I’ve been meaning (“struggling”) to write this post for a while, but today, between an audition for “Project Macbeth” and the season premiere of “The Biggest Loser: The Next Generation,” I think I have the ideal sweet spot.
My hypothesis, if you deign to entertain my reasoning, is that “makeover” reality TV is, functionally, today’s version of Theatrical Tragedy.
I just finished reading the GDC talk by Richard Lemarchand, Lead Games Designer at Naughty Dog, “Attention, not Immersion.” Firstly, I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t and didn’t see it at GDC.
But I actually wanted to post about something he mentions about 1/7th of the way through (pages 17 & 18)…
If I could reach into your mind, make you forgot who you were while leaving your
skills and emotions intact, and have you literally believe that you were Nathan Drake,
hanging out the back of a cargo plane with the desert floor a quarter-mile below you,
and gun-wielding enemies above you, you probably wouldn’t be excited and
entertained in the way that everyone at Naughty Dog hopes for, for players of our
games…
…you’d almost certainly be scared witless! No disrespect, you understand.
I keep thinking it’s odd that, while Aristotle noted dramatists using their work to neuter dangerous, hubristic inclinations within their society that would destabilise the democratic power structures of the time, Shakespeare’s tragidies seemed to focus more on questioning the natural order or divine/man-imposed right to power: to the throne. Continue reading
Ellen Jurik 