Dark Knight Screenwriter David S Goyer on Gaming

David S Goyer has written many successful comic movies, including Man of Steel and The Dark Knight Rises, and last year he took the big plunge into video games by writing the script for Call of Duty: Black Ops.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to discern why video game movies are so bad, but as Goyer tells Digital Spy, “I think the reason is actually pretty simple: most good video games are about immersive environments. If it’s a first-person shooter you are the character. Most games, and this is changing, tend not to have strong characters. If you’re adapting an environment for a milieu for a film, a video game actually does a better job of it. A film will never do as good a job or immersive a job as the video game.” 

Goyer still feels there’s hope for a great video game movie, and feels Assassin’s Creed “seems the best candidate right now.” 

Goyer is a proud gamer, “And I do consider it an art form.” He feels there’s still time for game movies to do better, because movies have been around for over a hundred years, but modern games haven’t been around anywhere near that long. 

And video game writing keeps improving all the time. “The gaming industry is still in its fledgling days,” Goyer said. “I do think the narratives are becoming more complex.”