Big Ideas: Can a video game make you cry?

Posted Jun 24th 2009 2:00PM by Akela Talamasca
Filed under: Culture, Features, Opinion

There is a moment during the almost three hour-long Giant Bombcast: Game of the Year Edition when Jeff Gerstmann is expostulating on his choice of Grand Theft Auto 4 as his pick for GotY, where he describes a character that so closely resembled someone he knows -- and the associated memories of that person, and presumably the eventual fate of that person -- that he broke down a little and cried. "And games don't do that," he adds quietly.

It is the continuing viewpoint among those who don't play video games that games are not art. Among the reasons they cite for this stance, valid or not, is that a game could never make the player cry, because it lacks any sort of emotional depth. Obviously, this is an extremely facile argument, and can be attacked on a number of fronts, but let's examine it from the opposite angle. Can we envision a game that could make us, any of us, cry? What would it need to do to accomplish that?

When we get emotional during a movie, or while watching a television show, or reading a book, or even listening to a song, there is a powerful feeling of resonance that occurs within us. We make the association between ourselves and the character(s) of the story to such an extent that their struggles become ours, and their feelings are congruent with our feelings. Even when this doesn't happen, many of us are empathic enough to share the emotions of the characters through mere exposure, and our memories of similar times are evoked. Sometimes this bonding happens quickly, for those of us whose passions lie close to the surface, and sometimes it takes a very long time to pull out that one specific trigger that brings everything crashing down around us.

For this exchange to take place, we must be committed to the moment. We should have no other stimuli vying for our attention, and we should ideally be as physically receptive as possible. This means a relaxed posture, and a goal-less state -- the only thing we should want is for the story to roll over us and do its work.

With all the above-mentioned media, that is a fairly reasonable state to achieve, except for one: the video game. One of the chiefest attributes of any game is the challenge it presents to the player: to win. Nearly every moment spent in play is in the service of reaching the goal. This is exactly opposite the attitude required for emotional resonance. This is the biggest obstacle a game would need to surmount in order to have the desired effect -- it must battle against its own nature.

We play games to beat them. We don't watch movies to conquer them. Right from the outset, there is a conflict of interest. Movies and video games are designed to do completely different things to us, so it's unfair to even make the comparison. It's certainly possible to find yourself invested in a game's story and want to know what happens next, but at some point you'll be called upon to actually play, and then the spell is broken. That fragile state of being that finds you passively focused on the events of the tale being told is shattered in an instant when you're required to pick up the controls and take action. It's no wonder that games have a difficult time getting to us emotionally; that's not what they're meant to do.

NEXT >>

Tags: big-ideas, emotions, featured, joystiqfeatures, opinion

10 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

What victory isn't sweeter after nearly being defeated? What triumph isn't greater because of the sacrifice of comrades?

Winning is merely part of the game play experience. Good games help you experience a range of emotions before handing you the trophy. Good games do make you cry.Posted at 2:58PM on Jun 24th 2009 by Xerloq

You had to sneak in that page 2... didn't you.Posted at 3:01PM on Jun 24th 2009 by Xerloq

Having to listen to a three hour podcast would make me cry.Posted at 3:02PM on Jun 24th 2009 by lokar82

It's only happened in one game. The ending to Planescape: Torment choked me up. It was to me as powerful as the ending of a novel. Posted at 4:11PM on Jun 24th 2009 by Nathan

crying... no. But other emotions, oh yeah. The first time I played Everquest when Kunark x-pack came out is very memorable. Hadn't seen anything like that before. There was something awe inspiring about the open landscapes and the variety of creatures. That game had me feeling fear, excitement, anxiety and anger on numerous occasions. good times.Posted at 5:28PM on Jun 24th 2009 by freecks

I don't know how many played it enough, but the one industry game that really touched me was Half-Life 2: Episode 2. I won't spoil the ending for anyone, but the whole series is so immersive, never leaving the first-person even in what would otherwise be a cutscene, that you feel such a connection to the other people--err, characters that you can't help but be moved.
I have never seen a series that makes you feel so connected with the main character that you can't remember that you're not that person. You are Gordon Freeman in the Half-Life series; there's no voice over for him, the other characters look YOU, the player, in the eyes when they talk, the facial animations for everyone you meet are so good, that you really feel like you're dealing with people with wants and needs and lives and histories.
At the end of Half-Life 2, you are armed with a souped-up gravity gun that can snatch enemies out of the air and launch their disintegrating bodies charged with energy into their allies, demolishing them both. You can rip computer consoles and screens off the walls and tear the alien Citadel apart on your way to confront your final enemy. You feel angry! You feel a rush of power, of adrenaline, you feel unstoppable and determined, like there really are lives at stake. The game, and the whole series is by far one of the best industry games for evoking real emotion in the player. If you haven't tried it, do it. It's well worth it. Oh, and yes. The ending for Episode 2 made me cry. Posted at 1:14AM on Jun 25th 2009 by Ian

When Miranda Keyes was killed in Halo 3, I found myself screaming in shock.

When SGT Johnson was killed in Halo 3, I cried, even though it was the second time I had seen him die.

When Aeris died in FF7, I found myself crying.

It's through our attachment or long-time "association" and "relationships" to the characters in game that brings about our responses to their deaths. We don't expect them to die. Rather, we expect good to triumph, and though we expect casualties along the way, we don't expect them to be characters we've long interacted with over 2 or 3 sequels.Posted at 6:11PM on Jun 26th 2009 by White Wolf

Braid.Posted at 11:27PM on Jun 28th 2009 by Tyler

MGS4 [Spoiler warning] made me cry when Snake "shot himself". The microwave hall had me jamming the Triangle button so hard and so much that i bruised my thumb and index fingers. The final fight was so amazingly put together that my memories form all the other games rushed back to me and made me feel so privileged to be a player of that story.

In Fallout 3 and inFamous, I feel true guilt when killing innocents.

In CoD4, I was enraged when the executions occurred.

Final Fantasy 6 made me really question existence as a whole with Kefka's speech about why humans press on.

Video games CAN affect us just as much as anything else
Posted at 8:03PM on Jul 1st 2009 by Quinton

I cried in GTA4 when I found out Michelle was an FBI agent.Posted at 4:31AM on Jul 2nd 2009 by Alex