Looks like I was well off the mark when I said nothing interesting had happened over the past few weeks - I hadn’t yet got around to checking the always wonderful Gamasutra, who posted an interview with Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island creator (and programmer, and writer) Ron Gilbert. It should pretty much go without saying, at this point, that I’m just a little bit of a fan of Ron’s work.
More than that, though, I’m a huge fan of what Ron has to say about the industry in generalI love his website, Grumpy Gamer, and while he’s not always correct, he is, at least entertaining, and ntertainly opinionated. He speaks in the interview about what a let-down he feels story-telling in videogames is at the moment. Having just played through The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer for DB Magazine I’m really feeling that. For a game where the developers actually consulted with Pixar regarding the story (as well as the animation) it was amazing how badly that aspect of it turned out. The game picked up right where the movie left off, with the family about to face the threat of the Underminer - so why, then, did the game immediately switch the focus to Mr. Incredible and Frozone, instead of stciking with the strength of the movie, which was the characterisation of the family itself? It beggars belief, but the problem is, it’s not even the worst offender of the past few years.
Ron’s example is Grand Theft Auto, saying that “I think, you certainly can play Grand Theft Auto and come away from it with a story. But I think most of the time people play games they come away with a really bad, boring story.” That seems like a pretty fair point, but, even though GTA is one of the most visable (and best selling) examples of user created content and narrative, it’s also a little unfair to pick on it, considering that there does seem to be a good deal of effort put into creating the storyline. Despite the fact that, as Ron points out, it’s badly paced - though, this is, arguably, a neccessary effect of the genre’s freedom - at least the effort’s there, and there are some attempts at sophication in the narrative.
It also puzzles me that Ron makes no mention of recent RPG or adventure game titles, complaining that “I have not played anything in a long time that I thought was doing a particularly good job at telling a story”. Personally, I’d venture that this might not be the best way to go about things. Criticism without some form of constructive nature to it is just abuse, and as much as I love Ron, he’s showing a little too many shades of John Byrne, the artist and writer who is often credited with having the second best run (after Lee and Kirby) on Fantastic Four.
While Byrne had always been loud and opinionated, he seemingly snapped sometime around the turn of the century and went from “amusingly opinionated” to “insane and bitter” - famously commenting that “A time machine would come in handy, right about now. Go back about fifteen years and shoot all those people who didn’t listen when I predicted the present state of the industry”, as well as a number of other gems. Now, I’m by means suggesting that Ron Gilbert is insane or bitter, since, for the rest of the interview, he tends be not only well spoken and informed, but also charming. Of course, it would also be nice not to have to put up with another one of my heroes thinking that shooting their mouth off at every occasion because they have a well regarded past is not only the right way to behvae, but also defensible.
Mostly though, I think Gilbert’s criticism of the industry is healthy, and well deserved. His point that the large publishers seem inexplicably unwilling to support low budget “indie” styled games is timely and well made. Not to mention his point that this could be easily remedied by a company like EA setting up an imprint, the same way Disney created Miramax to handle titles like Pulp Fiction, a point which echoes the ideas regarding “brand focus” that Apogee’s Scott Miller has always talked about. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the industry needs someone like Ron Gilbert - we need him to be outpoken, and focused on his beliefs, but we also need him to be fair and give credit where it’s due. GTA may not be the best storyline ever, and, hey, I’d be the first to admit that it pales in comparrison to Ron’s own work, but it’s a start, and that’s better than nothing.
The big highlight of the interview, though, is this revelation:
“I do have a kind of very story-heavy, story-based kind of RPG game that I’m currently designing, but I’m still looking for a publisher willing to publish it. So I continue to work on it until I find somebody, but there’s a lot of what you talk about here, you know, very heavily story-based, a lot of sensibilities of adventure games mixed with some of the action fun RPG elements.”
If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you’re probably very excited about that. I can only hope that someone steps up to publish this, because the idea of Ron Gilbert working on an story-based action-RPG is probably the most exciting news I’ve heard in quite some time. More news as it comes.