Why Video Games Are Having a Harder Time With Humor

Kotaku is running an opinion piece discussing why video games are having a harder time being funny as they've shifted away from text-driven adventures and toward graphics-intensive environments. "As technology improved, things began to get more serious. With the rise of 3D technology a strong focus was put on making games look good, delivering a more realistic — and often darker — experience to the player. Cartoonish comedic games became more of a novelty than the norm. Few titles, such as Rare's Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64, fully embraced humor." The article also talks about how the trend could soon reverse itself. LucasArts' Dave Grossman said, "As the games get smarter and start paying attention to more things about what the player is actually doing, using that ability not just to create challenges but to create humorous moments will be pretty cool. Eventually I expect to be out of a job over that."

Maybe TF2 for inspiration?

[Ash.D.Giles]

Team Fortress 2 has been a great demonstration of how an amazing graphics engine can be used in a less-realistic way, but the high-quality graphics still do a good job supporting the gameplay. Maybe more of this will come soon? And perhaps the artists in game development studios will get more of a chance to be... well... artistic as a result.

Grossman's with Telltale, not LucasArts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave Grossman left LucasArts back in 1994 -- and he's been with Telltale Games since 2005. TFA points out that he's working on Telltale's new Tales of Monkey Island series.

The Genre

[fatp]

Nowadays most games are either RTS and FPS. The most important factor is speed. Gamers simply don't have the time to admire any humor.

Re:Grossman's with Telltale, not LucasArts!

[hyk]

After playing the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island, I can recommend it; both for its puzzles and comedy.

Re:The 4th Wall

[X0563511]

You're kidding right? There's humor all over the place in Fallout 3. Most of it is passive - you have to be observant and notice. "Hey, whats that over there? Oh my..."

For instance, a dead Protectron sitting on a toilet. In the bowl, is a pile of scrap metal. It hardly jumps out at you, but if you are paying attention you will notice subtle things like that.

Re:Maybe TF2 for inspiration?

[BakaHoushi]

Both TF2 and L4D both do one thing right by Valve: They don't overuse one-liners. For any given circumstance, there are probably a half-dozen possible phrases per character or class. Rather than have them say a line everytime, they randomize it and it works well. For example, in TF2 if you've just dominated an opponent, there's a number of standard lines per class ("You just got freakin' dominated, knucklehead, all right, let's do this") to a number of class specific taunts depending on your class and the class you just killed ("That was a mercy killing, you live in a, uh, uh, CAMPER VAN." "You ain't so smart with your brains OUTSIDE your head, now, are you?") meaning you rarely ever hear the same taunts twice, at least within any reasonable amount of time.

Re:Maybe TF2 for inspiration?

[Rutefoot]

That's because Valve hires comedy writers to its staff, such as Chet from Portal of Evil and Old Man Muray, Erik Wolpaw from Old Man Murray and Jay Pinkerton from Cracked and National Lampoons

Re:YES!

[Hatta]

Also, now that they're on Xbox Live, I encourage you to go back and play the Monkey Island games that seemed so funny when you were 12. They aren't.

Hmm, they still seem funny when I play them on ScummVM.

Re:Maybe TF2 for inspiration?

[VGPowerlord]

Since the Scout update, each class has been getting new, class-specific domination and revenge messages. Almost all of them are funny.

Here are some of my favorite Scout and Spy domination messages:
"Hey, here's something you can invent next time: ducking!" -- Scout dominating Engineer (quote #1 of 6)
"Don't bring a wrench to a gun fight!" -- Scout dominating Engineer (quote #3 of 6)
"$400,00 to fire that gun, huh? Yeah, money well spent!" -- Scout dominating Heavy (quote #3 of 10)
"I. Eat. Your. Sandwiches! I eat 'em up!" -- Scout dominating Heavy (quote #7 of 10)
"Whoo hoo hoo, your gun shoots medicine... that's intimidatin'." -- Scout dominating Medic (quote #2 of 6)
"Where's your precious hippo crates now?" -- Scout dominating Medic (quote #3 of 6)
"That fancy scope of yours? I bet you got a REAL good view of me killin' ya." -- Scout dominating Sniper (quote #2 of 5)
"It was a mercy killing, you live in a... camper van!" -- Scout dominating Sniper (quote #4 of 5)
"You'll never hit me, you'll never hit my tiny head! It's so tiny, I've got a frickin'... such a tiny little head!" -- Scout dominating Sniper (quote #5 of 5)
"Hey hey, look, you shape-shifted into a dead guy!" -- Scout dominating Spy (quote #4 of 4) (Not quite so funny now that the Dead Ringer cloaking device exists)

"The black, Scottish cyclops: now extinct." -- Spy dominating Demoman (quote #5 of 7)
"Here's what I have that you don't: a functioning liver, depth perception, and a pulse!" -- Spy dominating Demoman (quote #7 of 7)
"Oh... too bad this wasn't a pie-eating contest!" -- Spy dominating Heavy (quote #7 of 8)
"Did I throw a wrench into your plans?" -- Spy dominating Engineer (quote #4 of 6)
"Oh, you almost healed me to death that time!" -- Spy dominating Medic (quote #3 of 6)
"I'm looking at your X-ray and I'm afraid you suck!" -- Spy dominating Medic (quote #4 of 6)
"Well, off to visit your mother!" -- Spy dominating Scout (quote #1 of 8)
"May I borrow your ear piece? 'This is scout, rainbows make me cry, over!'" -- Spy dominating Scout (quote #6 of 8)
"So, your deadly skill is jogging? Mine is murdering people." -- Spy dominating Scout (quote #6 of 8)
"At least you died for honor... and my amusement!" -- Spy dominating Soldier (quote #3 of 5)
"They can bury you in the tomb of the unskilled soldier." -- Spy dominating Soldier (quote #3 of 5)
"We all knew you were a Spy!" -- Spy dominating Spy (quote #2 of 5)

I really have to disagree with this article

[bonch]

Most Nintendo games are full of cartoon humor, Team Fortress 2's visual style is hilarious, Blizzard games are full of tongue-in-cheek jokes and silliness, the Grand Theft Auto series is full of adult humor...I don't feel like there's a lack of humor in gaming, and I don't think there was a lower number of more serious games in the past, from Quake to Phantasmagoria.

Re:Humour is too expensive

[Dutch Gun]

Speaking as a developer, I should hope you wouldn't unfairly generalize. We're hiring union talent for all our performances in our upcoming game, and using experienced studios in Hollywood to do the recording. I've personally worked with the studios when writing our in-house tools to make sure all our text is exported in standard 'movie script' formatting, so the actors feel as comfortable as possible with the material. Our writers flew down to California to give direction and motivational help. And as far as I know, actors work pretty normal hours. There are union rules about that - for instance, we can't bring in an actor for just a few pick-up lines. We have to pay them for at least... what is it, half a day minimum, or something like that?

Games already face massive development costs developing the technology and art, both of which are getting more and more complex. Additionally, the non-linear nature of games can mean tens or even hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue. It's already a massive expense that only the biggest studios can afford. I think your union wisely understands that if it started demanding outrageous fees and/or royalties, game developers would be forced to go non-union. I'm not trying to present this as a threat - I think it's just a reality of the marketplace.

Re:I really have to disagree with this article

[binomialCoward]

ON what grounds has this been modded this a -1? It's a legitimate point.