In praise of cutscenes

GameDaily Biz has a piece up from Alexander L. Fernandez, CEO of Streamline Studios, arguing for the importance of story and cinematics in games. It's partly a response to David Rodriguez's recent column about annoying, constant cut-scenes, but I don't see them as disagreeing.

Rodriguez argues that video games are different from other art forms and that we should appreciate the possibilities for creating nonlinear and player-created storytelling (as I noted in that post, he's not saying that this kind of storytelling is better than, say, a movie -- only that it's different and worthwhile on its own). Fernandez argues that video games are different from other art forms, but those technological and structural differences can inform and add to video game stories to create unique narratives. He writes: "We can throw our hands up in despair and moan of the days when stories never existed, which has never been the case, or we can embrace the fact that immersive compelling games are a mixture of multiple art forms, engineering and technological evolution."

The two arguments simply reflect the wide range of games that are out there, and the even broader range of possibilities yet to be explored.