Turn back the clock even a few years and remember how film was seen as the glamorous career destination for top talent. Film professionals saw gaming as that awkward cousin in entertainment. Frustrated by the constraints of last gen consoles, CG Supervisors, VFX artists, audio engineers, producers and script writers saw their natural home as film and laughed in the face of gaming as the preserve of the geeky young male playing in their bedroom.
How film talent used to revel in telling us how their special skills could not be utilized in gaming as system and memory restraints severely limited what they could achieve. 'How can my effects wizardry be included in game when I only have 2.5k of ram to play with', was the oft heard cry.
Fast-forward to today when gaming, driven by technology, innovation and creativity, has perceptibly not only woken up film industry talent to the career potential they can have in gaming, but shaken the industry to its core.
How things have changed especially with the advent of next gen consoles and high end PC's, film professionals are flocking across into games. Less inhibited by memory and system restraints, they have the opportunity to work in a living and breathing online universe. With each generation of hardware technology, gaming continues to leap forward in not only its graphical quality but its ability to entertain and bring fun to people’s lives. A game can provide over 40 hours of entertainment for the same price as a family going to the movies. Film can’t compete for value or entertainment.
It is by no means an exaggeration to say that gaming has come a long way in the past 25 years. Remember classic games like Pong, Pac-Man and Space Invaders? They were games so graphically basic yet at their core utterly addictive and always 'one last go'.
Over the past 25 years games have sprinted forward, helped by new technology and also learning from other industries. Film has been a great mentor for games to learn about the art of storytelling, CG graphics and the creation of emotionally believable characters.
moscalloutHow film talent used to revel in telling us how their special skills could not be utilized in gaming as system and memory restraints severely limited what they could achieve./moscalloutThe technical challenges of the gaming industry are becoming more and more appealing to film industry talent to apply their experience in a new medium. Look at the technical achievements of games like Crysis, Assassin’s Creed, Grand Theft Auto IV, World of Warcraft and Burnout. Crysis ensures that every part of nature that can respond, does respond. It includes simulated foliage and ricocheting bullets, dynamically generated ocean waves, volume rendered clouds, a dynamic HDR sky, and dozens of additional real-time graphical elements. Gaming is just scratching the surface of interactive film-like effects. The challenge for gaming is creating real time dynamic effects in worlds and placing interactive environments at the control of the gamer. Gamers demand natural forces at their control and environments that respond. Our talent relishes being given huge technical challenges like these and then not only meeting but exceeding expectations.
'Burnout Paradise' provided many challenges for Criterion Games. Creating the scale of a city 30 square kilometers, populated with realistic modeled buildings, bridges, and countryside all with no loading screens. Add to that real time traffic with realistic AI computer controlled competitor racers, accurate physics with stunning car deformation in a game running at 60FPS, which can transform into an online game with eight opponents at the click of your fingers. That's a real technical feat and one that film talent is realizing that comes only in gaming.
So why do I commit to the bold statement that gaming rather than film is the career destination for top talent?
Don't get me wrong. Film is a great experience but albeit very linear. The film director shows you what he/she wants the audience to see and then takes you through a rollercoaster of emotions, controlling and manipulating you all along. Gaming puts the games player into the role of film director. The games player can control characters, cameras, objects, lighting, be faced with decisions that affect storyline and ultimately lead to multiple endings. The transformation of turning a core gamer into a story director is a creative challenge and something we should all celebrate across the games industry in achieving.
Interestingly, the best is yet to come from the games industry. Looking at film the big 'WOW' moments, - the ones that made cinema goers gasp, rock back in their chair and wonder how such visuals were achieved -, have come and gone. I remember the pivotal moments of many well-known films. In 'Clash of the Titans', with the stop-and-go motion of the evil demagogue beasts by the legendary Ray Harryhausen or 'Tron', the first real CG film with the light cycle chases. In 'Star Wars' with stunning space battles, 'Terminator 2' with the stunning effects of the liquid nitrogen Terminator, 'Jurassic Park', with realistic dinosaurs which scared viewers witless, and who could forget 'Toy Story', the stunning first CG animated feature from Pixar. The list goes on….