Why Bungie gets visual storytelling wrong (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, July 27, 2015, 16:44 (3410 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Think of art as simulation. And yes, you can simulate things that don't actually exist like dragons or Helen of Troy. Text is kind of amazing in a way, because as I say it all happens in your brain. So does perception. So when you read, you build up this internal simulation by imagining what you are reading looks or sounds or smells like. But your brain knows that it's coming from within and is self generated. Think Inception. But a film for example, is a much richer simulation since it's actually activating your senses. So your brain thinks you are actually seeing and hearing something. The more complete the simulation, the better the illusion, and the more real the response. Right now film is the best we've got, but that will be overtaken once we get VR, and after that the Matrix.

I do think of a lot of story telling as a simulation and I always have. As a fiction writer, I think about every word in a story as having an effect on the reader and I definitely consider what the ultimate effect is, and if I've done a good job, that ultimate effect is something more than a simulation of reality.

You criticize the time involved in reading, but what you see as a weakness is actually a strength. While reading we have time to develop a relationship with the material, to reflect on the material, and the material itself can have more depth for us because it is inextricably bound up with our own memories, associations, and imagination.

A VR experience is or will be the ultimate art form by your lights, but that is an experience much more akin to one we're having with the real world. Accuracy in reflecting reality is a shallow way to measure the worth of art. Art itself is more than a simulation in that it gives meaning to our reality, and does not exist simply to replicate another reality.