But I Want More Shakespeare In My Games!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/27/gdc09_jeffrey_kaplan_session/

What happens when the leader of a very popular computer game company gets on stage and mentions Shakespeare?  My news filters all go frickin bananas, I’ll tell ya that!

This is only borderline related to us, but basically the maker of computer game World of Warcraft said very publicly to his developers, and I quote, “to stop writing a f***ing book in the game because nobody wants to read it…the sooner we accept that we are not Shakespeare, Scorcese, Tolstoy or the Beatles, the better off we are.”

 

I’d just like to say that there’s nothing wrong with building your game on a literary foundation such as those you mention.  Why not write in a plot that lifts directly from Kurosawa’s “Ran”, for instance?  You’re right, you won’t come up with stuff on your own that’s nearly as good.  But most of the good stuff is public domain, so why not just take it?

He’s right about not putting everything into text, no doubt about it.  I don’t play many games, but when I do (on Wii, mostly) I tend to skip the text.  Show me the story, don’t tell it to me.