massive indeed. Understanding the production process allows you as a game producer to roll with the inevitable changes and challenges that come with the development of a game and empowers you to manage your project efficiently. More importantly, it will allow the game to be completed, which is always a plus when dealing with game publishers!

Utilizing the cinematic skills of a filmmaker in addition to the usual game development model within the various phases of game development allows you shape the project into a more marketable and, hopefully, more enjoyable title. But first, let’s take a look at the typical development cycle.

1.1  Lifecycle of a Video Game

Like most creative processes (such as making a movie, creating a graphic novel, and so on), the game industry has a definite process and lifecycle involved with a new project. In the video game industry, the process of creating a new title pretty much follows this cycle:

• Concept/R&D

• Preproduction

• Production

• Testing/QA

• Postproduction

Each of these phases will be discussed in greater detail in later chapters, but here is a quick rundown of what’s involved with these various stages of game development:

The concept phase of game development is time spent defining the game that you are about to create—both creatively and technically. This time involves choosing the type of game you are going to make—RPG (role-playing game), FPS (first-person shooter), MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), and so on; determining the game elements and features that will be involved in game play (story, characters, game options, and so on); and working out the details for the future marketing of the title, such as the genre of the game (horror, adventure, and so on), the platforms/consoles the game will be played on, and the game’s projected rating. This collaborative process usually involves the producers, lead designers, and the creative director of the game.

The concept phase usually ends with the creation of a tangible risk analysis report, a mission statement that will unite the production team in creating the design, and possibly a prototype version of the game (sometimes called a “vertical slice”). In most cases, these elements are compiled into an overall production plan that will be pitched to the perspective publisher to get a green light for the project. A typical pitch includes the materials listed earlier, along with a design document, a project plan, and a budget (sometimes called a “cost forecast”). Once the budget and schedule have been approved by the publisher, the game then moves on into pre-production.

The preproduction phase most closely mirrors that of the film industry; it is at this stage that the story is developed and honed, the look of the project is fleshed out using art and previsualization techniques (like storyboarding), and the budget and schedule are defined for the coming production cycle. Although this is called “preproduction” in the film industry as well, in the game industry, preproduction also includes defining all the technical requirements of the game (such as design, art, and features), prioritizing features and specifying constraints (usually influenced by the budget and schedule), and creating a basic design document. These steps constitute the very roadmap that the production team will follow during the many months of development.

If you have not yet developed a prototype of the game, this is also done during preproduction. Though the finished prototype will be a playable level of the game, which can begin as simply as mapping out the game idea on paper. Once the prototype is honed to a coherent representation of the game concept, it is developed into an actual demo.

Another key element of preproduction is hiring the team that will be involved with production. Beware: the hiring process can be a long one—and it’s not uncommon for larger production studios to tackle the lengthy task of hiring prior to the creation of the game’s concept! At the very least, allow for a reasonable amount of time to be used in getting the right members of your team. Once the design document is in place with the prototype, and all the personnel have been hired, the game can then move into production.

The actual production phase of development is usually composed of coding, generating, and implementing assets into the game; also, any unfinished details regarding the game’s design will be finished as well. It is during this phase that any required motion capture/voiceover work, music, and basically anything else that is involved with making the actual game comes together. This is the longest phase of game development and usually tests the strength of the overall production plan. Keeping the production team on point and out of meeting overload can be the biggest challenge for a producer as the need to keep up with current gaming trends becomes increasingly important. Sometimes the woes in a schedule revolve around the discovery and implementation of new features in the game—this is called ‘feature creep’ and can cause studios to spend an excessive amount of time and money during production.

It is important to track and monitor the progress of the game throughout the game’s production; publishers demand up-to-date reporting on schedule and budget concerns, as well as on any issues developing with the game’s production. Usually, a project management program (such as Microsoft Project) is used to assist producers with tracking the game’s progress, though you may have to tweak the program in order to fit your needs (you will want to spend the bulk of your time actually managing your project rather than working with the software). There will usually be an online version of the game’s production cycle as well that the team can access to see what is happening in the other departments of development (for instance, the art department may want to see the status of coding the assets into the current build of the game). Setting small milestones or goals for each production task is a great way to determine whether a particular item has been completed and is the industry standard measure for tracking completion.

The next step in the production cycle, the testing/QA phase, is very different than that of the film industry. Where a film may undergo a series of audience tests, screenings, and so on to get feedback (sometimes referred to as “research”), a game is thoroughly evaluated throughout the production phase by a quality assurance (QA) team for bugs within the title. Every time a new asset is introduced to the game, the QA team gets a crack at it. Any time a new tool or game element is introduced, QA quantifies its value. At the end of development, a title must get approval from the QA team during the code release process before it is sent on to the publisher (in a form sometimes referred to as a Gold Master) for approval.

Though testing/QC is often thought of as a process that occurs at the end of production, the truth of the matter is that the testing of a game occurs throughout the development cycle. As a matter of planning, it should be determined early in the production process whether an internal or external QA team will be utilized during the development of the game, as this decision can affect the schedule and budget immensely. This phase usually ends with the QA department comparing the final product against the original game plan to determine its validity (Alpha and Beta testing), and the release of the final version of the game (sometimes called “code release” or the Gold Master). At this point, your moves on to various locales for approval.

In addition to getting the game to the publisher, the manufacturers of all consoles the game will be played on must approve the title as well. All major platforms will have their own sets of criteria that must be met for the game to be approved for release on their console. Also, the game must be sent to the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to receive the game’s rating. Without a rating, most major software vendors and retailers will not carry your title. If the game is being released in other countries, it will also have to be sent to the appropriate ratings boards in those locales. Once the game has been give the thumbs-up by all concerned and you have received the official rating of the game, the final version of the game can now be sent to the publisher. The next and final phase of development is known as postproduction.

The postproduction phase in the world of game development is slightly different than that of the film industry. Although this phase is generally typified by filmmakers as the editing and cutting of a movie, in the game industry this phase signals to the team that the game is pretty much finished. Postproduction in game development means creating “closing kits”, which archive the title (sometimes games get rereleased at a later date, so it’s important to keep the game and all its elements intact), discussing the aspects of the production process that went right/wrong in lengthy postmortems, and documenting the creative process that was involved with creating the title so that future games can be developed more smoothly within the studio.

Depending on the features of the title, the complexity of the programming, and the size of the team and budget, the production cycle for a video game can be anywhere from a few months to several years. Usually the length of production is based upon the choices you have made in the game design. One of the earliest decisions you will make when producing a game is the type of game that the team will be developing.

1.2  Types of Games

The evolution of games is a fascinating subject. With origins that are deeply rooted in arcade-style games, the game industry has evolved over the last few decades into a realm of many different game styles and genres. Though most of the game types we commonly see today originated in the 1980s, there are still new game styles emerging on a regular basis. The types of players/ gamers have also evolved during this period.

Gamers today have a way of micro-organizing game genres—as the field becomes more diversified, more and more types of games are appearing on shelves. It is important to know these various types of games, if for no other reason than to realize there are many different types of gamers; a player who loves first-person shooters will not be as attracted to a football game as a sports gamer. Although this is not a complete list, here are the several major types of games that are being developed:

• First-person shooter (FPS)

• Role-playing game (RPG)

• Massively multiplayer online game (MMOG)

• Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG)

• Third-person shooter

• Real-time strategy (RTS)

• Sports

• Action (racing, fighting, and so on)

• Simulation

• Casual/arcade

The FPS is hands down one of the two most popular genres. With origins deeply rooted in the early games of id Software (Doom, Quake, and so on), the shooter has come a long way. Developers like Ubisoft and Bungie have made titles like Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, Halo, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six household names. The entire concept of the FPS is that you are always looking down the barrel of your weapon from a first-person perspective. Usually, this means a military/gunman-themed game or a hunting title.

It is arguable that games that utilize the first-person perspective typically get more of an emotional payoff when the game is completed, so developers love to create these types of games. But don’t let this dissuade you from choosing one of the other formats; every player has his or her own preferences and there have been successfully produced titles in every style and genre.

The RPG is also a popular game type, though it is slowly being usurped by the MMORPG. With its history firmly rooted in the world of the PC gamer and old-school pen-and-paper games (like Dungeons and Dragons), the RPG appeals to players who want to interact with more of the world around them in many detailed ways. This style of game is also popular because of the many ways that a gamer can approach a level, customize characters, and create their own in-game stories (usually because of a more open, “sandbox” style of game play). Typically, this game is tailored to the fantasy/sci-fi crowd, but newer titles are slowly changing this. The 2006 award-winning game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion proved that the RPG is still alive and kicking—and this title also has spawned a new wave in first-person perspective RPGs versus the usual third-person view.

The second most popular genre in gaming, and possibly the hottest trend in the game dev world at the moment, belongs to the MMORPG. Using all the strengths of the RPG, these games have taken role playing to the next level by moving them online. Titles like the popular Lord of the Rings Online games take players and hurl them into a virtual world where thousands of players interact within the same sandbox. Obstacles that held the MMORPG back in the past, like a limited, PC-based audience and small multiplayer modes, have all but evaporated with the wide-spread availability of broadband Internet and the capabilities of con soles to now include online gaming. The abil ity to create add-ons and modules later on to a game is an additional strength of the MMORPG (though it is not limited to this genre—modules were created for games in the 1990s as well, including Quake, which was an FPS). A great way for young game design ers to get experience in the game industry is to create “mods” for games like these.

When the popular Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon game series switched from a first-person perspective to a third-person perspective, fans of the popular franchise collectively groaned, but after they played the new games, they embraced the style and fell in love with it. This game quickly became one of the first successful third-person shooters. Ubisoft’s latest installment, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2, was one of the hottest titles of 2007 and has proven that looking over one’s shoulder does not necessarily mean taking yourself out of the game. In fact, the perspective allows the gamer to see some of the more complex moves the character has at his/her disposal, and even maximizes the use of certain obstacles. Deciding on the game perspective that you will use in your title will be one of the biggest decisions you will make when constructing your initial game concept, as this will affect the camera angles and framing that you can use within your game levels.

When a gamer thinks of RTS games, no title comes faster to mind than the popular Command & Conquer games. Appealing to the crowd that wants to control every aspect of their world, these games offer a god-like role to the gamer and are sometimes so complex that a player may spend months getting the nuances of the game straight. An RTS game is about unfolding the game play in real time—meaning that you must construct bases, finish levels, and so on—while the game is moving with you at the same time. The RTS has taken a hit in popularity over the last few years, but again, with the use of broadband Internet and sandbox play, the RTS is destined for a comeback. Many developers are taking the concept and play of the RTS online and taking the genre to the next level.

Though there’s no need to explain what a sports, sighting, or racing/flying game is, it is important to note that these are still relevant and strong genres. The Madden football titles still consistently perform for Electronic Arts, and even some of the older, more established fighting titles like Mortal Kombat by Midway Games are still cranking out new versions and selling them. It’s the straightforward approach of these games that make them popular to gamers—and it’s also the trait that makes them appealing to developers. They are also some of the highest-grossing titles of all time, with broad marketing appeal and phenomenal sales numbers.

The final major category of games we will discuss is another PC-heavy genre: the simulation game. Game guru Will Wright made his name in the game industry with the popular Sims games of the 1980s and 1990s (though the game is more like an RPG than a simulation-based game) and even now has the industry buzzing with glimpses of his new title, Spore. A typical simulation game is quite different than Will Wright’s creation, though.

Microsoft has dominated this genre with the always-popular and always-available flight simulation programs/games. In fact, entire magazines have been devoted to fans of these flight simulators. In the future, look for more titles to follow in the footsteps of The Sims and for more of them to migrate from the PC to consoles (The Sims game has actually already been developed for consoles). “Virtual reality” games like Second Life have also contributed to taking the Will Wright-style sim genre to a new level.

With each game genre presenting its own set of challenges and strengths, choosing the type of game that you will be creating is one of the most basic yet important steps you will undertake early on the development process. Staying true to the basic concept of the type, yet innovating new approaches to the genre, will be the razor’s edge the production team will tread upon. Decisions regarding the title will be made using a steady stream of innovations, assets, and a diet heavy with brainstorming.

1.3  Brainstorming and Initial Decisions

Once you have decided upon the type of game you will be developing and you have made some of the major decisions regarding perspective and platforms/consoles, it’s time to get that creative team together and to start brainstorming. This is a habit that you should continue throughout the development process. Entire meetings will be dedicated to hashing out the finer details of characters, locations, and game elements/features. Starting this habit in the concept phase of development kicks off one of the best practices that you can use throughout the lifecycle of the game (and this is part of most major development models such as Agile Development). It should be noted, though, that meetings cost money! Assembling a group of your major salaried employees together for hours on end can really start running up the tab on your production, so keep the meetings important, concise, and timely.

Managing a brainstorming session means keeping focused, staying on the agenda, documenting the finer points of the meeting, and involving everyone concerned. Learning the finer points of conducting useful and concise meetings is something beyond the scope of this book—and many great books have been written on the subject. It is well worth your time to delve further into this subject.

Though the development team will have other tools at their disposal for collaborating with the producers (Web sites, email, scrum sessions), nothing beats a good brainstorming session for getting a project back on track quickly. Keeping the meetings relevant helps prevent the team from getting demoralized by attending these sessions, too. A typical unproductive meeting usually means that nothing of use was actually generated or the participants felt like their input was not needed.

Everyone attending a brainstorming session should be encouraged to contribute to the development of new ideas—and though criticism is usually discouraged at these sessions, it is important that all the team members give honest feedback to ideas that are presented there. Because attendees will often represent whole slices of the production team (engineers, artists, sound/music, and so on), it is a necessary practice to incorporate all these areas into these sessions. These brainstorming meetings ensure that as the game progresses, current ideas/trends will be incorporated into the title and the game will stay current and fresh. They will also bring a sense of a shared vision throughout the production team and ensure that the title will be created with a unified concept.

It should also be noted, though, that although it is important to receive and consider the input of everyone on your team, it is more often the original vision of the creative director/game creator that must be disseminated throughout the production team to keep the game on track. Much like a director/producer of a film, the decisions of the creative key provide the compass that the production will follow.

1.4  Using Game Theory

Game theory is actually an older concept that was developed in the 1940s to study the decisions that players make when presented with a choice. The book Theory of Games and Economic Behavior by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern (Princeton University Press, 1944) introduced the idea that when players are playing a game, they will always choose the path that offers the most gain to the player. Besides being used to develop games, this theory has been applied to economics, animal behavior, and sociological issues.

When planning your project, game theory can be a great tool to use when placing the gamer in situations where choices must be made regarding the fate of the game’s protagonist (again, this is a great subject worth reading more about—pick up Neumann and Morgenstern’s book for a lot more detail). These choices all have consequences (good or bad, whichever is determined by the designer) and spawn new directions in which the game can travel. Also, as a game producer, it is important to keep this theory in mind when reviewing the game’s design documentation, the story, and game play features.

Another major factor to consider when using game theory is the idea that players begin all games ignorant of the rules of that game. A game’s concept must include the information regarding how a gamer is to learn these rules and guidelines, and how strategy, difficulty, and opposition will be used. Decisions regarding these important areas should be made with the intention of maximizing the enjoyment of the gamer—a concept that is known in the game industry as “play-balance”. A great way of approaching this is to think of ways to create your game without the use of an instruction manual. The use of game theory can also create great suspense and surprise within the game by defying the typical response of the gamer and tricking the gamer into treading less-traveled paths.

Games that have great critical moments, memorable antagonists and opponents, and decisions that bring great returns make for spectacular games. It is also the idea that the player has chosen his/her own path and personally achieved the particular outcome of the game that makes video games so popular. It is this very concept that makes gaming interactive. Game theory is a basic concept that every game must incorporate to some degree and must be addressed while defining the concept of the game.

Interview: Game Design and Theory: Noah Falstein, Game Developer Magazine

Noah Falstein heads The Inspiracy (http://www.theinspiracy.com), a consulting firm specializing in game design and production. Since 1980, he has designed and managed entertainment and educational software titles for companies such as Williams Electronics, LucasArts, The 3DO Company, and Dreamworks Interactive. He has written the monthly design column for Game Developer magazine since 2002 and serves on the advisory boards of the Game Developer’s Choice Awards, the Serious Game Conference and the Games for Health Conference. Some games he has designed or codesigned include Sinistar, PHM Pegasus, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and design contributions to the recent the Star Wars RTS, Empire at War.

Newman: On your Web site The Inspiracy (http://www.theinspiracy.com), you are in the process of creating a list of 400 rules concerning game design. At the minimum, what core guidelines/ advice would you give a game designer concerning the creation of a new, successful title?

Falstein: That’s tough to answer briefly—creating good games is a hard job, and there’s a lot of knowledge and skill involved in doing it well. But to take “at a minimum” to heart, here’s the core advice I would give: learn from what has been done before in your chosen genre, but be sure to innovate as well. Keep your game elements as simple as possible. Decide on a creative vision for the project, get buy-in from the rest of the team, and stick relentlessly to the purity of that vision (or if you change it, make sure that change is reflected in everything that has been previously done on the game). Get the core game play up and running as early as possible, and test it repeatedly with both the team members and regular “new blood” fresh testers. Don’t release it until it’s great! That’s a lot to ask, but it’s a good formula for success.

Newman: Do you think that games with well-defined goals/missions make a greater entertainment impact upon a player than games with lots of open/sandbox-type play?

Falstein: No, both types can be valid; it depends on the audience you are aiming at as well as a lot of variables about the game genre, your team, your schedule, and other things. It’s a little like asking “Will dishes with meat taste better than vegetarian ones?” or even “Does salt taste better than pepper?”—the ingredients aren’t as important as the way they are combined and whom the final dishes are prepared for. Well-defined goals are generally a good idea for most games, and particularly so for the more casual players. Open-ended games often demand more imagination and initiative from the player, and are best when the world is familiar (like The Sims or Grand Theft Auto). One good compromise is to give a game a fixed goal, but provide multiple ways to reach or achieve it. Some very successful series of games like Diablo and Civilization have used formulas like that (even though the two are quite different in game genre and play mechanics).

Newman: A lot has been said about the psychology of game development—particularly in the area of choices that are presented to players, and the decisions they make when presented with a choice. This is the core of game theory. What are other ways that game designers can tap into human psychology? Falstein: Another potentially long list! Just a few examples: the psychology of emotion (for example, for a horror game, how to scare people most effectively), the psychology of perception (how to make individual icons or buildings or tools instantly recognizable to a player), evolutionary psychology (what type of story elements are we humans hard-wired to care the most about?) and more. Psychology is very closely intertwined with good game design. Many game designers I know are quite familiar with psychology and often well-versed in related areas like neurophysiology, learning theory, and evolutionary psychology. Understanding how the brain works is very helpful when you’re trying to craft an experience for a player.

Newman: When you’re playing a new video game, and you find yourself losing immersion/suspension of reality, what’s usually to blame? How can we prevent this from happening?

Falstein: Good game design always has to contend with the twin demons of Boredom and Frustration at the edge of the Flow Channel (see the book Flow by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Harper & Row, 1990), a great reference for designers). Boredom occurs when the challenge of the game does not increase in difficulty and variety fast enough to keep the player engaged, and frustration occurs when it gets too difficult too fast. Frustration can also result from inconsistent interface, bad dialog and story, confusing directions— all sorts of things. One of my pet peeves for example is games set in the distant past, or far future, where everyone talks like a person from the present day.

Newman: When you get involved with a new project, what ingredients do you look for in the concept package that signals to you that this will be a great game?

Falstein: Unfortunately, that’s a luxury I can’t often afford—as a freelancer, I am often brought into an existing project because it is having trouble, or at least needs something to improve it, and the companies that know how to turn out great hit titles (Blizzard, for instance) don’t often turn to outside design help because they have quite enough expertise in-house. But it’s often not the concept that suggests it will be a great game, but the team. When I meet a group that knows what they’re doing, and that is already following the principles I mentioned previously in my first answer, I can be confident it will be at least good and possibly great. When it’s a great fresh concept in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing (as when Will Wright first showed his early work on Spore) then you know there’s the potential for greatness.

Newman: It seems that a lot of games limit their audience by only targeting a specific niche or type of gamer. What types of measures can be taken when crafting your design document to balance having a specific genre with not limiting the scope and appeal of the game?

Falstein: You can’t please everyone all the time. It’s wise to target a specific type of gamer. The trick is often to use interactivity to widen the appeal—in other words, the fact that in our medium, unlike other traditional entertainment forms like books, movies, and classic TV, we can change the experience based on the specific person (or people) playing. There are many ways to do this— one example is how Blizzard took the “traditional” MMORPG assumption that you need to combine with a group of other players in order to progress your character past the first level or two and turned it around, making it possible for players to do well alone or in a team—and that’s certainly part of the success of World of Warcraft. But note that despite its success, it hasn’t done as well in numbers of players as Tetris or Pokemon or The Sims or the Halo franchises—and I expect that there’s not a huge amount of overlap among those groups either. The lesson is that you can aim at a specific group of players and still have a big hit—but if you try to make a game that will appeal to everyone in the world, you’ll probably fail.

Newman: Do certain game development models (the Iterative Approach, Agile Development, and so on) lend themselves to a better-developed product than others? What’s been your experience?

Falstein: Iterative development is behind many very good titles, but it has the dangerous problem of being hard to predict how long it will take. Still, if you are planning on breaking new ground, it is often the best way to go. If, on the other hand, you are simply planning on doing a sequel to a hit title (like the latest Madden Football) then you’re probably better off identifying a handful of ways that you intend to improve the game, plan and test them in advance, and build to a strict schedule. The problem of “Who is paying for this and what are their expectations?” is one that no designer can ignore, and it’s very rare to find someone who can tolerate (or afford) a lot of flexibility in a schedule and budget.

Newman: What are some of the warning signs early on in development that can signal a poorly designed game?

Falstein: There are many. Confusion about the core vision of the game. A mix of contradictory, ill-fitting game elements. Too much complication and detail. A focus on knowing every detail of the story of the game and dozens of pages of backstory about the characters—but little or nothing about what the player actually does in the game. Lots of mentions about “then the player does X” and nothing about what happens when the player chooses not to do X—or worse, the player is killed off any time they try something else. Those last two are actually very common when a filmmaker comes to the game experience. Too much enthusiasm for a previous title—”This will be just like Halo, only much better”—often with a budget that is 10 percent of the game it is emulating. Too little regard for, or knowledge of previous titles: “This revolutionary game will be the first one ever designed by a woman, for women!” (I’ve heard that at least five times in my career, and it wasn’t true even the first time I heard it). Too much unwarranted arrogance: “I know everything about storytelling, and games all do it badly, so I’ll create the first great game with a deep and compelling story—even though it’s the first game I’ve ever worked on.”

Newman: It seems that “cinematic” game design is more about finding the depth of immersion in a game visually and sonically that exists in a movie rather than actually making a game that plays out like a film. What is it about creating a video game that now draws the film community (like Jerry Bruckheimer has recently)? What types of lessons learned are brought to the table by film producers?

Falstein: I’ve worked with a lot of filmmakers over the course of my career. In general, the more they know about film and the more successful they are as filmmakers, the more they realize that games and film are fundamentally different, and although there are things each medium can learn from the other, it’s important not to assume that what works in one medium will work in another. I’ve heard that sentiment, or the equivalent, expressed in conversations I’ve had with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and James Cameron.

On the other hand, I’ve also seen the opposite side, with people coming from film with an attitude that they know all there is to know about entertainment and they’ll “fix” video games and make them “truly mass market”—and these people generally have failed miserably. Spielberg in particular is an avid game player and has been for many years. I have a lot of respect for his abilities, and am hoping that his current collaboration with Electronic Arts will result in some great games. But even when they don’t know much about games to start with, the writers, set designers, directors, and producers who approach games with a willingness to learn have been great to work with. They bring a lot of very useful techniques and perspective. Much of film grammar has some application to cinematic games. For example, the emotional significance of camera angles, like looking down at a scene from a height in order to make the characters depicted feel insignificant, can work in games as well as film. And producers in particular have introduced a lot of useful management techniques for handling a huge team of creative and technical artists. As a freelance designer, I am very unusual in the games industry, where most designers are full-time employees, but freelancers are much more common in the film industry, and that is having an effect as game budgets and teams keep growing.

Newman: Any advice for producers/designers out there?

Falstein: One thing to keep in mind when making games that are based on a film or use cinematic techniques, is that games are, at their very core, all about interactivity. It’s about what the player does, the choices the player makes, and not about conveying a story or experience to a passive audience. Some of the techniques that work well in cinema don’t translate well to games, just as screenwriting differs from writing novels or plays. My view of the core difference between the two has a lot to do with the evolutionary origins of the reasons that people enjoy entertainment.

Passive forms of entertainment like film or novels where the audience sits back and enjoys someone else’s story are, at their heart, interesting to us, because we can learn from the experiences of someone else—usually the protagonist of the film. Because the action happens to someone else, we have the luxury of empathizing, and empathic reactions like tears of sympathy for a dying heroine are, if not easy to evoke, at least achievable. Games are more about learning directly from our own choices, and active reactions like the joy of triumph or anger at being thwarted are common. There are few games that make someone cry at a failed romance—but many of them can cause the player to raise their fist and shout in exultation when they defeat a boss monster. Games are often at their best when the subject matter is basic survival, and the choices are well represented by the kinds of images and choices a computer can create and model. So as with any art form, unless you really know what you are doing, it’s best to stick to what the medium does best. Once you have become proficient at game design, then you can take more liberties with the game and push the boundaries.