D.I.C.E. 08: "This is the time for madness," says Verbinski

In his opening keynote for the 2008 D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas, film director Gore Verbinski urged developers to create their own paths.

"This is the time for madness," he said. "This is the time to go down dark alleys."

Verbinski, who is best known for the Pirates of the Caribbean films, noted that the film and game industries were greatly influencing each other.

"It's exciting, dangerous, and a bit mad."

He said that he had fallen off the face of the earth for the past seven years while making five films back to back, but had recently come back to gaming and found it "compelling, visceral and immediate."

He remains especially captivated by the immense potential of videogames as narrative.

"But like the promise of television, or the internet, the infinite quickly becomes finite, doesn't it?"

His first words of caution — beware the path.

"As you have success, the business model gathers data and focuses on those successes," he said.

"An empty canvas is a dangerous investment, but once a few dots are connected, the business model can and must connect to those early successes and follow them in an otherwise unguided terrain.

"Success creates followers. That landscape narrows, and we start to migrate along those paths at the expense of our explorer instinct."

Verbinski pointed to the film industry's creative collapse, as the greenlight process became less and less instinct and more and more a numbers game.

"I think we can all agree that film narrative has become stifled and derivative as language is borrowed over and over.

"The arteries harden; the path is now a tired conduit, difficult to influence."

Game developers, however, are influencing it and giving him some hope.

But he is now seeing their path becoming worn. The view is narrowing, and the promise of gaming as a medium can quickly become a disappointment as stasis occurs.

Similar looking games are flooding the market, Verbinski noted, diminishing the creativity of the industry - weakening not just a brand, but gaming itself.

"I understand why companies are making sequels. But if a developer is making a game from scratch, why are they making another Halo? There are so many other places to go."

He was quick to note that he is not against exploiting intellectual property. "That's what we did with the Pirates ride. We created value out of nothing. Then I watched as they created nothing out of value," he said, commenting upon the videogames based upon the films.

"Games are not merchandise," he explained, suggesting that movie studios still view videogames that way. Instead, he wants games to be considered as another film, using the assets — the characters and mythology - to create a game that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the movie.

After the first Pirates movie, Verbinski lobbied Disney to create an MMO set in the same universe to no avail because it wasn't in their business plan. Now that they have finally decided to do something, they have not consulted him — a decision he finds bizarre considering the work he has done to create a fan base.

"With the Pirates games, the business model killed the potential for something really unique. I'm not hiding my disappointment because I know that fanaticism could have driven that world."

Something similar is happening in the videogames industry, predominantly with the first-person shooter genre, where studios appear to be "phoning it in" because they are responding to data and basing creative decisions on formulas.

"The logic is flawed. They are reacting to a world which has already passed them by," Verbinski said.

"Our audience wants us to surprise them. They demand it of us. When they see something that's new, they will champion it because they discovered it.

"Serving them leftovers will never produce the financial gains of the original."

Verbinski also said that observing someone succeed has never created a model of success. "The first ones out of the boat didn't have data, they had instinct."

He singled out Guitar Hero, noting that it took the developers years to convince the non-believers that they could sell a plastic guitar.

"But that is not what they were selling. They were selling the idea that every one of us, at some point in our lives, have stood in front of a mirror with a tennis racket and rocked out."

Rather than a risk to be avoided, Verbinski sees originality as vitally important.

"In order to be fiscally responsible, you must operate outside of the data. You must possess some madness."

In his opinion, homogenisation of voice — removing awkward bits until there is nothing unique at all - as the most significant issue facing developers today.

Too many voices are responsible for the erosion of the point of view, creating a numbness and a flavourless world that engulfs us, he said.

"It is time for the auteur in gaming."

"The game designer has a fiscal responsibility and a creative obligation to make the suits shit themselves."