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Blizzard: Game Developers Are Not Shakespeare, Need to Stop 'Writing Books' in Games
by Nick Breckon and Chris Faylor, Mar 26, 2009 4:36pm PDTDuring a presentation at this year's Game Developers Conference, former World of Warcraft director Jeffrey Kaplan took a moment to address the lengthy exposition that plagues numerous games, including those developed by Blizzard.
"Basically, and I'm speaking to the Blizzard guys in the back: we need to stop writing a fucking book in our game, because nobody wants to read it," he explained.
"We need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game," Kaplan, who left WoW to work on Blizzard's next MMO, explained. "We need to engage our players in sort of an inspiring experience, and the sooner we accept that we are not Shakespeare, Scorsese, Tolstoy or the Beatles, the better off we are."
However, Kaplan did offer consolation to his fellow developers. "If it makes us feel better, Shakespeare couldn't 3D model his way out of a paper bag," he noted.
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From what I've heard, many of the more successful game writers are either from the movie or comic book spaces. And a whole lot of devs use them already. Those who don't often use script doctors to make a pass on the story.
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