Written Interview: Tom Bissell (“Gears of War”)

Something a little different today: A New Yorker interview with Tom Bissell who along with Rob Auten wrote the video game “Gears of War: Judgment”:

How long will it take before we see a game that has the quality of a literary novel? That pushes the same buttons, as it were.

It depends what you mean by “quality.” There’s never going to be a direct one-to-one ratio here, you know. But there have already been a few games that approach something akin to the “literary,” at least for me. One of the games that I’m really looking forward to — a game that I actually worked on a little bit — is called The Witness, which a game designer named Jonathan Blow is going to release in the fall. Jon is a member of the game world’s genuinely provocative advance guard. I feel no hesitation in calling him a genius. I wrote a little bit for an earlier version of the game, and so have had the privilege to play it quite a bit. I can say it’s really going to be a special, and possibly even groundbreaking, experience. It’s an incredibly personal, strange, and moving work of art. It’s a first-person walker, I would say, in that you have the typical first-person viewpoint but you don’t have any tools or items. You have only your virtual eyes and your non-virtual brain to help you out. All over the island are these amazing interactive puzzles, which start off seeming fairly simple but, by the end, become impressively complicated and elaborate. But they always make sense. Jon’s goal in the game is nonverbal communication. It’s how his puzzles teach you to pay attention to what’s around you without using any words. It’s also kind of about physics, insofar as I can tell! The first time I played it, I looked at Jon and said, “This is the next step.” It might be the game that finally moves people who think games are a waste of time to say, “I get why this medium is important, and why people are so fascinated by the possibilities here.”

Right? And if games become a thing like, “Oh! They tell really good stories in these now!” Oh my god, there will be a total stampede.

Sure, but now that I’ve worked on a few games, I’ve grappled with the degree to which games are not really a writer’s medium. Film’s not really a writer’s medium, either. Good writing certainly doesn’t hurt, but it’s not the thing that saves the day. I’ve been quietly lobbying for games that are smart and intelligent, even if they’re about blowing lots of shit up. At the same time, though, pure storytelling is never going to be the thing that games do better than anything. Games are primarily about a connection between the player, the game world, and the central mechanic of the game. They’re about creating a space for the player to engage with that mechanic and have the world react in a way that feels interesting and absorbing but also creates a sense of agency. So writing, in games, is about creating mood and establishing a basic sense of intent. The player has some vague notion of what the intent of the so-called author is, but the power of authorship is ultimately for the player to seize for him or herself. This goes for any kind of game. I think good game writing is a process of getting out of the player’s way. You give him or her just enough to work with narratively, but ultimately you let the player tell his or her own story.

A kinetic, direct element that you wouldn’t have in a novel.

Yeah, or a film, for that matter.

For more of the New Yorker article, go here.

An added bonus? A video interview with Bissell and Auten:

Any fans of “Gears of War”? Gamers, are you looking for stories with the “quality of a literary novel”?