泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
The Tooth and the Nail
Recently, I attended the preview of a film named The Tooth and the Nail which would be released the moment you are reading this. It's a suspense thriller film. The word "thriller" appears to be used interchangeably with the word "suspense", however, the two terms precisely have different meanings. "Suspense" is a feeling of tension or anxiety when an audience has more information than a character in the movie, on the other hand, the viewer has less information than the character in terms of "thriller". For instance, if a detective tries to find a murder suspect whom no one knows where he is hiding, it's a "thriller", whereas if the policeman is approaching the criminal when both the cop and the audience don't realize that the suspect is hiding behind a wall holding a knife, it's "suspense". A well-made suspense thriller movie is from a good combination of the two factors.
The film is based on a 1955 novel of the same name by famous mystery writer Bill S. Billinger. The publisher, that was confident about the interesting and unexpected ending, promised the people who bought this book to refund their money back only if the readers didn't open the last part of the book which was sealed. The new movie makes people exclaim with admiration over the display of revenge play of a man who lost loved one and legal thriller about the body of the man who mysteriously disappeared through cross-cutting and inescapable links of two events at the end of the film. I think that more details may reduce the audiences' interest.
The reason I explained the suspense thriller movie in detail is to talk about the power of storytelling. Recently many web-serial comics and fictions make the readers more curious about what will happen next and induce people to make payments for the next stories in a similar way of the brilliant marketing success story of the original book I've just mentioned. I've often heard about amateurs turned full-time writers or creators after they hit the jackpot with their web fictions or comics which they wrote or drew as a hobby working full time. I reckon that the power of the stories broke new ground.
Numerous video games paying the creator for the rights have been released. It appears to be from only a brand-name content, but it's fundamentally based on a good narrative. In spite of the big differences between the game and the other content, it is an extension of storytelling content. It is really important for not only plot-centered role-playing game (RPG) but also the other genres because it helps a user to absorb in a round character thanks to realistic backgrounds and detailed worldview of the game. In Korea recently there has been an increasing tendency that many game developers pay no attention to the storyline. This enables a vicious cycle where fill-in back-stories are shunned by consumers since game makers regard the plot as of secondary importance and many users also think the narrative description is not critically important. But considering various over-the-seas audiovisual content based on originals, it's no better than giving up additional revenue from successful video games. Also, the immersive storyline that fully surrounds users has the effect of enhancing profitability by increasing the retention rate. I hope that lots of deeply engaging video games based upon good storytelling will be released in the market.
※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.
(http://www.khgames.co.kr)
Translation by Kim Ki-hui
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