The Limits Of Authorship In Game Development
Game journalist Troy Goodfellow's blog, Flash Of Steel, has been debating the concept of symbolic figureheads in game development - and he hits on some pretty interesting points about - well, this: "For how long should game journalists be expected to go to Will Wright for every Sims article or to Sid Meier for every Civ article?"
As Goodfellow notes: "Meier is still heavily involved in play testing and prototyping but neither has been the lead designer on their signature franchise for over a decade. From where I sit, Wright’s position on the Sims community would be dated, but if my article had taken a different standpoint and addressed issues of, say, consumerism, avatar development, etc. should the series founder still be the go to guy for perspectives on the series?"
His central thesis? "Yesterday I was exchanging emails with a friend who has moved into game development and he talked about how collaborative the process is; how the idea of the lead designer we grew up with is increasingly irrelevant. You still need a central repository to bring all these ideas together, but design is messy... [yet] the idea of the Game God persists even as the industry becomes less dependent on original breakthrough designs and more dependent on a consistent collection of talent." So, what to do? Perhaps some kind of Borg-style concatenated name crediting for teams? [Article illustration is to amuse Sparky!]
Comments
Perhaps simply credit everyone fairly? and don't put a single persons name on the box?
(Contrasting the Manhunt 2 debacle that is, ho ho ho)
There was a discussion of this at Jason Della Roccas blog a while back too;
http://www.realitypanic.com/archives/320
Celebrities of the industry are perhaps getting rarer because of what this suggests? Simply that it is a lot more collaborative/larger teams then 10, 15 years ago? Unlike films, TV shows, the Lead Designer doesn't do every shot, every take, and other developers input a lot. Internal to the industry people will know the skilled professionals (as with anything) but saying they did more work, or are better then the rest of the team put together, or something, can seem off.
Highly debatable all in all!
Posted by: Andrew | November 10, 2007 5:51 PM
Awww, my favorite picture on the Internet...next to that one of the kitty cat with a cone on its head trying to eat out of a food bowl.
Or maybe tubgirl.
Posted by: Sparky | November 11, 2007 6:48 PM
I was talking about something along these lines in the office today. The conversation started with Dead Space, and how hard it seems to have been for EA to create buzz around the game amongst the hardcore, which the game is clearly aimed at.
I think that's partly because EA don't have a superstar development team that journalists and writers can hang their story off and cosy up to - unlike, say, Bioshock.
Three or four years ago, there was a truism that there were no celebrity game developers. I don't think that's true any more. There are celebrity game studios - and publishers see value in them and their brand, not just their products.
It's not the only problem EA will face with Dead Space - but I think it's significant.
Posted by: Tim E | November 13, 2007 4:41 PM