ComputerMKII
Banned
First of all , what development stage is Beyond in ?
We are now between alpha and beta. we are in the last month before the beta. For people who are not familiar with these terms, the alpha is the step where the data are produced and the game barely assembled, but looks like nothing. In the beta, the game is assembled and barely playable. At Quantic Dream, in particular, the step between the beta and the final game is very important, it 's really at this moment that the game emerges, finds its identity,and is being tuned. For timing issues, we begin by talking about the game, even if we would prefer to wait for the final game to be able to show a perfectly finished game . But it's not always possible, and we are in a battlefield now. Working 15 hours a day, weekends ... something all developers know!
Quantic Dream is one of the few studios saying it is already at work on PS4. How the teams are splitted to ensure the PS3 project completion and the beginning of a new generation?
At first we thought it was going to be conflictual and that we would have to make trade-offs every time. Very early, in fact, it took another turn, as we discovered that what we developed on PlayStation 4 would be useful for PlayStation 3. We started to develop on PlayStation 4 a number of "next-gen" features,and we were saying: "That, we can't do it on PS3." But after thinking , it was doable for PlayStation 3, maybe not as well[as on PS4], as pretty or as finished as the PlayStation 4, but feasible. Beyond's engine was able to take advantage of this twofold development by getting a number of ["next-gen"]features.
Should we understand that Beyond may also be on PlayStation 4, an "unleashed" version? You would not be the only one ...
There is no plan about it for now.
From your point of view, will there be a gap in terms of investment and manpower to prepare the next generation?
When the PlayStation 3 arrived, we asked ourselves the same question: what will be the impact on budgets? We said: "Oh, it will not change anything." In fact, we had seen that the budgets for PlayStation 3 are on another scale with those of the PlayStation 2. What we see of the PlayStation 4 is that it is so powerful , which allows us to do so many things, there will necessarily be an inflation of budgets. We have to be able to anticipate, and this is not a bad thing, since we create experiences that have real value and affect a wider audience. We will have to reach profitability with these higher budgets, but if we're going to do amazing things with this next generation of consoles, I doubt we can do it with PlayStation 3 [game]budget .
We saw a "Duo" mode in the demo menus. I guess you will not announce [here] a multi-player mode,so let's rephrase: are you interested in a multi-player gaming experience ?
We are very interested by multi-player [mode]. The idea of ​​creating an experience and a story played by several players together is extremely interesting, yes.
Taking into account the French context in terms of costs, employment, Can Quantic Dream sustain the same rate of production now?
The rate at which we make a game has never been a problem for us. We make very few games, and we claim. We don't release a game every christmas, we prefer to release one every three or four years, but we try to do everything we can to get the best game. But we try to organize ourselves to go a little faster. We are ahead of schedule on the next game, since we have a second development project. We are also ahead of the next cycle. With our relationship with Sony, we had early access to the PlayStation 4 SDK, which has enabled us to develop on next generation of consoles early. We're doing these investments. They were made in the past two years for one part and are still ongoing today.
But you have to know that moving to the next-gen, this is not simply buying more powerful PCs and hire more people. This is a business organization that is radically different.You don't develop a PlayStation 2 game like you develop a PlayStation 3 game , the same goes for PlayStation 4. These are developments that become highly technical, complex, interconnected with the needs to work on the image, a still relatively unknown field until recently, but very well known [for years] for 3D cinema . For example, very few games have worked with a photography director . Today, Quantic began working with photography directors, because we need it. We will see new jobs that did not exist so long ago in games development.
And it is quite interesting, since we are not in a heavy industry whose foundations were laid 50 years ago. Once every month, we reconsider the way we work. Not just from a technological point of view, but also organizational, and I don't even speak about concepts, gameplay, we have to continually reassess. The emergence of tablets or what is happening around us ... We can't remain deaf and blind to everything. We must see how it all blends to create new experiences, stronger and more interesting.
Speaking of new jobs, have you collaborated with "classic" screenwriters from movies, for example?
I consider myself as an interactive writer, and it's not quite the same job. There are many similarities and many differences. The most visible difference is the amount of writing. If a screenplay is 100 pages, a game scenario like Heavy Rain and Beyond is 2000 pages. The job is not the same. And it is true that when you go to see a film writer and put on his desk a 2000 pages script, he will have a retch and say "What do you want me to do with it? ".
The volume is important, there is also non-linearity which is obviously at the heart of what we do. You can't write one story but different versions of this story, we need to take different paths at different points, which will themselves lead to different paths that lead to different purposes. This is something quite technical , rather complex and even difficult to apprehend. Reading 2,000 pages of script is painful. We have to figure out how it will result in the game
One last [very important] point which is often difficult to grasp for linear writers is that the hero is the player. I do not tell a story in which I control the hero and make him do exactly what I tell him to do. I have to describe , a range of possibilities which should be large enough so that the player does not feel too cramped, but sufficiently defined for myself so I can tell them something and so that the player experience has a meaning. If I allow my main character to do anything, I can not tell a story, characterization will disappear, and I could not create this experience. I like the notion of 2D scenario against a 3D scenario.
For all these reasons, it is quite technical . It is a rather special job, quite specific on which we continue to learn and discover. We can not say that it is like the movies, where the language is set, clear, where thousands of books are available, you can go to college to learn. If we talk about interactive narrative, very few people have worked on it. There is no theory actually written. No language was established, we invents as we make games, we make mistakes, we use the wrong language, we invent a grammar ,we change it, we adapt it game after game
How actors like Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page take place in this context ? Acting in empty scenes, was it difficult for them?
With all the film actors I've seen, either Ellen Page or Willem Dafoe or less famous actors but talented, there are always two phases. In the first, they land on the scene. Willem and Ellen, we prepared them, showed them pictures and explained ... They both worked together and separately. We started with Ellen alone. She gave the reply to other actors than Willem. But all the scenes with the characters of Ellen and Willem were shot with Ellen and Willem on the board.
When they arrive, they are in this big empty room, there is nothing, they look around them. They have this kind of ridiculous outfit sticky balls that shine everywhere, and 90 markers on the face. Their first question is often: " at what camera do i have to look?". Hey no! It is 360 degrees, there is no camera, you act. Light? You don't care, light, there is no light! And marks on the ground? No, no marks on the ground. Here's your scene. We will repeat as if we were in a theater, and we'll play it. Do not worry about anything else.
The first day, they are completely lost and disoriented. "What I have to do, what is expected from me?". And the second day, suddenly, they discover that they are free. They always had this click, I saw this among all the actors. They say: "Wait, I have no camera, no landmark, no stress, all I have to do is play my text, my scene with my partners, trust the script and the director . "at this moment, they are really having fun being there [on the scene].
We see that Beyond is different from Heavy Rain by certain aspects. How much do reviews influenced you for this game? What do you think of those who have rejected that experience between movie and game?
The game was released in 2010, three years ago. Every time we travel, we meet players in convention, like the ComicCon with Ellen Page, reactions are extraordinary every time. We have people who come and see us, spontaneously talk about their experience of Heavy Rain. They tell us in general that they played with their wives. If it is not directly the women who come to see us. Every day we still receive fan mail, in which they say that Heavy Rain changed their view of video games. We do not pretend to make games that appeal to everyone, because everyone has different expectations of gaming experience.There are people that are bothered by our story, because we are aiming at emotion ,because we are trying to [story]tell things and do not make a game in which you must shoot, jump, solve a challenge or puzzles. But only a fraction are bothered,[a fraction] that we probably never reach.
And then there's a whole bunch of people who don't give a damn about this. Who do not care to know which button should be pressed, whether it was a gun or not. They just want to experience something different they have apparently not found in other games. It is that experience we are doing now. We are not doing frustrated cinema. We are not trying to do sub-cinema. We really try to find our language by putting interactivity at the heart of the experience. What interests me is not doing 30 minutes cinematic/cut-scenes. If we play Heavy Rain, we can realize that the longest cinematic are the ending ones which are a minute long. This is the same approach in Beyond. It is not a game that tells a linear story, because it is a movie in disguise. Through play, through interactivity, tell a story, but it is the player who tells the story through his actions. This is something that is very important to us.
Yes, we will be inspired by film techniques. Less from particular films, but more from a visual language point of view. Because we are also doing visual storytelling. Can we turn our backs on the cinema? No. These are people who tell stories and create emotions for 100 years. They do it with success. They developed a theory, a grammar, a language. Why we would be deprived of all this? Obviously we need to borrow from them. The approach is to say that nothing is created from nothing. Those who think that the game should be self-sustaining and self-generating are wrong for me.
When you look at photography: the first photographers began by taking inspiration from painting. When you look at the cinema, it has borrowed from painting, photography, theater. But it all began by borrowing before having a clear identity. There are specifics for cinema or photography that are not found in their inspirations ... same thing for games.Listen, look, not just the movies, watch TV, look at the literature, look at art. I strongly believe in a game that borrows from everything.
Beyond: Two Souls will be presented at the Tribeca Film Festival next week. From where does this approach come? You're not afraid to feed those who speak about sub-cinema for narrative video games ?
It is quite interesting what happens with Tribeca, since this is the first time, not only but also in Tribeca Film Festival,that a game is in the official selection. That is to say, we are not invited, we have not paid to come for marketing [purpose], we've been selected. So we are very happy and very proud. We are cousins ​​of the cinema, and we do not have to hide or be ashamed of it. But we are also different. I think it is very interesting to build bridges between these two worlds, we talk and we learn to know each others better.
We are doing this with Beyond by inviting Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe to come to work with us. We work with composers such as Normand Corbeil, who unfortunately passed away, but that was a very talented film composer, as Angelo Badalamenti, David Bowie as ... The richness of what we create is born of these collaborations, [from]these completely unbelievable meetings. We had the chance to meet Terry Gilliam through Heavy Rain ...
What does he think about Heavy Rain?
Meeting with Terry Gilliam was quite extraordinary. I could also mention the meeting with Mathieu Kassovitz, which I found extremely interesting. Terry Gilliam had never played a video game in his life. When he was asked what he thought of the game, he first said "stuff for kids, we shoot and there are dead people in the end, it does not interest me." At this moment, someone at Sony told him: "Try this game, you'll see, it's different." We bring to him a console with Heavy Rain installed , gave him a gamepad, explained him how to play, and he played. He was very surprised. He did not expect that at all. He told me something very interesting , it reminded him the beginning of the cinema, when it was an emerging media. I was obviously very flattered and honored that someone like Terry Gilliam think something like that.
I think there is much to learn from these events and it should not be snubbed. One has to learn. We worked with David Bowie, and it was something extraordinary in my life and in my career. I learned a lot. Working with Ellen and Willem Dafoe, it's amazing what these people bring, because they come with 100 years of cinema culture. Boom, they are there, on a film set. You learn from them. This is not just a personal trip "Cool I have great actors, It rocks." It is rather "I hope it will bring something strong and unique to the experience," and the player will say, "I understand why he went looking for Ellen Page, because in fact, we had not seen that before. " If that goal is reached and this is what I hear on the output of Beyond, I would be extremely happy and extremely satisfied.
Like Heavy Rain, Beyond covers heavy topics with sometime shard scenes : violence against women, kidnapping of children, cruelty ... Are there areas where you refuse to go? Why, for example, not to deal with issues such as the crisis, gay marriage, religion, etc?
One thing I'm very interested in, is to bring video games in our world, our time, our reality. I understand that we want to create video games that are out of time, out of the reality outside the company, I do not have a problem and there is an audience for it. But I find it really interesting to start talking to us, talking about real people, real life. Why not talk about politics? Why not talk about real conflicts? Why not talk about homosexuality? Disability? Different subjects, political or others? These are difficult issues, the cinema is so extraordinary. There are incredible movies on all these subjects. In the game industry, we always feel like we live in our universe, we talk about things that have no connection with reality. I want to talk about the real.
The huge challenge that we face is that no one does it. So it takes courage and people around you, including a publisher, to go. We have a lot of censorship issues. Now, cut the head of a guy with an axe, it is good. No problem. But, if I want to talk about homosexuality in a game, if I want to tell a relationship between two consenting adults, it's complicated. All those subjects which are real adult subjects, important, on which there are things to say, it is much more difficult to do than kill 10,000 people with a chainsaw. That, it goes well ...
Suppose for example you have a position on gay marriage, positive or negative. You are telling us that you could not talk about it in Beyond?
It's not that I feel restricted. First, I would not do it for free. I do want to talk about sensitive issues only if I have something to say, something that, at least to me, seems relevant and potentially interesting for other people. We must have something to say. We need a real [good] game with it. It is not as simple as"David Cage thinks ...". We must turn that into an experience that make sense/is interesting.
But I think it is extremely complicated because we are in a medium that is still considered by society as a toy for children. And with toy for children, we do not talk politics, no sex, no real conflict, we are not talking about real people. When it's heroic fantasy, in which you have a sword and you kill goblins, things are going well. Therefore when we want to discuss real topics, it becomes much more difficult.
Example of a topic where you have been a victim of this kind of censorship?
Heavy Rain has been thrown by a bunch of publishers, who found the concept extraordinary, who worshiped his technology, who insisted on making the game, but said: "You know, a guy who kidnaps children, we can not do. " And we tried to explain that the game does not obviously glorified it, it was not a game about violence, we would not kill children in the game, there was nothing visually shocking, we wanted to do it with emotion and taste. The message behind the game is positive: how far are you willing to go for love? This is what the game is about. "Yes, but you know, video games that talk about it, it's not possible."
But we had problems on almost all the scenes and moral problems of Ethan. When he had to cut a finger for his son ... Everything was a problem, we said that there are lots of games that are doing worse things than that! "Yes, it is not the same, it is in a fantasy context, this is not real. You're doing games that are in the real world, it makes it shocking." In fact, this is not true. And we are fighting with Beyond. Daily. There are scenes to be cut. "We" don't want [these scenes]. This is not Sony's fault, it's just that we want this game to be seen by as many people, with an appropriate rating, not "Adults Only" in the United States, which would limit the sales. We want to reach a large audience. But yet, in Beyond, nothing is shocking. No pornography, of course, nothing amazing, nothing you would not see at 8:30 pm [in the news] on TF1 (a french channel). And yet, everything is a problem.
This is a fight that I consider like a political struggle, which is to say that video games, is an interactive media on his own, it has the right for freedom of speech, and simply respect for the creator. When what we say is right/legitimate, I think he has the same rights as a movie writer or tv shows or anyone. I have a responsibility as a creative guy, but no more, no less than a movie writer. I want the same freedom and the same rights. That's why we're fighting.
At the other end of the spectrum, would it be even more difficult to be funny [humor], for example? Did you tried to make a game that makes people laugh?
To make people laugh, it is very difficult. The real question is whether it is as universal as the fear or sadness. Is laughting not a little more rooted in the culture? Is a Japanese guy laughing at the same things that a German or an American guy? This is the main difficulty perhaps. I am interested in emotion. And laughing is an emotion, as well as tears or other things. So yes, I'm very interested, obviously, and I really want to explore this area.
Godard said: "Photography is truth, so the cinema is truth 24 times per second." By taking this adage describe what is the video game?
What interest me in video games is that it is the only medium in which the viewer is an actor. Art, you look at it, but you do not participate. A work made by an artist, it makes you feel things, but there are two things that are separate. In film, same thing, you feel something, but you can not change what happens. Interactivity is totally different, because you find yourself back in the creation of someone else. Someone invented a narrative and emotional space in which you come home and you'll build yourself. And you will therefore participate in the creation of your experience. And that, no other medium does it. And we are trying to do it 30 times per second. So we are still stronger than movies! (Laughs)
Joking aside, I think these are two different types of experience, one as interesting as the other. But we are only at the beginning of what has been discovered with interactivity, they started doing simple things, sometimes very simple. I think that when we will begin to discover that, we will reach more and more people today who are not interested in video games, or who are thinking that it is gesticulating in front of a TV with a Wii Remote. We'll start talking about things that have meaning, start telling things, to have something to say.
We talk a lot about the next-gen technical features , but I am very interested in the meaning. And I hope that the next-gen feature we will see, is the meaning. Having games that tell something, say something, and when we finished playing and when the console is off, we learned something. And not only make games that are outlets. This is very good and respectable, I do not criticize it, but you can do many things with interactivity than what is made today.
http://www.gamekult.com/actu/david-...liberte-quun-scenariste-de-films-A108401.html
