It wasn’t that long ago that television programs had theme songs and opening credit sequences. Some treacly music would play in the background while Michael J. Fox or William Daniels grinned at you. They’d be updated with new clips (and occasionally new names) each season, but the format pretty much stayed the same. Sometime in the last decade, this TV tradition has been tossed aside; more programs than ever jump straight into the plot with credits running in the corner while Dunder Mifflin or Oceanic 187 confront whatever the week’s crisis is. The writers can cram more in this way and precious ad time isn’t used as a bookend for a 40 second song that people mock. You might get a splash screen with the title of the show, but you might not. The opening theme song is living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n
So how much longer will we need to put up with opening cinematics in our computer games? I ask this because I noted a press release announcing that the opening video for Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties<\/em> is available for those sites that want to use it. It’s the type of thing I will watch once and then never watch again. A lot of man hours are spent making animation and music for a film clip that most gamers will skip.<\/p>\n Not that they can’t be cool. The intro cinematic for Rise of Legends<\/em>, for example, perfectly captures the theme of the game with a dramatic battle between the Vinci and the Alin. I’ve probably let that one play through a few times. I liked Age of Mythology<\/em>‘s too. I think Warhammer: Mark of Chaos<\/em> has the best intro film of the last year. Generally these videos are big on pomposity, emphasizing just how grand and epic this new game will be. (I see very few peasants chopping wood in RTS intro videos. Peculiar.)<\/p>\n For all the hours spent making this film clip appealing, how much gamer time is actually spent watching it? I don’t know enough about development to make a case that this time would be better spent doing something else, but it would surely save some money, wouldn’t it? You have animations that don’t have to be made set to music that only plays for a few minutes in the lifetime of a title.<\/p>\n Developers will tell you that they do lots of things that most gamers never see. Editing tools. Multiplayer. Credits. But at least those serve a game related purpose. Watching the opening video doesn’t make the loading progress bar fill any faster. If the intro clip is supposed to put you in the mood for the game, why do so many people skip it?<\/p>\n So, developers and gamers, why do you make these things? And does it bother you when people only watch it once?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It wasn’t that long ago that television programs had theme songs and opening credit sequences. Some treacly music would play in the background while Michael J. Fox or William Daniels grinned at you. They’d be updated with new clips (and occasionally new names) each season, but the format pretty much stayed the same. Sometime in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[56,9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-cz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}