With movie studios' profits declining and video games booming, it's no surprise many game industry stars come from Hollywood. Special effects master Mark Lasoff, now with Electronic Arts, his EALA colleague John Batter, Irrational Games' Ken Levine, and many more spent a good part of their careers in the film game.

　　Now comes David Freeman. Since making the conversion from movies to games about three years ago, Freeman has worked on a diverse set of games form a wide range of publishers, including Electronic Arts, Activision, Atari, VU Games, and Ubisoft. His area of expertise has been film-related titles, including Enter The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Impossible: Operation Surma and the upcoming Terminator: Redemption. He's also written a book, Creating Emotion in Games, about using cinematic techniques to heighten drama in games.

　　Recently, news hit that Freeman had inked a deal with German producer/director Uwe Boll to write the two-part script for the upcoming film version of the popular PC RPG, Dungeon Siege. Freeman broke from his hectic schedule to talk about his ongoing journey between the game and film worlds.

　　GameSpot: Why do you put such an emphasis on instilling emotion in games?

　　David Freeman: With budgets of games climbing, and therefore the risks of failure becoming more dire, reaching the mass market with every available tool becomes increasingly important. People buy music because that moves them; they go to films that move them. Emotion is a key to the mass market in every art form and entertainment form.

　　GS: Games graphics are getting more impressive all the time, but they still have a ways to go until they are as realistic as movie visuals. Do you think it's harder for games to instill the same emotion as films?

　　DF: That spellbinding graphics are required to evoke emotions seems like a very logical assumption--until you read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. There he lays out a very convincing set of arguments that we're often more likely to identify with a character who is less rendered--for instance, a Peanuts character--than one who is highly detailed. He ties this to the fact that, unless we're looking in a mirror, we never see our own face in detail, just the faces of others. Therefore, he hypothesizes that when we see a less detailed face we're more likely to project our emotions into the character; when we see a highly rendered face, we're more likely to feel we're looking at another person. Scott backs this theory up with lots of evidence.

　　GS: Is Peanuts the only example?

　　DF: There have been many cartoon characters over the decades, from shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle to The Simpsons to South Park, which had or have characters with whom we identify, despite their lack of facial definition. But the standard applied to games is different, so that argument is only somewhat relevant. I'm not saying I'm not excited about ever-increasing detail of game visuals and emotive faces, nor that I think you can't create a highly rendered character with whom players identify. (If that was the case, we'd never identify with characters in films.) What I'm saying is that we don't need to wait for graphics to evolve to create emotion.

　　GS: You've developed--and even trademarked--a process called "Emotioneering" to help bring greater emotional depth to games. Tell us about it.

　　DF: Let's say that, in a game you're playing, you undertake a mission which is quite difficult but is, in the end, enormously successful. You bask in a feeling in triumph...until you and your best buddy--who served under your command in the fight--learn that in the process of your victory, his daughter got killed. Neither of you knew that at the time of victory. To make matters more emotionally complex, you also realize that, due to the importance of that mission, even if, in advance, you could have foreseen the consequences, you probably would have needed to perform the mission it anyway. Now we've got all sorts of emotional wheels churning. Your buddy hates you, and you'll feel terrible. Of course, we don't want to strand you in that ugly emotion--later in the game you'll feel redeemed when some heroic effort you take saves your buddy and he forgives you completely. As for him, after his daughter dies, he goes into an emotional tailspin, perhaps taking almost suicidal risks. He'll emerge out of that darkness only when the foe that killed his daughter is brought down, partly due to his help. He'll feel solace in that, and in the fact that he has helped avert future human tragedies that his foe was on the verge of causing. When his spirits are lifted, you too will feel relieved. In summary, your feelings will dip when you loose his friendship, and when you see how emotionally ravaged he becomes. Your spirits will lift when you see that he's emerged out of his darkness, and when he again accepts you as a friend.

　　GS: Are there challenges in adding elements like this in a game?

　　DF: Yes, big ones. The player may feel that the game designers have taken away too much of his freedom to shape the world of the game--i.e. that he's playing their game, not his own.

　　GS: How do you get around that?

　　DF: There are a number of ways to ensure players don't feel this way, and most are too involved to detail here. One of them, however, is to ensure that the player is emotionally involved with the character he plays, with the supporting NPCs, and with the world of the game itself.

　　GS: Is killing off your partner's daughter the only means to this end?

　　DF: There's more ways we can extract emotion out of the scenario I described above. We can actually use it to tackle a meaningful "theme." "Theme" sometimes means "a subject explored in different ways," and sometimes means "a message." The Lord of the Rings films explored various themes--responsibility toward mankind vs. watching out for your own group; different kinds of power; and other themes as well. Each of the three films had its own central theme. Most ways of creating emotion in a film or game operate outside the conscious awareness of an audience member or player, and using a "theme" is no exception.

　　GS: That's movie talk, David.

　　DF: The theme in the game scenario I described above could be "freedom versus destiny." If you realize that your buddy's daughter had to die for the greater good to be served, you won't be feeling very free. The message at that point in the game would seem to be: "The only freedom you truly have is to pick among bad choices; someone will always get hurt." Near the end of the game, we'd show that isn't true. We'll give you back your sense of freedom by setting up yet another situation which seems to echo the first one--you can have victory, but only at a terrible cost--and then design things so that, if you're clever and skilled enough, you can figure out a way to win the victory but also avoid the tragic cost. The message of the game at this point will have changed. Now it's, "You're free to choose your destiny; you can create a victory in which no one who is innocent suffers." Because you failed earlier and felt your freedom was extremely limited, you'll feel very exultant now that you've got it back.

　　GS: How do you inject this into a game already in development?

　　DF: The kind of emotional pathways I've presented above are impossible to "add" to a game when my team and I are brought in late in the design of a game. Then, all we can do is to try and write good dialogue (which itself can be quite powerful) and direct the voice actors well. But this needs to be done early on if the game is truly be an emotional experience. You'll see that, in my hypothetical game scenario, I didn't even delve into dialogue. Instead, the emotion in the game resulted from steering the player through different emotional experiences. That having been said, it's important to note that bad dialogue or bad voice acting can kill good Emotioneering.

　　GS: What's the reaction of the industry to these efforts to put more emotion into games?

　　DF: Recently, a game executive asked me, "Why would you want to put a player through complex emotions like that? Gamers just want to feel victorious in a world they control." What this executive didn't understand was that in Return of the King, Frodo's victory wouldn't have been so emotionally powerful to the audience if he hadn't undergone many challenging difficulties along the way. Or perhaps the executive did understand this, but the lobotomy had simply been too successful. It's worth noting that this particular executive was new to the industry. In general, I've found many executives, including high-ranking ones, and many development teams as well to be quite enthusiastic about bringing emotion into their games.

　　GS: What are the most important steps needed to generate an emotional landscape in the game environment?

　　DF: To evoke the complex emotions and emotional shifts I mentioned, a number of techniques would need to be employed. First, you'd need to identify with the character you're playing--something which still happens fairly rarely in games. Techniques to induce a player to identify with a role I call "Role Induction Techniques." Secondly, you'd need to care about your buddy. When you feel bonded to an NPC (non-player character), I call that having "chemistry" with the NPC. So the game would need what I refer to as "Player toward NPC Chemistry Techniques." Lastly, your buddy (the NPC) would need to feel "real" in order for you to be able to consider him lifelike enough to bond with. "Real" means that he's both interesting (not a cliche) and has some emotional depth. Creating an NPC who is emotionally deep means using "NPC Deepening Techniques"; creating an NPC who is interesting requires "NPC Interesting Techniques". Thus, I suppose if I had to rank the priority of Emotioneering techniques, the ones from the four categories mentioned above would be primary, along with those which create Emotionally Complex Moments and Situations.

　　GS: Your book mentions 300 techniques for creating emotion in games which fall into 32 categories. Give an example of one.

　　DF: "Player Toward NPC Chemistry Techniques" include such things as having an NPC who reacts to an experience that you and that NPC undergo together the same way that you react. For instance, you and he both, after finally winning a big victory, are suddenly ambushed and find yourself in a frightful battle. When it's over he looks at you and says, exhausted, shaken, and self-doubting, "Never saw that coming." Well, if you're feeling the same way, you'll feel close to this guy. Another "Player toward NPC Chemistry Technique" is having an NPC legitimately admire you. For instance, during the big fight you risk your life to rescue a friend who has run out of ammo. Later, another guy in your squad comes up to you, full of admiration, and says, "What you did for Svenson... I don't know if I would've had it in me." This guy likes in you what you like in yourself (your courage). So you'll feel bonded to him. As for other specific techniques--well, 300 of them are explained in my book

　　GS: What are the "errors" committed by the current generation of developers that create roadblocks to creating an emotional response in gamers?

　　DF: Well, I wouldn't call them "errors." If you've spent your career mastering programming or level design or art direction, when would you find the years needed to also bring your writing skills up to the high level of a Hollywood professional? The challenges go even further. Even being a superlative writer doesn't mean that the person understands games enough to transfer their skills into game design and writing. That's why some game companies have had the frustrating experience of bringing in a Hollywood screenwriter (sometimes even famous ones) who, because he or she was indifferent to games, or ignorant of game design, or unaware of programming restrictions, or had too much ego, turned out to be as much a hindrance to the game as a help.

　　GS: Pick two or three games that create emotional drama well, and briefly explain what it is in their design that tugs at a gamer's emotional antennae?

　　DF: First of all, it's important to say that games have been successful in creating emotions--just a limited palette of emotions, such as fear (Silent Hill), frustration, victory, a feeling of being cunning, anxiety of being detected (in stealth games) and visceral excitement. These are all incredible achievements. What I'm interested in, though, is expanding this palette to encompass a thousand additional emotions. When I ask people what games have moved them, the answers I've received have often resulting in people listing such games and franchises such as the Panzer Dragoon saga, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Deus Ex games, the Max Payne games, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Planetfall, and a few--very few--others. And even those who felt profound emotional experiences in these games are quick to point out that the games usually delivered only a handful these rich emotional experiences, at best.

　　GS: What game embodies what you seek to put into a game?

　　DF: Ico. Because of its repetitive game-play and because it's part of a dying breed, platformers, few people I know who played Ico made it to the end. Those who did, however, were treated to a real emotional wallop. The last 45 minutes of that game employs one emotion-generating technique after another. I'll give you just one: Throughout the game you protect a young, magical girl from being killed by smoky demons. Near the end of the game, you discover exactly who those smoky demons are. They are the spirits of other horned boys such as yourself who didn't have the good fortune to cheat death, as you did. In short, you learn that throughout the game you've been killing your own kind. At the point of this revelation you realize you really had no choice. However, it definitely is what I call an "Emotionally Complex Moment or Situation." You feel many conflicting emotions simultaneously. It's worth pointing out that dialogue, or what we traditionally call "writing," isn't part of the emotion in the game's final 45 minutes--or in any part of the game at all. To restate, what I call Emotioneering goes far beyond writing, but bad writing will kill good Emotioneering. If that game hadn't been a platformer, and if there was as much emotion throughout the game as there was at end, you'd have a copy of the game on your shelf right now.

　　GS: You've worked in both areas, movies and games. Which do you prefer?

　　DF: Speaking as someone who has moved from the film industry into the game industry, I must say how much I generally prefer those I deal with in games over the plethora of slick but secretly anguished souls that populate Hollywood. This is ironic, I know, since so many people in games want to get into, or at least get recognition, from Hollywood. It's also ironic because I still work in Hollywood. While every artist I know wants to make money, and the good ones surely deserve it, I'd at least hope that they also want to make great art or entertainment. That's rarely a question in the game industry, whereas people's motives in Hollywood, especially among the non-creative ones, too often tend toward mere self-aggrandizement. Obviously, this sweeping generality has many, many exceptions, for there are good people everywhere.