David Cage Quotes

I had always been intrigued by the emotional aspect of adventure gaming-the fact that people get so personally involved.

When you go to the theater, if you're really involved in the play, you don't think about it - you're in it.

I think the thing I took most from game playing was just getting in the characters head. I took it really seriously. There's something about creating your character.

If the audience sees and feels things are real, then they buy it.

Anytime anyone gets passionate over a character you're playing, I think you've done your job well.

We're growing into an entertainment medium as opposed to 'We make games. We make Mario jump.' We no longer have to focus so hard on the technical hurdles and can ask, as a player, why am I doing this? Why am I making these choices? Games that don't have that strong foundation stumble.

I know when I watch a film at this point, if I completely lose myself in the characters and the story and the world of the film I know that it's at least in my opinion, that was great. Otherwise I'm thinking: "Oh I know they were just doing A, B and C, right before they walked into the scene, then the camera was there, then they probably took the shot from this reverse close-up and moved it into this." When all of that drops away then I'm like: "Okay this was phenomenal, this was fantastic." I mean, any film or TV performance in general is probably good.

In storytelling, the audience actually wants to work for their meal, they just don't want to know that they're doing it.

The point of view is the biggest problem with games, because what we play must be clearly presented in the best way for me to have an immersive game experience.

With a movie, it's probably easier to sustain intensity and seriousness over the 90-minute duration. But in an open-world game it becomes exhausting, demotivating and even uninteresting for the player.

If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.

My goal is to make a player think, 'I want to reenter this world of lies tomorrow.'

It doesn't matter how beautifully a film is photographed. The acting tells your story. It's what people relate to. If you don't believe the characters, it doesn't work.

The most important thing in games isn't the designer's narrative, but the story the player creates through his experiences.

When I go to a film, you're taking it easy and you let things wash over you. That's what cinema's all about. You get involved in a world that's being created in front of you.

Stories have a special way of putting us inside the people, inside the boots of the soldiers. You're absorbed in a way a documentary or nonfiction can't do for you.

While films are a very visual and emotional artistic medium, video games take it one step further into the realm of a unique personal experience.

I have never made a game that wasn't explicitly about empowering players to tell their own story.

Sometimes we need to step back and understand the power of video games. 'Dear Esther' does just that. Through visuals, audio, and narration, this title weaves a story around the player as they explore different areas in the game.

It is really hard to make it convincing enough that you forget you are playing a video game.

Game designers are obsessed with emotion. How do we create the emotions that we want gamers to feel, and how can we really make it this intense, emotional experience?

As a genre, videogames take our minds on journeys, and we can control and experience them much more interactively than passively - especially when they are well-designed.

With a lot of films, people are sitting on the outside looking in, but I want the audience to get a bit more intimately involved with what's going on, so that they maybe can experience it a little bit more intensely.

When I have a book I enjoy, I'm partly in the book. I'm not just observing it.

When you see 'Lord of the Rings,' you want to feel like you've been dropped into it and that you're part of it. You don't want to be aware of how it's being done; you just want it to feel really seamless.