Chris Crawford on Game Design

Hollywood Envy

For some reason, games people look to Hollywood as their nirvana. They love to insert moviemaking terminology into their discussions of game design. Storyboards are de rigeur among many games people, even though they really don't add anything to the design process. The word “cinematic” seems to be more common in game design discussions than “interactivity,” even though the latter is central to game design and the former is peripheral. And when games people need somebody to write dramatic prose, it's got to be a screenwriter with Hollywood experience, not some mere novelist or playwright.

If the reader will indulge my attempt at psychoanalysis, I suspect that what's going on here is some kind of attempt to break out of the geeky ...