Can a Game Make You Cry?

The Crying Game

When the question is raised of whether a videogame can make you cry, it's usually in the context of art. Can the plot of a single-player game be made to include both engaging gameplay, and the kinds of characters, attachments and tension that can be used to create emotional moments on down the line? I see no reason why not. Though we've encountered this relatively rarely in the history of gaming, there's no reason to believe developers who are interested in making games into literature (not, mind you, interactive storytelling) won't find a way to accomplish it on a more consistent basis.

Where MMOGs are concerned, though, it's a different story. Though there's a hefty single-player element in many MMOGs, the collaborative authorship that takes place in such games means that layering in a deep and moving plot is probably impossible.

But MMOGs have an advantage over single-player games for the same reason. The connections that form there are not between player and finely wrought fictional characters, but between real people on both sides of the bond. And it's the forming of such bonds - and the breaking of them - that is what moves people to tears most often in "real" life. The loss of a friend, the experience of belonging to a cohesive group of people, the interdependence that develops among colleagues - these things are no less real in an MMOG than they are in our physical lives. The possibilities are in the players' hands.

If you're deep in your game, why wouldn't it move you to tears?

Mark Wallace can be found on the web at Walkering.com. His book with Peter Ludlow, Only A Game: Online Worlds and the Virtual Journalist Who Knew Too Much, will be published by O'Reilly in 2006.