Rockstar: Games Are "Moving Towards Creative Maturity"

L.A. Noire

L.A. Noire is the very first video game to be honored with an "Official Selection" at the Tribeca Film Festival; that presentation will take place on April 25.

And in speaking to the Hollywood Reporter, Rockstar vice president Dan Houser talked about both games and movies, and how the interactive entertainment venue has continued to advance. When asked if he considers games as an art form, Houser first shied away from a direct answer, saying "it tends to attract people with too much time on their hands." Then he elaborated by talking about "unique rewards:"

"...we obviously feel that games are an amazing creative medium that have unique rewards and unique challenges. Games today are moving towards creative maturity, as both people’s skill at designing them improves and the underlying technology to build them makes more and more possible. Production values have improved massively in games over the last five years. We have tried hard to ensure that in our games, an extra layer of gloss and polish is used to make the interactivity more interesting, the world more vibrant and the characters more nuanced. If we do that, we create an experience that is very engaging for people and entirely unique to the medium of games – the chance to live in a world that does not exist and experience life as someone you are not."

You should definitely read the rest of the interview; Houser also talks about movies that inspired the game (which is set in 1940s Los Angeles); films include "The Maltese Falcon," "Double Indemnity," "The Big Sleep," "Out of the Past," and more recent classics. He also mentions that Team Bondi used over 400 actors to pull off this production...yep, sounds like Hollywood to us. The expended effort is large.

Tags: la noire, l.a. noire, rockstar, team bondi, games industry

4/6/2011 10:36:52 AM Ben Dutka

Put this on your webpage or blog:
Email this to a friend
Follow PSX Extreme on Twitter