Quote Originally Posted by Flying Arrow View Post
My reasoning is that if it's impossible to imitate life, don't attempt to imitate it at all. (I'm also not entirely sure I see a lot of value in pulling off a successful imitation, either.)
So what would you have them do? Put squares in and say "by the way, that's a person"? I don't really understand how you would expect people to play a video game involving a human character without the game developer attempting to imitate life. That's the entire point of a extremely large number of video games - to simulate what it would be like if you were a human in a fictional (or not) world without suffering from real-life consequences. The better the simulation, well, the better!

My problem is that not only are developers reaching towards a pointless goal (turning their characters into actors) but that they are over-reaching and falling completely short. Heavy Rain is a good example and so is Mass Effect 2. It's one thing to attempt to create realistic looking NPCs, but it's another thing to create them in hopes of getting the audience to sympathize with or be moved by them.
I disagree. I think the advancements made in recent times - as Roogle's mention of Avatar in particular shows - have been immense and they show that actors are not required. CG characters are capable of getting an emotional response. Hell, even blocky little sprites were. Why wouldn't the more realistic characters shown on video games today? It's the writing that is important. Sure, if the faces are incapable of showing any emotion, it can be tricky to pull off an emotional response. But we're passed that now - character faces are capable of showing emotions. Also, with customisable faces and whatnot, actors can't adjust in the way CG can. This applies to Mass Effect in particular, which you mentioned.
Sure L.A. Noire looks great, but I still don't see the value in attempting to render photo-realistic characters. Is that what art designers should be striving for? To finally, one day, fool people into thinking something is real? Even though films can already do this (with no fooling involved, since actors are real)?
Yes, but you can't control an actor in a video game.

My issue is that when humans are rendered unconvincingly. Even when it's eventually done in a completely Valley-less way, I'll still wonder why it's in any way better than a real actor.
My initial guess would be that actors age, while video game characters stay the same. Sure, you can look to Batman and co and say "They have multiple actors who have played him!" but the lasting appeal is lost. Also, in the case of FPS games, you can't tell actors to react to the character's movement. If you're referring only to cutscenes, I would definitely agree that actors can be used - and they absolutely are (see: Command and Conquer).

Then there is the (probably much bigger) problem of the actor becoming a huge success. You have to rely on his schedule, you have to pay him more to get him in, you have the video game character being cheapened because people feel like they're playing the actor, not the character. I like actors in movies, but I like movies more when I don't know the actors. I suppose Command & Conquer can again be pointed to as to how a video game character being portrayed by a well known name can - for me, anyway - cheapen the gaming experience. Even if it was Morgan Freeman himself, I'd still be going "haha, it's Morgan Freeman in a video game" instead of taking it seriously. Using unknown actors can work against you in the future because they can still become famous, unavailable, etc.