I liked this and im guilty of skipping, but mainly if ive seen it before or if story didnt catch my attention in the first 3ish cutscenes before..
The ffxiv screenshot looks like that one story mission that is part of the daily roulette, which no longer allows u to skip the cutscenes because it makes that entire dungeon like less than 2 min if i remember correctly 😅
But having to watch makes it sit at like 10 min or something.. i dunno, i havent played in a long time. All i know is that the cutscenes in that specific mission are long enough for you to go to the bathroom, make a hot pocket, move your character to the next room, another cutscene to cool your food and eat it before the boss fight. 😅
If its any consolation to game creators, i always watch end credits 💖
I'm not blaming anyone for getting bored in a long cutscene, certainly. Like I said, at that point, it's a matter of respecting your player's time.
After discussions here and elsewhere on this, I think I'm going to write a follow-up about some of the smaller mitigating factors (that do and don't work) for cutscenes. After all, there's everything from Quick Time Events to semi-fixed cameras that people have made use of to try to make cutscenes more bearable.
After that, then I can get to the whole issue of changing conversational gameplay.
I skipped like every significant cut scene of every game I have ever played with the exception of the remake of final fantasy 7s end scene, but then I was confused about what was going on. Honestly if I wanted to read or watch tv something passive, I would choose a passive activity. I also hate tutorials. Just let me figure the key binds out as I go. I am ultra impatient though and have ADHD.
short attention spans. there’s a running joke on Twitch that gamers dont read, and they don’t like cutscenes either, because they start to feel too removed from the gameplay.
Flashing lights and satisfying sounds are some of the only features separating a good story from print and game.
Building on your point about respecting the player's time, video game writing is pretty ghastly. Some of it is the nature of video games, expensive by committee projects generally aren't well written, and cutscenes tend to erode agency, which is the real strength of video games, giving the consumer of the media agency. Similarly, the more expensive a piece of media it is, the more risk averse it is, and risk aversion leads to incredibly milquetoast writing.
Some of it is the maturity of the medium, we simply haven't had very much time to figure out what works and what doesn't.
If someone tells me they like the writing of video games, I generally assume they don't read very much. Baldur's Gate 3 is a fantastically written video game, up there with the best of the medium, and it would rate as pretty mediocre as a novel.
This is actually something I've written about in previous articles -- link below, if you're curious -- but the short version is that a lot of game writing is actually quite good writing, but being dragged down by the rest of its realization.
See, depending on the format, there can be a lot of things that go into realizing a piece of writing: voice acting, physical performance, stage blocking, background music, etc. And if any of those are particularly bad, it can make the whole experience feel bad -- so thoroughly that even some writers and directors have trouble identifying what parts are and aren't working.
When writing is just text on a screen, your imagination fills in the blanks in its realization, so you can focus on just the writing's quality. But as games added more graphics and realism, it's tried to add a lot of those other realization elements, and for all the technical advancements, it still usually comes down to talking heads and canned animations in a turn-based conversation, which tends to feel... not great.
That's why a lot of those early text adventures felt better-written than later graphical games, even when they were written by some of the same people! And the games that do feel like they have good writing tend to be the ones that embrace limitations in their realization, like the all-text Sunless Seas, or Hades and its static illustrations of speakers.
(Although I also agree that the design-by-committee issue of modern AAA games tends to lead to pretty terrible writing in general.)
There is an easy fix to this make the cut scenes in the collectible lore items so that when you open those, you don’t just read some text someone wrote about the game, but you get to actually watch the cut scene. that makes it a reward to watch it and not a mandate and games are played for the Rewards so then everyone will watch it
I am a skipper. It is absolutely nothing at all to do with the action, it is 100% the rewards.
I cannot earn anything or complete anything, get drops, etc during cut scenes. I have stuff to complete and the scene is in my way. I don't give a damn about action. It is reward. Put loot drops in the scenes and I'll sit there for them all. Put the loot behind something else and that's where I will be.
It is the same with travel by the way. Getting from A to B has no rewards, so fast travel. I don't care how pretty the game world is. I don't care about the cool NPCs and stuff I'm skipping. No drop, no attention. No action is needed.
Guilty as charged. I mainly skip when I read the subtitles, so maybe half through the voice acting. And sometimes it’s also that you just don’t care to much for some side quest. You want the stat progress.
Main story cutscenes are another matter, you can really enjoy the „movie“ sometimes. But of course on a second playthrough you just want to experience a different choice, so why bother….
But in both cases, the stuff you're skipping is seen as extraneous to the actual gameplay. What we need is for there to be actual, meaningful gameplay during these sequences, beyond just picking the "right" response once in a while.
I have a confession: I skipped and skimmed parts of this article. Oh, well. Getting back to gameplay, I think skipping could be reduced with increased emphasis on storytelling, wit, and even comedy. Some filmmakers know this trick for cutscenes: add some entertaining "business" in the background, perhaps a comic "bit" player, or some satiric signs or subtitles (see "Scott Pilgrim"). In "A Hard Day's Night", a chase scene was punctuated with a guy attempting to break into and steal a parked car. For combat, add an occasional clumsy or just plain unlucky companion who suffers consequences that the player needs to avoid (including something nasty to step in). For expository monologues, add a character miming an opposing view, or yawning, or even agreeing too enthusiastically. Finally, for pity's sake, don't place so much emphasis on counting clicks: it's easy to do with computers, but not a particularly effective means of measuring engagement.
Those are fine techniques for movies, and occasionally deployed in games to mixed results, but the whole point I'm making here is that games are for interaction, not just watching.
To return to first principles: Games are for enjoyment. The games in your industry generally require the ability to watch them in order to interact (as opposed to text adventure games). My comment does not advocate for "just watching": it advocates for improvements to what your players see in order to enhance enjoyment and increase engagement, thus reducing skipping and encouraging interaction.
I think people probably skip because they want to play a video game. If they wanted to watch a movie they would have put a movie on.
Yup, as I said, they want to get back to the gameplay.
I liked this and im guilty of skipping, but mainly if ive seen it before or if story didnt catch my attention in the first 3ish cutscenes before..
The ffxiv screenshot looks like that one story mission that is part of the daily roulette, which no longer allows u to skip the cutscenes because it makes that entire dungeon like less than 2 min if i remember correctly 😅
But having to watch makes it sit at like 10 min or something.. i dunno, i havent played in a long time. All i know is that the cutscenes in that specific mission are long enough for you to go to the bathroom, make a hot pocket, move your character to the next room, another cutscene to cool your food and eat it before the boss fight. 😅
If its any consolation to game creators, i always watch end credits 💖
I'm not blaming anyone for getting bored in a long cutscene, certainly. Like I said, at that point, it's a matter of respecting your player's time.
After discussions here and elsewhere on this, I think I'm going to write a follow-up about some of the smaller mitigating factors (that do and don't work) for cutscenes. After all, there's everything from Quick Time Events to semi-fixed cameras that people have made use of to try to make cutscenes more bearable.
After that, then I can get to the whole issue of changing conversational gameplay.
I skipped like every significant cut scene of every game I have ever played with the exception of the remake of final fantasy 7s end scene, but then I was confused about what was going on. Honestly if I wanted to read or watch tv something passive, I would choose a passive activity. I also hate tutorials. Just let me figure the key binds out as I go. I am ultra impatient though and have ADHD.
katana zero is a decent evolution of turn baemsed dialog. have you checked it out?
short attention spans. there’s a running joke on Twitch that gamers dont read, and they don’t like cutscenes either, because they start to feel too removed from the gameplay.
Flashing lights and satisfying sounds are some of the only features separating a good story from print and game.
I mostly skip if itts text dialog. I hate reading in games. I want people to talk. Final fantasy online game is a good example for that.
Building on your point about respecting the player's time, video game writing is pretty ghastly. Some of it is the nature of video games, expensive by committee projects generally aren't well written, and cutscenes tend to erode agency, which is the real strength of video games, giving the consumer of the media agency. Similarly, the more expensive a piece of media it is, the more risk averse it is, and risk aversion leads to incredibly milquetoast writing.
Some of it is the maturity of the medium, we simply haven't had very much time to figure out what works and what doesn't.
If someone tells me they like the writing of video games, I generally assume they don't read very much. Baldur's Gate 3 is a fantastically written video game, up there with the best of the medium, and it would rate as pretty mediocre as a novel.
This is actually something I've written about in previous articles -- link below, if you're curious -- but the short version is that a lot of game writing is actually quite good writing, but being dragged down by the rest of its realization.
See, depending on the format, there can be a lot of things that go into realizing a piece of writing: voice acting, physical performance, stage blocking, background music, etc. And if any of those are particularly bad, it can make the whole experience feel bad -- so thoroughly that even some writers and directors have trouble identifying what parts are and aren't working.
When writing is just text on a screen, your imagination fills in the blanks in its realization, so you can focus on just the writing's quality. But as games added more graphics and realism, it's tried to add a lot of those other realization elements, and for all the technical advancements, it still usually comes down to talking heads and canned animations in a turn-based conversation, which tends to feel... not great.
That's why a lot of those early text adventures felt better-written than later graphical games, even when they were written by some of the same people! And the games that do feel like they have good writing tend to be the ones that embrace limitations in their realization, like the all-text Sunless Seas, or Hades and its static illustrations of speakers.
(Although I also agree that the design-by-committee issue of modern AAA games tends to lead to pretty terrible writing in general.)
https://fredzed.substack.com/p/game-writing-conundrums-dialogue
There is an easy fix to this make the cut scenes in the collectible lore items so that when you open those, you don’t just read some text someone wrote about the game, but you get to actually watch the cut scene. that makes it a reward to watch it and not a mandate and games are played for the Rewards so then everyone will watch it
I am a skipper. It is absolutely nothing at all to do with the action, it is 100% the rewards.
I cannot earn anything or complete anything, get drops, etc during cut scenes. I have stuff to complete and the scene is in my way. I don't give a damn about action. It is reward. Put loot drops in the scenes and I'll sit there for them all. Put the loot behind something else and that's where I will be.
It is the same with travel by the way. Getting from A to B has no rewards, so fast travel. I don't care how pretty the game world is. I don't care about the cool NPCs and stuff I'm skipping. No drop, no attention. No action is needed.
Guilty as charged. I mainly skip when I read the subtitles, so maybe half through the voice acting. And sometimes it’s also that you just don’t care to much for some side quest. You want the stat progress.
Main story cutscenes are another matter, you can really enjoy the „movie“ sometimes. But of course on a second playthrough you just want to experience a different choice, so why bother….
But in both cases, the stuff you're skipping is seen as extraneous to the actual gameplay. What we need is for there to be actual, meaningful gameplay during these sequences, beyond just picking the "right" response once in a while.
I have a confession: I skipped and skimmed parts of this article. Oh, well. Getting back to gameplay, I think skipping could be reduced with increased emphasis on storytelling, wit, and even comedy. Some filmmakers know this trick for cutscenes: add some entertaining "business" in the background, perhaps a comic "bit" player, or some satiric signs or subtitles (see "Scott Pilgrim"). In "A Hard Day's Night", a chase scene was punctuated with a guy attempting to break into and steal a parked car. For combat, add an occasional clumsy or just plain unlucky companion who suffers consequences that the player needs to avoid (including something nasty to step in). For expository monologues, add a character miming an opposing view, or yawning, or even agreeing too enthusiastically. Finally, for pity's sake, don't place so much emphasis on counting clicks: it's easy to do with computers, but not a particularly effective means of measuring engagement.
Those are fine techniques for movies, and occasionally deployed in games to mixed results, but the whole point I'm making here is that games are for interaction, not just watching.
To return to first principles: Games are for enjoyment. The games in your industry generally require the ability to watch them in order to interact (as opposed to text adventure games). My comment does not advocate for "just watching": it advocates for improvements to what your players see in order to enhance enjoyment and increase engagement, thus reducing skipping and encouraging interaction.