Sopranos' Creator Doubtful of Game Meaning

Stephen Totilo, over at MTV Games, has up an article talking with David Chase, the creator of hit HBO show The Sopranos. Mr. Chase believes firmly in the creative and dramatic potential of television, but isn't so sure that videogames can mean all that much. Despite the new 'Sopranos' game, you'll never see the TV show bleed into gaming, or vice versa. In his mind, games have very specific goals. From the article: "'Games have a function,' he said. 'It's a physical function. The character has to go from here to there, has to shoot that, has to drive this, has to knock that down, has to jump up here. ... That's how a game works. So cooking dinner, going to Lamaze class, there's no way to figure that into a game at this point. Maybe somebody else can do it and maybe somebody will, but that wasn't really what this game was about. It was supposed to be a story about a kid who wants to be a gangster -- a punk who wants to be a gangster -- and so that's what we did.'"

Oh no?

[Rob T Firefly]

So cooking dinner, going to Lamaze class, there's no way to figure that into a game at this point.

Someone get this guy into "The Sims," or at least "Incredible Crisis." Hell, get him a Tamagotchi from the bargain bin.

Actually...

[RumGunner]

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I completely agree with that. I prefer games that have specific goals and an end. I like the feeling of accomplishment I get from beating the final boss, jumping over the flagpole, etc.

Waiting around a game for something to happen, aimlessly collecting money, fighting endless boring monsters to gain experience, none of these things really feels like "fun" to me.

Not using his imagination

[lawpoop]

I don't think Totilo has really used his imagination with this one. Think about a movie about, say, an underdog football team, or a champion chess player playing a computer, or a boxer, uh... boxing.

The human drama, which is what the story is, can play itself out in the context of a game, just as it can play out in the game-like atmosphere of a business or a relationship.

In a nutshell, the story theory is that the protagonist faces a challenge that shatters his world -- he can't go back to his world they way he used to live it. Think Luke after his parents were killed by stormtroopers. He can either hook up with some crazy old man or wander around Tatooine, but he just won't be helping Uncle Owen farm moisture tomorrow.

Same thing when the star quarterback steps out onto the field for the championship game or the chess player sits down in front the the computer. They are either going to become a champion, or blow the biggest chance of their life. Either way, they can't go back to the anonymity they used to live everyday. What a better set up for the human drama?

Us here on slashdot have seen this played out a million times in almost every game. The crisis might be a little hoakey or even flat out weird -- resucing Dr. Light from Dr. Wiley, or eating all of the pellets without getting caught by a ghost. It is a challenge, and there is no rest for the protagonist. They must make their way into a brave new world.

Do Lamaze classes and cooking have a place in TV?

[Thansal]

Honestly? no.

If they show up in a piece of fiction, I would realy hope that the focus was on the characters AS they are involved in these activities, not on the activity itself.

For a nice quick example, take GTA:SA. You have your characters, and you have the character advancment they go through, most of it is take up by cut sceans between missions, and the random commentary durring missions. I would not be that hard of a streach to have CJ walk into his brothers house and get a mission from him when he is making dinner.

Meh, I personaly think that a video game CAN be just as great a piece of narative as a TV show can be.

Re:Oh no?

[ArmyOfFun]

In a show like the Soprano's cooking or Lamaze would be an action characters perform for either some hidden meaning or to give the characters something to do while the story is advanced via other means (like dialogue). In a game, you're either totally involved in a cooking or Lamaze mini-game, or its carried out in a non-interactive way. So, for the interactive cooking segment, the narative (if any) has to come to a stop while you focus on the task at hand. Another character could talk to you while you cook, but most people will only be able to focus on cooking or listening, or do both poorly. Not to mention the outrage your typical gamer would have at having to cook or go to Lamaze with his pregnant mistress in a GTA or Soprano's game. Whereas most viewers probably aren't bothered when Carmela is making something to eat for Tony.

Crappy games aren't as good as good TV

[spun]

Wow, news flash. Crappy formulaic games aren't as meaningful as ground breaking dramatic television. How much do you want to bet that movie producers said the same thing about TV when it first came out? Video games are about where TV was in the late 50's. At least he's not saying it'll never happen, he's just admitting that he's not talented and/or experienced enough in the medium of video games to pull it off.

Each new media changes society through it's innate characteristics. Books, by putting you in your head, are like a daydream. Movies, with 24 frames per second flashed on screen, are like a regular dream. TV, with it's rapidly scanning raster beam is hypnotic. Video games by their nature are interactive. All of them, however, follow the same rules of drama: you must raise dramatic tension by asking interesting questions and lower it by answering them. But what questions are interesting to an audience is at least somewhat inherent in the media itself. Questions that raise dramatic tension in book form may not do the same thing in TV or movie form, and this holds true for video games as well.

Seeing characters cooking dinner or going to lamaz class may raise dramatic tension while watching the hypnotic medium of television. That does not mean they would (necessarily) do so in the interactive medium of video games.

"...at this point."

[Gregory Cox]

" there's no way to figure that into a game at this point. Maybe somebody else can do it and maybe somebody will, but that wasn't really what this game was about.

He deliberately left open the possibility that maybe in the future someone will make a game with the kind of depth and narrative he's talking about. That seems pretty open-minded to me. (OK, so he ignored the possibility that there might be a game like that already that he just didn't know about, but that's a minor oversight.)

I think he did a good job of being diplomatic about the possibilities of computer games, while trying to explain why, in this particular case, he doesn't want this game to end with Tony Soprano walking out as the final boss and you having to dropkick him, becase it will make his drama look ridiculous. That's his real point.