Last week, Gamasutra published
this article where I, astride my high horse, talk a bit about the idea of authorship in the video game industry. I think Chris Remo did a good job of of parsing out the salient points from my meandering jag on the industry. Although, shortly after the interview was over -- an interview that drifted in and out of us just bullshitting and me actually answering questions -- I started to wonder how big of a blowhard I was going to sound like once the thoughts were committed to the page.
I'd put myself at about 4.0 on the Jagoff Scale of Blowhardium. It didn't flatten the city, but I'm pretty sure it jumbled the folks in the high-rises.
What I'd like to do, though, is add to the points I made in the article. For all four of you reading this. The statement that I think speaks most loudly in the piece are my comments towards this "above-the-line" talent credits. That giving people Written by, and Directed by credit is "important." I think it is, if it's true. But I think I left out an entire other side of the argument that addresses the bigger team-built games, such as Half-Life and even Bioshock (an example I used in the piece to site "authorship" for Ken Levine, which may not have been completely accurate).
The point I wish I made, and was certainly making in my head, is that the authorship is the important thing -- the credit is ALSO important, but not as important as the authorship itself. A game like Bioshock feels INCREDIBLY authored. Which I mean to say has a cohesive creative vision, a tight story, an overall uniqueness of creative design and a strict set of rules for what should exist within the world of the game.
I was playing Half Life 2 today, a game I've woefully never completed (lost save files, stupid work schedule, a distracting sandwich) and again, there isn't some "Written by" credit up front. Instead of this, Valve chooses to list the team members responsible for the game alphabetically right upfront. I'd classify all of these people as authors. The game feels like each of those people, whose names fade in and out so poignantly during your arrival to City 17, played a precise role in the making of the game. Everyone was tapped into the same mission and banded together to create an achievement. They left their thumbprint on the game.
This is exactly what Ken Levine called for in a
recent interview concerning Bioshock 2. He stated that 2K Marin needed to put their stamp on the title. This stamp is what I'm saying is most important. And this stamp is empowered by financial and executive leadership that understands the value of it. I can imagine that creating Bioshock 2 is very very difficult. Because Bioshock is a big business now. It's a multi-million unit franchise. From a conservative business perspective, (my favorite!) there are those who want ANOTHER Bioshock. And by that I mean a copy. But you can't put out the same game again with a 2 on the cover. Can you imagine? We all rush out to buy Bioshock 2, put it in our 360's, and experience the same plane crash from the first.
Bioshock 2 Fan: "Wow! The opening is the same as the first Bioshock! How...avant garde!"
Forty five minutes later.
BS2 Fan: This is the same fucking game.
BS2 Fan #2: Oh, so it's pretty similar?
BS2 Fan: NO, I mean I just killed a splicer with a 1-2 punch. ITS THE SAME FUCKING GAME!
[Riots ensue]
The fear of creating Bioshock 2 is the paralyzing realization that you must now catch lightning in a bottle again. Bioshock was able to do that by taking a big risk, following through with a unique, if not bizarre, creative vision, and nailing it damn near 100 percent. It was authored. By one person? Maybe. By a team of people, certainly. Should they all be given due credit for the jobs performed. You bet your ass. We should know, as fans, that Scott Sinclair was the Art Director on that game because he did an unbelievable job. I imagine he takes great pride in it.
Is the credit important? Yes. But what's more important is the trust and respect that the credit symbolizes. It turns out, those who are willing to let you leave your stamp are generally pretty amicable to saying that this is a game brought to you by John Q. McAwesomedesigner. The best thing an executive can do is trust you. They should trust themselves to find awesome people, trust them to get the job done with the resources provided, and then get out of the way and let something happen, even if it's unexpected. Like, say, a post-apocalyptic thriller set in and undersea version of 1940, and based on the objectivist novels of Ayn Rand. How do you even PITCH that?
You don't have to give written by, directed by credit. But you do have to empower your people (and for a company with not a lot of coin, that's one way to do it). You need to make them feel like their creative decisions matter. That's really all I was trying to say.
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