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About the Ego
By Corvus | March 31, 2009
When considering the current BoRT topic, it is of utmost importance to consider the studio system’s impact on our relationship with a video game’s design team. Studios, by and large, would prefer video games to ship with one name, and one name only, on the box–theirs.
You see, it’s far less expensive to maintain a large stable of well-behaved horses, than to take care of a single high-strung, high-performance thoroughbred. And unlike horse breeders, who stand to make a lot of money off a string of high profile wins, video game publishers aren’t natural gamblers. They don’t like to take risks, financial or otherwise, and “named” developers who are strongly associated with an IP pose a risk–a risk that your developer will leave and kill the IP they helped build.
Now we can all point to named developers with a clear voice in their games’ designs. And we can all point out that a lot of them work for, or closely with, big publishers. But for every Will Wright or Peter Molyneaux, how many unknown designers toil within the bowels of the big publishing houses? Independent designers who are recognized by industry and audience alike often struggle to get their games published, and I have no doubt this is due, in no small part, to factors of public visibility and cost. Not, of course, that struggling to get your games a publisher is unique to Tim Schafer.
No, it’s far less risky for publishers to develop an IP under their label and have replaceable teams usher each iteration endless out the revolving door.
But to make an industry comparison for a moment, how odd would it be to not know who directed a movie you enjoyed? Or who penned the script, or manipulated the camera. Sure, many people go to the movies with very little awareness of what “a movie by Michael Bay” means, but to those of us who pay attention, it informs us of what to expect from the experience. Those of us who go on to analyze after viewing, can easily draw comparisons to prior work, finding themes and repeated iconography.
I recently asked whether the long term impact of an EA collapse would be good or bad for the industry. I was surprised to see so many people say it would ultimately be a bad thing. Our industry thrives on creativity and the indomitable spirit of those who refuse to give up in the face of adversity. If game developers wanted an easy job, they’d program database back-ends, design billboards, and write for trade magazines. Unfortunately, most of that energy is currently directed at surviving the highly political, publisher controlled environment that makes up a vast majority of the industry today. If those talented people were to be forced out of this space, I have no doubt they’d forge their own way, put together independent studios and start releasing games that, quite rightfully, proudly bore their names.
There’s a good reason all three major consoles (four if you count Steam on the PC) have channels that allow indie developers to sell their games directly to the consumer–this is the future of video games, driven by strong auteur voices that ring forth through compelling gameplay and innovative design.
After speaking with a broad cross section of the industry at GDC this year, after hearing more horror stories, and seeing more evidence of behind-the-scenes influence and political maneuvering, I am more certain of this stance than ever. Game designers, from the artists, to the writers, to the designers, to the programmers, are a proud, and often stubborn, people. We exhibit greater amounts of drive, all across the board, than any other industry I have seen.
However…
This same drive, this same indomitable spirit leads to other problems when you’re working with a team. Problems of ego. I heard stories of writers vs. designers, programmers vs. artists, creative vs. business. I find this to be deplorable. While I’m all for the promotion of ego, it cannot be at the expense of the other people on a team. Good directors work with the strength of the people around them. David Cronenberg once said he had the greatest job in the world because he was able to show up on set every day and work with the most amazing people.
The egos of a creative team ought to be focused on one thing–providing an experience to the audience. If you fail to provide that experience, you’ve all failed. If you succeed, you’ve all succeeded. It is, in the final analysis, the audience’s experience that must be paramount in the design of video games, or any other storytelling media. Petulant storytellers may insist that their stories are the most important, but at the end of the day, it’s what the audience does with those stories that ensures their success or failure.
Tagged:auteur, Blogs of the Round Table. | 4 Comments »
March 31st, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I guess I missed the reponse where some people said the loss of EA would be bad. Wow.
I must wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. I’m sure there are people who do great work for EA that we would miss because they just wouldn’t be able to tolerate the instability and uncertainty that would likely be attendant with not working for a large company. I’m sure there are also people that would fail in trying to implement their ideas without the structure and safety of a large company – and frankly, if they fail at least they tried. I’m also sure there would be some who would create brilliant products if given half a chance and the level of achievement and quality would surely surpass most of what EA is currently doing. Yeah, there may be some serious duds out there, but imagine the possibilities. It’s like having an unknown number of DaVinci’s working in a sweat shop. You just don’t know what you’ve got and probably never will. I’m not okay with that idea and can’t imagine how anyone else could be okay, either.
March 31st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Holy Cow! Did you intend your second paragraph’s metaphor to stampede directly into my brain? It would be hard to choose a more loaded metaphor to send my mind whirling into weird and bizarre thoughts… Hmm. I think you may have helped me converge some wild thoughts into wild ideas that might have some value. I shall have to ponder this.
March 31st, 2009 at 3:34 pm
The problems with this world can be directly correlated to the distinct lack of horseflesh metaphors in daily use.
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Great post and as someone who considers himself to be a designer I can attest to feelings of ego. I remember when I first decided to become a game designer over 12 years ago, my first thought was “I can do this all by myself who needs a team?”
Since then I’ve learn both from my own skill set and from books on design that there is more to developing a game then having a good lead designer. I stil feel that a great team lead by a great designer is better then a great team lead by a poor designer.
I also find it weird how as an industry there are many games that we associated by Team (WoW,Command and Conquer ) and other equally great games that we mainly associate by designer (Civilization, Mario, Grim Fandango).