Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tara Reid And The Future Of Game Development

Posted by simoniker on from the relevance-plus-plus dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for its article covering Naughty Dog's president Jason Rubin discussing why gaming needs to do more for its talent. Rubin explained the strange title of his lecture by referencing to Sony's E3 2003 party: "After several calls, lots of hassle, waiting in a long line, and a trip through the metal detector, Rubin was able to get in. Meanwhile, Hollywood darling Tara Reid simply strolled into the party. This got Rubin thinking about how much money and attention publishers garnish celebrities with. By contrast, the business does a really poor job of promoting its own talent." He went on to note: "Very rarely do you see a developer's name on the box, and sometimes you don't even see the developer's logo", and urged a change of attitude: "Developers should look at publishers as people they hire to sell the game they made."

3 of 85 comments (clear)

  1. Developers not regarded as marketable by raiderx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is really a problem with American and European publishers (Peter Molyneux promoting himself and Lionhead Studios notwithstanding). In Japan, the developers are well known and given credit for their work. Voice actors, who often do no other voice acting other than video game related gigs, are treated like rock stars by video game fans.

    The attitude seems to be that the folks that market the game seem to think THEY are the stars. Developers are regarded as slave labor to be exploited and dismissed.

  2. Not such a good idea by Pluvius · · Score: 5, Funny

    The last time we turned developers into celebrities, the world was punished with Daikatana.

    Rob

  3. Re:I completely agree.. by dsyu · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yep. I worked on a game which was being published by EA, but done at a third party development studio. EA specifically told us that our company logo would not be on the box, or shown at the title-screen of the game (this was part of the contract). The reasoning was that EA wants the consumer to think that the game comes solely from EA -- it's a branding thing. At least we did get credit (by name) in the end-game credits.

    Personally, I think it's stupid, since it's often just a logo. But for a publisher like EA, its usually a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal, and smaller dev houses sometimes can't bargin these sort of details.

    Generally speaking, only hard-core gamers are aware of the large number of smaller dev houses doing games. Developers aren't always in it for the glory though.