On Interactive Storytelling

Contrast and Compare, if you will.

Business Week: Can A Game Make You Cry?. "We [at EA] have had this goal for a long time, "Can a computer game make you cry? Can it move you in the way that great art moves you?" And in order to be able to answer that question, we think that partnerships with people like Steven are going to be interesting steps along the way. One of the reasons that we collaborated with Steven versus any other director is that Steven was very converse and passionate about the medium [of video games] and one of the things that Steven talks about all the time is no cut-scenes.

His thought is always, "How can we tell a story through the surface that this medium provides us with." And whether Steven has been expressing himself in film or television or his other works, at the core of what he knows how to do very well is connect with an audience and tell a story. So what he brings to the table is that sort of instinctive skill around how to connect with people and tell a story. I think that's very important if we want to answer that question that EA was founded on."

Kotaku: Will WIrght's SXSW Keynote. "So a few thoughts on storytelling. First why .. I hate stories, stories that my computer tries to tell me. Story's been the model from movies, it's kinda our heritage. But first of all the nature of story... I look at the world as a simulation. Here's a world stage. Lots of things cascade into the next stage. And certain things cause changes in other things.

Story causes a chain and conveys it to a viewer... a story's all about the chain of events, very linear, unchanging, you've all seen the same version of Star Wars.

But games are very open ended. Also, movies are primarily visual. Games are primarily interactive. So when we take away the control from a player, we're taking away the most important thing from them. It's like going to the movies and showing a blank screen..."

Make no mistake, Will Wright ALSO works for EA now. He also has the most successful, non-violent game that ever made, called the Sims. As much as I love Spielberg's movies, you can bet that my money is on Will, all the time, on this interactive medium called games.