The former Ultima developer is evidently a bit down on the approach many big-name game developers are taking these days:

…one of his main problems with games’ stories is their tendency to be dude-centric — he warned the Gamescom crowd “if we don’t break out of big buff guys with swords and guys in tights and space marines in armor, we’re going to get marginalized in the way comics have been in the United States.” He also warned about attempting to ape blockbuster films by filling games with obscenely expensive visuals, as “we still fall far, far short of what people expect from a movie.”

Ultimately, the only form of storytelling Spector thinks games should attempt to emulate is oral conversation, as the person interacting with the game is equally responsible for shaping its story. “Player experience comes first,” Spector explained, “we have to allow them to show their creativity. No other medium has allowed them to do this. We are unique in the history of humankind. Every player becomes an author when they play a game.”

I, for one, don’t necessarily agree…or, rather, I take somewhat more of a both/and stance rather than an either/or stance on the issue. I’m in total agreement in regard to the importance of good, interactive conversation in a game — an Ultima hallmark, to be sure.

At the same time, I don’t see what’s so bad about some of the conventions* (the epic hero, space marines, whatever) that Spector seems down on. Yes, they are conventions, and yes, Spector has a reputation for attempting to defy convention…but the beauty of many conventions is that they resonate with people. We crave the stories of the epic hero, because we find meaning in them, and we connect with them. Not because space marines or epic heroes actually exist, but because they represent ideals of form and philosophy toward which our minds and imaginations are naturally, as if by design, drawn. (If you haven’t read John C. Wright‘s various essays on this topic, you’ve been missing out.)

Nor do I see what’s so bad about developers who have the solid foundation of a compelling, conversation-driven story adding in the cinematics and other visuals. Granted, if all a game has to offer are good visuals, there’s a problem there, sure, and I’ll grant Spector his point in that regard. But the visuals/plot dichotomy is not an absolute, and there are lots of great games out there that offer both. Granted, the visuals don’t quite aspire to the quality of Hollywood movies…but is that such a bad thing? I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that the overall quality of Hollywood’s productions has been in steep decline over the last decade**, whereas the quality of games has been on the rise, overall, over the same period of time. These days, I’d much rather play a game like Mass Effect than watch the latest piece of sci-fi drivel to appear on the big screen, or the television.

And what about games like Starcraft — a great game, by any metric — which use visuals and cinematics to great effect in order to drive the plot of the game forward? Starcraft’s mechanics really don’t allow for a lot of conversation in the first place, yet the game is both fun to play and tells a good story (again, thanks to its expensive, but well-made, visuals).

As to the “still making cartoons” bit…this is the man who is helming Epic Mickey. As in this Mickey. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course — Epic Mickey is actually a very interesting concept. However…

* To be fair, some conventions (heroines with DD cups and combat uniforms that fail to rise even to the level of undergarments) could probably be done away with.

** Much the same can be said for the quality of Marvel and DC comics, and then over the same time frame, and then precisely because they abandoned the conventions that really resonated with their fanbase in some misguided effort to become more gritty, edgy, and politically relevant. Captain America getting bagged by that sniper was Stan Lee’s shark-jumping moment, if ever he had one.