Artists are flocking to games these days, as evidenced by the visually beautiful Onimusha. Character Samanosuke by © Fu Long Prod. © CAPCOM CO.LTD. 2004. © CAPCOM U.S.A. INC. 2004 All rights reserved.

So, we have to ask the question: What is it that keeps us pursuing gaming thrills the way our protagonists seek their treasures? The answers are as complicated as the industry itself. Fast hardware, powerful graphics boards and beautiful displays are making it possible to have great characters to manipulate through enticing worlds. But I wonder, how much does that matter? For how long will that beauty keep us anchored to our consoles and our computers? At this year’s Game Developer’s Conference, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (BioWare) won the IGDA’s Game of the Year and Original Game Character, while Prince of Persia (Ubisoft) won Game Design and Excellence in Programming awards. Both of these games are cool to look at, to be sure, and they’re both adventure games that take the user into a very different world. And then there’s the realism trend, where everything looks just a bit too real: titles such as Onimusha and WarCraft use motion capture to make humans look even more human. But, as a friend of mine says, “The realism sire is leading you toward the rocks,” rocks which were all but ignored by The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which swapped the depth and detail of Prince of Persia for a light, airy, cartoony approach and won the IGDA’s Art Direction award.

Beauty and adventure brought Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time awards in Game Design and Excellence in Programming at GDC this year. Indie game titles such as Jak & Daxter make for more interesting games. Prince of Persia image courtesy of Ubisoft Ent. Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy is a trademark of Sony Computer Ent. America Inc. Created and developed by Naughty Dog Inc. © 2001 Sony Computer Ent. America Inc.

A marketplace that thrives on familiarity is a constant obstacle to innovation, a circumstance common to all the arts and entertainment media. The challenge in developing and distributing adventurous new concepts in the game world is extremely similar to that of the film world: the independent movie producer can make a riskier product than his studio-bound counterpart. And just as the bigger film production companies are more likely to piggyback off some hugely successful film or genre than sink its millions into an unproven original idea, the big game producers are probably going to be more inclined to gamble on a known franchise than on an unknown (and therefore unpredictable) new game.

To that end, the writing award at this year’s GDC went to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. While this is cool, of course, it underscores that stark truth: studios are more likely to succeed if they license titles than if they develop their own smaller, more inventive stories. Like the world of independent film, independent game titles are adventurous and different. I only hope that there is enough of an audience out there to keep encouraging development of titles like Oddworld, Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter so we can sit in front of our screens and marvel, or fight a battle or just solve a puzzle.

Film industry executives are trying to make the next Nemo, but we all know that that kind of brilliance can’t be replicated with processors and pixels. It’s the same for gaming. Maybe our characters will start to have feelings; maybe someone will figure out an immersive game that removes us from our surroundings: I can’t wait for EyeToy 2010! Maybe it’ll be more akin to a Holodeck, or something else entirely, like bodily implants à la Cronenberg’s game-as-reality film Existenz. Personally, I wonder if it all comes back down to a compelling story.

Me? Well, quite honestly, I prefer the graphics of a gorgeous day at the beach; the story of catching the perfect wave; and the physics of wiping out. And that’s why I’m not the demographic.

Jill Smolin has been a grateful member of the visual effects industry for about a decade, and has documented the industry (before it was one) for about twice that long.