David Cage: “I don’t like game mechanics” and “you don’t need a gun to be successful”

Quantic Dream CEO and Co-founder David Cage doesn’t think that videogames needs action or guns to be successful. David Cage main goal is to create videogames with emotions where the players interactions within the game don’t necessary revolves around killing someone or destroying something.

[ChickeyCantor]

"“In general, I don’t like game mechanics, I mean it’s the idea you do the same things through different levels. "

Pretty ignorant statement.
No matter how you want games to be like, the interaction between them are called "mechanics". Mechanics which make up the game.

"I think, in my mind, it’s an ideas I don’t really like because I love to do different things and like to see the story moving on and I like to do different things and different scenes"

So he likes to do different things, these things are yet again called "game-mechanics".
Does he even know what he is talking about?

Even Heavy rain had "game-mechanics" you were doing over and over.

Why am I even bothering...the guy sounds like an idiot.

[Kurylo3d]

Thats cause he is an idiot. His entire game is still a game with different game mechanics. The only difference is his game mechanics are boring as hell so you have to concentrate on the story. Truth is he just wanted to make a movie, but he isnt in hollywood. Hes got talent for story telling. Cant take that sort of credit away.

[sikbeta]

define boring? what's made the game boring for you?

*please say it wasn't a shooter, please say it wasn't a shooter* -> this way I can prove David Cage that in This Generation of Gaming, if your game doesn't have a f***ing gun, it'll not succeed, it'll crash, burn and be purchased @ $9.99 from the bomba-bin :D

[Kurylo3d]

i dont know... applying lipstick in the mirror with a ps3 controller.. doesnt sound fun to me. Sorry. The game put me to sleep. Felt like more of a job then a game.

[MmaFan-Qc]

"applying lipstick in the mirror with a ps3 controller.. "

the word "context"... do you know its meaning?

..same goes with pulling a virtual trigger on the ps3 controller, you need a reality check, you arent the ultimate virtue, david cage also isnt.... but he sure know his shit more than you do.

...and he's clearly more rational than you will ever be.

[THC CELL]

he said he dose not like them not HE is not using them... and how dare u say he know what he is talking about.

[manman6]

Until you have experience making games I think you have no right to called anyone an idiot.

[Kurylo3d]

I do have experience making games and yes... im calling him an idiot. Do I have the right?

[ChickeyCantor]

I do have experience making games.
Maybe not on that scale. As of right now doing my bachelors on game-technology. Currently working on a project consistent of ~25 programmers. A big project of 6 months.

I know what a game-mechanic is. He clearly mixes up the definition.

How about you?

[manman6]

As of now I just started to work with programming language. I haven't program any games yet but in a few years that will change.

[pandaboy]

don't spin his interpretation of game-mechanics, your argument is a straw man.

[Daver]

@sidar

hmm I think the guy knows what he is talking about...who you are again? a gamer?... oh well hes a games developper.

[BrutallyBlunt]

Just think, his next game will be $60, have no re-playability, and without game mechanics. Oh and it will also require an online pass sine he's partnered himself with Sony so have fun seeing it sit on your shelf after you play... er I mean watch it.

The guy should just make movies. I'm sure he'd make a good replacement for Uwe Boll.

[lover2012]

with this comment
i'm amazed that you have 4 bubbles
i'm new to this site
so if i troll (badly) like you
will i get an extra bubble ???

[BrutallyBlunt]

http://n4g.com/news/959463/...

Yet you call me a troll? Too funny. Here you are in a topic about Microsoft talking about how popular Halo is and what do you do? Type M$ and not MS, talk about Uncharted and downplay the article. Don't worry though, I'm sure there's more of your kind in these parts who think this console war still means something.

As for David Cage yes, not all games need to have guns blazing to sell or to be fun to play. However I think he has forgotten the latter part of that, the fun part. Trying to emulate art and emotion with videogames just doesn't work the way he wants it to. The acting wasn't great in Heavy Rain and neither was the writing. So instead we were left with a shell of a game where the gamer actually has little control of this so called scripted game, if you want to call it a game at all.

A game like Uncharted works so much better because you are still very much part of the action even though there are scripted cutscenes and is also character driven. David Cage thinks shaking your controller like an idiot because you're having an asthma attack is fun. No, all it is is a clunky way of trying to replicate playing a game where he has no trust in the actual gamer. Instead he plays the game and we are merely the puppets who are being strung along.

“The issue I have sometimes with industry is: they define interactivity as shooting. If you don’t shoot, it isn’t interactive, and I think it’s the wrong approach. There are different ways of interacting that as just exciting”

RPG's don't have shooting in them for the most part but many still tell better stories and are far more engaging. They also allow the player to actually play the game. You know, what consumers pay money for. I grow tired of David Cage's arrogance. He thinks he created a new genre and he also thinks he's an artist above all others. Sorry but many indie games with far less budgets and far less people working on them have more heart and more character than Heavy Rain ever did.

[MrDead]

N4G has yet again shown it’s populated by morons that react to a poor article with a reactionary title, most of these comments show that you people haven’t watched the Game trailers interview. This article added half quotes out of context, but I guess you children have no real interest in the truth.

majiebeast has added a link the the interview (see comment #5)

[NeoBasch]

I don't think you understand what he meant. Nor do I believe the author does. The idea of game mechanics is that there is a structure to them. These "game mechanics" or interactive features power the game world and everything you do in it.

For instance, in a shooting game, you shoot people. He's saying, he'd rather not have a structure to his controls. He'd rather have a general control scheme and assign different actions to each button. That way the user is always doing something different. It can't be called a mechanic if there is no real structure to it.

[OMEGAZONE]

You sound like a bigger idiot to be frank.

[hardcore1912]

I think game designers should embrace what makes our medium unique which is gameplay and game mechanics.

[ThichQuangDuck]

I am beginning game design because I love gaming. I am tired of the shoot this shoot that. I want games to be a form a media like any other that tells stories. To David Jaffe that says video games can't tell stories and go to another form of media Fuck You Mr. Jaffe. I remember playing indigo prophecy with my sister fascinated and the place we actually got stuck was the shooting range.

[Kurylo3d]

nothing wrong with story telling... metal gear solid 3 was the best story in any game ever, yet it was also having a lot of awesome game play.

[Xander-RKoS]

Jaffa didn't say they can't, he said they're the worst. What goes on in a cutscene is not game design, it's animation. Those who make video games need to understand that in order to craft responses similar to film, you have to take control out of the lands of the player. Games like Skyrim are all about player authorship and thus its story is about the experience and part of the gameplay. That is what Jaffe agrees with.

[StifflerK]

Game mechanics provide the means by which we interact with a game. It's this interaction which sets games apart from things like movies .

I think David Cage is talented, and I really like that he's trying to bring a more mature mentality to gaming - but mechanics aren't something to be neglected.

[LightofDarkness]

I still don't see why the Kara demo is helping to "mature" things by essentially touting the same theme and subject matter as an episode of a hokey '90s sci-fi show (The Outer Limits). Is that really the bar? Even the tech isn't as impressive as that featured in LA Noire.

This guy is just a pretentious blow-hard, as far as I'm concerned. If you want to make a movie, David Cage, go make a movie. The art in games comes from the merging of visuals with player driven interaction (gameplay). A glorified "choose your own adventure" book is not a game, it's a last minute birthday present found near the checkout counter at a pharmacy.

Games like Journey do much more to further the medium as an art form, IMO.

[majiebeast]

Think they have taken some of his quotes out of context.

http://www.gametrailers.com... Thats the interview.

[Raoh]

Yep and everyone is taking one of those VG sites as gospel..

Also, knowing how cage games are, it sounds more like a stab at redundant gameplay.

12 different levels but your just pushing shoot and reload, with an occasional cover or jump and watch cut scenes in between.

With a cage game you will have a detective mode throughout maybe, a car chase in one level, cooking and cleaning and going to work in another, a fight scene with interrogation in one level, etc etc etc

COD is the same mechanic every year, just a new coat of paint, you can call the perks anything you want, your still playing the same game you played in 2007.

With QD games you are never playing the same game.

[Ace_Pheonix]

Already been done now. From now on, Mr. Cage, refer to Journey.

[from the beach]

That's because you're crap at making them - ie, crap at making games.

'Games with no mechanics' are movies.. unfortunately you're crap at making those too!

[koehler83]

Alternatively pressing the shoulder buttons to simulate clawing your way up a muddy hill in the rain IS a gameplay mechanic. It's just a rather poor one.

[M1chl]

I guees that this guy needs to finaly be quiet and present me some good game with great story, which hasn't happend yet. I am not hating on Heavy Rain, I partly enjoyed it, but it could have been much better, if some real writer came along...

[DigitalAnalog]

Notorious for poor quality articles and anti-sony antics. Surprised?

[wenaldy]

Who said N4G is the hood of PS3 fanbois?

[gypsygib]

I do agree that 99% of console games involve using a weapon to kill something or is a sports game. That is pretty lame.

[humbleopinion]

Cage's games are halfway interactive movies anyway, hardly games. A bit of redundant QTEs here (press X to shout...), and some very confined and limiting puzzle rooms there (unlike classis adventure games), but that's about it.

The best thing in his games is probably in the emotinal side and presentation - characters and dialogs. But even that's a bit limited narrative wise compared to the dialogs in classic adventure games (monkey island for example) or in RPGs like the ones Bioware are making.

When he did try to employ "proper" game mechanics we ended up with the abomination flashback level in indigo prophecy:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Luckily he learned from his mistakes in Heavy Rain and stuck to what he's good at - interactive movies. Although the plot was once again so full of holes that it makes less sense than the conclusion of "Lost".

[JoeSchmoh]

I don't think he doesn't dislike them, it's just that he feels every developer needs to stop copying each other. So it comes out as "I hate game mechanics and games where you kill with guns and swords." I respect his opinion cause my favorite games are Tenchu, Metal Gear and Devil May Cry type games. I mean, you look at the guy who produced Capcom fighting games in the 90s hard as hell "Noritaka Funamizu", you look at his newest title and it's an RPG. So, I totally see what this dude is saying.

[catfrog]

this is a smart man

[ironmonkey]

i enjoyed it very much. whatever happened to alan wake?