Nathan Boyes              What has the dog brought us today?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6281-Crying-Through-The-Laughs

Why does the dog always die in the movies? Has it done something morally wrong, so much that retribution may only be gained by its death? Of course not, the dog is always the character that deserves to die the least, and the scene where the dog dies is hated by its viewers. It would appear to be a slaughtering done purely to drive viewers away from a film.

Games, however do not feature this unruly slaying of dogs, clearly they are superior to films for not trying to drive their customers away right? Wrong, Games are about killing demons, horrible aliens and subterranean creatures but they're not killing enough of our dogs, in fact they're not even giving us dogs! What we have is worlds where there is nothing to be lost as its already gone, dark storylines with no hope and no reason to continue. This leaves us with bland games relying on a single emotion. Humans are very emotional beings though; one emotion cannot be felt without the pairing of others. Even South Park knows that in order to truly have tragedy, it must begin with something happy. http://south-park-gifs.tumblr.com/post/17158146251/for-betweenlifeandthought

So what does this make of the dog? The dog is a character who you know and trust, their cheerful creatures who just want to make their master happy. There is no reason for bad things to happen to them, and it gives you a drive to move on. It's nearly an impossible task, and maybe you can do it, but not without injury. The dog is the accent to the sadness; it makes us feel the target emotion stronger by giving us a contrasting one and pulling it in the direction of the target emotion.

Now I love this commercial, it's executed perfectly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdWkKKSckNk It makes each character a dog, something its master wants to protect that is loyal to its master. It feeds you each of the characters worlds that are desperate for salvation and gives you a character that brings hope into each of their hearts, a character that protects them, their master. That master it creates is you. Their world isn't lost yet because they still have you! In a game, however, the characters within the story cannot talk or interact with you. You are supposed to be immersed in their existing world so much that you are the character you are playing as. If you take away "You" from this commercial, what are you left with? A stream of worlds where all hope is lost, there is no saviour. You can't feel for these worlds because the moment you enter them there is nothing. There are no characters that play the role of the dog, something you want to protect in the otherwise lawless world.

The dog always dies for us. We care about the dog and the dog cares about us, giving us a multidimensional field of emotions to play with when tragedy is mixed into the equation. I believe that people are starting to see the relevance of the dog and are bringing it into the gaming world. You will see this in games like Journey, which handles this in a very unique way making the dog be a player that you have never met before. Only once our dogs have returned will we have truly fulfilling sadness and happiness in games once again.