Information design in Casablanca and videogames

In his column in the new edition of Edge magazine, Randy Smith discusses similarities between movies and videogames. He comments that he tends to dislike old movies because of poor information design and offers the opening sequence of Casablanca as an example, where he argues that the importance of the transit papers is not made clear to the viewer. He suggests that modern movies often achieve a higher level of information design, such as the Keyser Soze reveal at the end of The Usual Suspects, which, while surprising to many viewers, is telegraphed so that few viewers will misunderstand the new information they are receiving. Smith argues that The Usual Suspects may provide a better template for good videogame narrative, simply because it ensures that all viewers come away from the experience with the same level of information.

I’ve been chewing over these comments all morning. To be fair, a large part of my disgruntlement is the suggestion that The Usual Suspects is ‘better’ than Casablanca, although I’ll try to suppress my film snobbery here. But I think this information design approach to both movies and games might be rewarding, and Randy Smith’s conclusions bother me.  (Click to read more)