Forums > Game Talk > Are there still celebrity game developers?
Maw (832) on 5/30/2010 4:49 AM · Permalink · Report
I remember that in the old days, gaming had all these legendary rockstar-like figures. Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, John Romero, Al Lowe, those kinds of people.
That doesn't seem to happen much any more. I couldn't tell you the name of the man who made the latest Call of Duty or Halo. It seems that as gaming has gotten bigger, the concept of the rainmaker has passed, and games are made by corporate teams, not visionaries.
What are your opinions?
chirinea (47496) on 5/30/2010 5:05 AM · Permalink · Report
Maybe that's also a reflex of the fact that there were no more huge design breakthroughs. The men you mentioned were behind the start or development of huge segments in the industry (Sid Meier with strategy games, John Romero with FPSs, Al Lowe with adventures, etc.).
MZ per X (3017) on 5/30/2010 6:34 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Maw wrote--]That doesn't seem to happen much any more. I couldn't tell you the name of the man who made the latest Call of Duty or Halo. It seems that as gaming has gotten bigger, the concept of the rainmaker has passed, and games are made by corporate teams, not visionaries. [/Q --end Maw wrote--] Just a guess: That may well be your feeling because you're not really interested in the latest CoD or Halo? Today's teenagers will probably know who their heroes are.
BurningStickMan (17916) on 5/30/2010 8:08 AM · Permalink · Report
Cliff Bleszinski of Epic would probably be the closest thing to a modern celebrity designer. Jade Raymond also got some press for Assassin's Creed, but more for the omg she makes games and has bewbs!! factor.
As I recall, there were originally no celebrity designers because houses like Atari wanted to keep them under wraps (leading to the easter egg). Celebrity developers formed in a response to that, and companies went along with it when they saw the value of putting a face to the industry, and an increase in sales by slapping Sid Meyer or David Crane's name on a box.
Now maybe we're swinging back toward downplaying individual involvement, since games have such large staffs that it would be difficult or unfair to hang the entire game on one person.
j.raido 【雷堂嬢太朗】 (94209) on 5/30/2010 8:52 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start BurningStickMan wrote--]Now maybe we're swinging back toward downplaying individual involvement, since games have such large staffs that it would be difficult or unfair to hang the entire game on one person. [/Q --end BurningStickMan wrote--] I've been playing Darksiders recently and I find it kind of amazing that nowhere on the packaging or in the game itself does it mention Joe Mad's involvement, considering he's pretty well known in certain circles and the game was basically his pet project (and is also awesome but that's beside the point).
I also find it amazing that THQ is one of the only publishers that puts the developer's logo on the front of the box, but not their own. You know, so the box has the name of the people that actually made the game on it. Considering the size of the average game development team, this seems like the most sensible solution for putting credit where it's due, but often the front of the box only has the publisher's logo, with the back SOMETIMES having the developer shuffled in between Speedtree and Havok.
xroox (3895) on 5/30/2010 8:59 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start djsquarewave wrote--] I also find it amazing that THQ is one of the only publishers that puts the developer's logo on the front of the box, but not their own. You know, so the box has the name of the people that actually made the game on it. Considering the size of the average game development team, this seems like the most sensible solution for putting credit where it's due, but often the front of the box only has the publisher's logo, with the back SOMETIMES having the developer shuffled in between Speedtree and Havok. [/Q --end djsquarewave wrote--]Yeah. Credit where credit's due. I hate it when the developer is reduced to a tiny logo on the back of the box or - even worse - a line in the copyright notices.
This also reminds me of something else I hate - when I'm reading a professional review for a game and it mentions what a great/bad job the publisher has done with graphics/mission design/whatever. The publisher!
Oh yeah. Back on topic. Celebrity designers: Shigeru Miyamoto... Hideo Kojima... That guy who makes the Dead Or Alive games... Maybe the Japanese celeb developer is more common?
Patrick Bregger (300054) on 5/30/2010 9:43 AM · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Sam Jeffreys wrote--] Oh yeah. Back on topic. Celebrity designers: Shigeru Miyamoto... Hideo Kojima... That guy who makes the Dead Or Alive games... Maybe the Japanese celeb developer is more common? [/Q --end Sam Jeffreys wrote--]
But these guys are not exactly new phenomenas. Just like Warren Spector and Sid Meier they are "old" star-designers which are still happen to work in the business.
GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) on 5/30/2010 1:16 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
Didn't Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna get a lot of press in the early 00s ? I remember they were all over G4-Tech TV (That's what it was called back then.) on Icons and a few other shows. I wonder what they're up to today.
Adzuken (836) on 5/30/2010 2:34 PM · Permalink · Report
Tim Schafer is a really big and popular game designer right now. Considering the PR campaign for Brutal Legend was basically, "Look! It's Tim Schafer and Jack Black! They're makin' a game!" Similarly, Will Wright also got caught up in Spore's hype.
I don't really think video games need celebrities and having them would probably yield only negative results, as it already has. The last thing the industry needs is a bunch of big-headed individuals forcing development teams to fit their vision. Making video games is (usually) a collaborative effort, and if the lead designer is so egotistical that they can't be questioned, then it all falls apart.
Slug Camargo (583) on 5/31/2010 2:44 AM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Adzuken wrote--] I don't really think video games need celebrities and having them would probably yield only negative results, as it already has. The last thing the industry needs is a bunch of big-headed individuals forcing development teams to fit their vision. Making video games is (usually) a collaborative effort, and if the lead designer is so egotistical that they can't be questioned, then it all falls apart. [/Q --end Adzuken wrote--] You tell 'em, girlfriend!!
Seriously, Maw's post sort of makes me think he misses having big-name developers, which is all kinds of puzzling: They were a cancer for the game industry, all they were good for was giving material to Old Man Murray to work with. No Old Man Murray, no need for such self-absorbed jackasses anymore.
Most of them weren't even famous for being good, just for splattering their name all over a given game or for making those PR stunts they loved so much. John Carmack wasn't nearly as widely mentioned as Romero or McGee, but everyone and their dog knew he was the real brain of the whole band.
Daniel Saner (3503) on 6/4/2010 6:15 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start Adzuken wrote--]I don't really think video games need celebrities and having them would probably yield only negative results, as it already has. The last thing the industry needs is a bunch of big-headed individuals forcing development teams to fit their vision. [/Q --end Adzuken wrote--]
I think that's exactly what the games business needs, because if I think about the reasons why most new games these days hardly catch my interest at all anymore, it's because they have no meaning, no creative direction no consistency. Back in the day that was practically a given because teams were so small. I'm not saying that games were really more meaningful or generally more creative back then, but you have to see the relations, compare what was possible back then to what would be possible today. Back then you had a bunch of nerds hacking away on keyboards in some garage. Today you have the budgets and technology to rival big movie studios in the possibility to create an epic work of art. Yet if I look at the titles at the top of the sales charts, they are either dominated by games with no narrative at all (as per design choice), and the rest has about the plot and emotional impact of an early 80s arcade shoot'em up.
What meaningful games for adults need is creative direction, someone with a clear idea and a vision. Sometimes that's a bunch of people together, but if everyone on the team can just come in and pull the game design in the direction he deems best, the end result will be a bland piece of turd that tries to be everything at once and fails in every single aspect. I even have some first-hand experience in this :) if every member has an equal say in the main design, you will either not finish your product at all, or if you do everyone who uses it will notice that no one was in charge of design.
While you have just as large production teams in the movie business, the story, characters, theme, atmosphere etc. are mostly written in stone by the lead writer, with influences from the director and maybe the lead producer. The rest of the team play just as important a role, but if they wouldn't all be working towards realising one common goal, as put forth by the writing staff, the movie would end up a mess. The auteur principle works. Why do you think most prime-time television shows state in their intro "created by", followed by one or two names?
Obviously you do have "lead game designers" or whatever in today's game teams, but it seems to be just a formal position, as someone just has to be in charge. It rarely feels like the game desginer really is the game designer because he came up with an idea, and production of the game was started to realise it, rather than the other way round and just looking for someone to make the next product in the line-up. I think that's what the original poster was also hinting at.
vedder (70767) on 6/4/2010 7:59 PM · Permalink · Report
Most large companies do have a "Creative Director". In most companies they will have the final say on any decision in the design.
But in more bureacraticly structured companies, the creative director might not always be the same person as the one who thought the concept up. But it is his task to make certain all designers follow the same line.
But as creative director or as a lead designer you cannot take too much creativity away from the people one step down from you. All those people became designers because they want to be creative. If you take creativity away from them they will function poorly or not at all.
Similarly. As a designer with some IT background I used to have the tendency to provide programming solutions in my design. That's a bad thing. Programmers love to find solutions for programming problems. Taking that away from them makes their work dull and will cause them to lose interest in the work and underperform.
The key to a well functioning development company is to make sure everybody feels important and gets to do what he loves to do.
If a single person steals away the spotlights and keeps on hammering that everything has to be done his way, the whole team will suffer for it. So IF you have a celebrity creative director, he must be open to ideas from within the team and leave enough creative space for everyone else. A creative director not only has to have brilliant ideas for games but also requires impeccible management skills. And the larger the company the more important that combination becomes. And that is a rare combination. Which is in my believe on of the reasons that now that companies have grown bigger, fewer celebrities emerge. People either have great ideas but someone else directs the project, or the other way around. In either case it becomes more of a team effort and less of a celebrity figure.
Daniel Saner (3503) on 6/5/2010 10:50 PM · edited · Permalink · Report
[Q --start vedder wrote--]...[/Q --end vedder wrote--]
You are absolutely right. But as teams grow and the top of the structure becomes broader with more people at what you might call the head of the production team, you can still make out who were the people who, as you stated it, thought up the concept and had the most influence on the design and ideas behind the actual game. People managing the production and the team as a whole are just as important for the final product, and neither did I want to imply that the rest of the team is any less important and influential.
The real game designers, that in earlier days might have become popular more often than today, still inevitably exist in today's projects. I just think that part of why so few newer games look inspired in my eyes is a problem of the approach. If you want to do something great, you usually have to have someone with the ideas and the vision to get the whole project going. If you do it the other way round, just trying to manufacture a product that will sell and go looking for the people who can do it, usually what comes out is inconsistent, meaningless and/or uninspired.
So I see the whole celebrity game designer thing not as something undesirable that takes away the focus from the game, and is just an outgrowth of having egocentrical, narcissistic designers. I see it as something that happens because of quality work. Game designers who come up with the right ideas and, as you said, also have the necessary managerial skills to know how to get them to work, which will end up creating a game that just feels great and well thought-out, and the name of the designer automatically becoming popular and recognised because the players themselves noticed them, and they have proven repeatedly that they know how to design a good game. That's why I can understand if the question about the lack of "celebrity" game designers had a sentimental undertone.
To turn back to the movie analogy - I for example like most films by Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, or David Lynch, and even those I don't like feel special somehow. I don't think having their names, being true movie "auteurs", written on top as writer, director, and producer disregards what a humongous team effort such a movie production is. But I know that the films are what they are because of these auteurs, and I know that I can look forward to their next release, having learned that they make movies that are meaningful to me. Wenders, Jarmusch and Lynch are not popular because they egoistically claim all of the fame and success for themselves, but because moviegoers have discovered that they write and direct great movies.
So in some way I see game designers becoming popular as an automatic, incidental, but good side-effect of games that are meaningful, artistic, or otherwise special. Apart from any subjective opinions, and in my optimistic view of videogames slowly becoming more mature and meaningful as an entertainment medium, I think we will see a return of auteur game designers anyway. It's probably also a good sign that where you have this phenomenon today, it's mostly associated with games where you can feel that they are really a labour of love, such as David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière for the Quantic Dreams games, or in the German-speaking region Bernd Beyreuther with the Drakensang series (I fondly remember video interviews with Mr. Beyreuther regarding the upcoming first game - he was so enthusiastic, his eyes were glowing! That's the kind of spirit good videogames need.)
Pseudo_Intellectual (66360) on 6/4/2010 11:16 PM · Permalink · Report
I think the claim could be made that video games are such large ventures nowadays that like hollywood movies they can't afford to tank, hence like movies are assembled "by committee" to incorporate whichever tastes du jour they anticipate still being popular by the time the game can make it out the other end of the pipe (since nothing succeeds like success, hence pop will eat itself). It's a risk-averse industry, and celebrity design vision is a risk.
Parf (7873) on 6/6/2010 9:24 PM · Permalink · Report
I agree with you about the business being scared of taking risks. Brutal Legend is a great example. It had everything going for it; Tim Schafer, celebrity voice actors, great soundtrack, innovative gameplay ideas, humor. It was all there... why didn't it sell then? Because it wasn't the video game equivalent of a brain dead popcorn blockbuster a la Avatar I'm sure. The game itself might have ideas stolen from it and added to other, more mainstream, games later down the line. But I don't think the companies involved would want anything to do with any person with a vision again, given the sales figures of the last game.
It's rather sad, since I love games which think outside the box. Yet, Halo, Wii Minigame collection 534 and games of that pedigree are the ones on the Top 10 best selling games lists. I guess the games industry has finally reached a point where there are enough "mainstream" gamers out there for them to get away with games with streamlined non-original games made for a mass market. Who needs a creative director when all the average gamer wants is yet another game with a lisenced soundtrack, cool cars, headshots or Wii waggle?