And I think the interesting thing that happens is when you challenge the player, that really engages them. We create scenarios which challenge them, get their attention, and generally some kind of emotional hook that, you know, whether it's the loss of a loved one, or something that actually gets them. We also try and provoke an emotional response with some of the companion characters; we want them to be a bunch of things at the same time, like a lens through which you see the world. Like they have their own perceptual filters when- just like when you talk to a friend in the real world and you talk to them and you learn kind of what makes them tick and you learn what their perception was of an event. They're a filter for it; they're not really conveying the only interpretation of that event, but they're portraying a possible interpretation, a possible perception. SO when you talk to your companion characters as part of a party as you go through the world, they'll convey impressions of what you're doing and that's sort of a lens. And they're also a mirror of your own actions- they show you what you've done, reflected back at you, but their perception of it. We also like to have the companion characters or other characters in the game- just speaking about how we build them- provoke an emotional response. We'd like it if you like them, love em, or hate em. And neutral or just kind of like, forget them, that's not— Forgettable doesn't work at all, yeah— That doesn't work, yeah. We want to make provocative characters that are emotionally engaging. The ones that, if you come to like a character you originally really disliked or hated, that's a powerful, you know, we've done something, we've touched that player in an emotional way, which I see as part of the argument for games as art, that you can get affected, you can get emotionally engaged in games now. And it wasn't really true five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, but I think increasingly now it is possible. There are lots of examples where that's the case. I've heard feedback that we did that very effectively recently. The character Zaid from Mass Effect - he's an extra character that you can download - and people said that they hated him, like, the guy was mean, rude, he was just- but, as you took him through his personal story, actually they understood him at the end. And that was the really exciting thing about him particularly, is that, yeah, I don't like the guy, but I get what he's doing, I understand why he's doing it. And again, you think, hey, he's just a bunch of pixels and ones and zeroes, and yet, you're relating to him. I think that's very very powerful.
