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SXSW Panel: The Emotion Engine: Can a Video Game Speak to the Heart?
Panel: The Emotion Engine: Can a Video Game Speak to the Heart? (Twitter hashtag: #emotionengine
Date/time: 5 p.m. Sunday
Panelists: Peter Molyneux (Lionhead Studios), Frank Rose (Wired.com).
The gist: Peter Molyneux (“Fable,” “Black & White,” “Populous”) is “Pioneer of the God Games” (said Rose) and he has a reputation for trying to break down the barriers between good and bad and creating moral consequences in games, but leaving it up to players to decide which way to go. Though his games have not always been commercial successes, he has always pushed the envelope of what games can do and be. He’s found success with his Xbox/Xbox 360-based “Fable” games and in his next game, he wants to make characters and situations that involve the player, create empathy and engage emotions in new ways. In a demo Molyneux showed of “Fable 3,” he showed the main character you play holding your daughter’s hand and walking though the streets of a Dickensian London-like location. It was very charming and emotionally compelling. The game’s “Touch” interface will allow players to interact with anything around them in contextual ways — use the same hand that walked your daughter to reach for a beggar’s hand and you can take him to a factory and sell him (if you want). Molyneux believes many game designers have become complacent and that new technologies like Microsoft’s motion-sensing camera, code-named Natal, will open new ways of interacting with games and making them more compelling.
Quotes: “The staffing problems must have been a nightmare!” — Molyneux on the plight of the bad guy in movies. “It’s so emotionally more powerful than hitting A… you physically have to drag him and force him to do these things. A simple game mechanic changes your emotional involvement with the world.” — Molyneux. “Natal is a fantastic amazing device because it is so different… it makes designers like me sweat like we never have before.” — Molyneux on Microsoft’s motion-sensing Xbox 360 camera, due out later this year. “It is all about the skill of what we create.” — Molyneux
Takeaways: While movies make us sit passively, video games have the opportunity to engage us in ways that other forms of entertainment can’t. Games like “Heavy Rain” (which Molyneux believes is brilliant, but which he couldn’t finish because he was too emotionally disturbed), are pointing the way to where interactive entertainment is going. Molyneux believes we need more amazingly talented game designers to make interactive art that matters.
- Omar L. Gallaga
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