Ubisoft creative director argues that “closed loop” games without endings are a good thing, says he hasn’t finished many games he loves
“The ability for players to stop playing whenever they feel like it is inherent in the form. This is not a bad thing; this is a good thing. It is part of the game-design landscape. And if you learn to worry less about insisting that everyone who starts finishes, and put your attention on the advantages this fact of gaming gives you, you will not find a more personally liberating moment in game design than in designing your end.”
“Putting down the controller somewhere before the final climactic scene in a video game is not a sin. It is an intrinsic part of our art form. I never finished the first BioShock, yet it remains a game I thoroughly enjoyed. Grim Fandango? Never finished it. But I sure as hell use it as an example in design discussions! I have never finished a single Z, but, man, they are fun (usually).”
– Ubisoft creative director Jason VandenBerghe
I’m not sure I entirely agree with VandenBerghe. Like it or not, a game is a piece of art just as any other media experience is, and as a piece of art if you want to judge it you should first experience everything the game pushes you to experience. Single player campaigns are part of this, but so are things like multiplayer modes or side-content, and judging it without fully experiencing (to the degree the game wants you to) those things isn’t necessarily fair.
