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Jason Rubin To Leave Naughty Dog
Thanks to GameSpot for its story revealing Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin is leaving the company after Jak III is completed. Rubin, who has a long history in the games industry, helping create both the Crash Bandicoot and Jak & Daxter franchises, mentions he's "made a conscious decision to leave Naughty Dog and explore other options in the gaming sector", arguably not a surprise since his recent DICE Conference speech on the disrespect paid to game developers. The GameSpot article notes: "While Rubin's speech took game publishers to task for not valuing talent, he maintains he was not singling out Sony", and a separate interview fleshes out Rubin's feedback from the speech, noting: "So far nobody has said anything negative, but those who do not want to hear what was said won't be the types to comment directly."
Wright, Meier, Koster, Spector, Watamaniuk, Cooke (its gaming too dammit!),... I could go on for maybe another couple of names if I really sat and thought about it.
I learned to follow designers as best I could, not publishers. Their games aren't necessarily for everyone, but they consistantly make the games I want to play.
Though I certainly had to make a concerted effort to follow the games closely to figure out where the common level of quality was coming from.
I give publishers credit only when they hire and cultivate the talent I appreciate, but when they frustrate it till it leaves (Roper, et al.), they lose that credit in a hurry.
Of course, I don't mean to discount the teams of professionals that make these games I love, nor the stacks of other designers who have consistantly chipped in with key supporting roles and technology. I'd like to know and recognize and celebrate them as well.
but Rubin's absolutely right. The talent is not celebrated nearly enough. You can see this simply in how many more actors, writers, and directors casual film fans can name off, as compred to designers, programmers, and producers that even hardcore gamers know.
Trust me, I can rattle of a much longer list of movie professionals whose work I consistently enjoy, even though I love games more.
I'd love it if development talent was more celebrated. Though, mainstream attempts to celebrate talent in the past haven't exactly been productive for anyone involved. (*cough*Romero*cough*)
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
While I certainly wouldn't begrudge Rubin, or anyone else for that matter, the chance to be recognized for his contributions, I'm not sure that the celebrity model would be good for games. You could make a pretty good argument that the celebration of fame in the film world has done some harm.
Think of all the actors/directors who continue to produce crap and get paid $20 million for it because they have a recognized name. Without celebrity worship, we might have been spared Terminator 3, Gigli, and everything Michael Chriton has done since Andromeda Strain or perhaps Westworld.
(momentary pause to appreciate memory of the burning Yul Brynner robot)
Think of all the afternoon TV slots dedicated to what Brad Pitt had for breakfast or what kind of fabric is squashed up J-Lo's ass this week.
Rubin makes the argument that unrecognized developers become jaded and content suffers. I'd be afraid that celebrity developers would become blinded by the crowds and the content would suffer. Or maybe we'd be distracted by so many award shows and "G! True Siliwood Stories" that we wouldn't pay attention to qaulity.
There must be a better way to recognize and reward talent than the American Idol route.
Look ma, no tpyos^H^H^H^H^H^H . . . oh crap.
Why don't you agree with Rubin?
/talent/ can put their name on an unknown/underfunded script and get it produced and put in theatres. At this point no game designer could do the same except those former independents who managed to wrangle lucrative publishing contracts while maintaining autonomy. (eg.. iD)
Do you think that American games designers don't deserve even the level of attention that their Japanese counterparts get?
Do you think the talent in the game industry is less worthy of celebration than the talent in the film industry?
A very big implication of Rubin's point is the way the indy film scene is much more active than indy gaming. With films, the
Designers and developers just aren't known to the public (and thereby investors). And the existing publishers certainly don't want to support any sort of trend that might pit their other products against 'their own' designers.
With publisher dominance of gaming, professional designers can't even lend a hand in an indy game design without threatening their employment.
Tolerating publisher dominance results the glut of uninspired rehash and licensing that we're currently seeing. Except, our gaming standbys are already more pronounced than Hollywood's. I'd much rather have a system where the talent is recognized, so they can gain clout and leverage, so they can help the indy scene (and thereby the genre) expand.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
One could say that you cannot compare the situation of recognition in the games industry to that of recognition in the films industry, but after all, why not? When you think about it, in some way, they really aren't so different. That's why I believe it's also unfair game developrs do not get as much recognition as their film equivalents do.
For example, just about everyone knows who George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are, and that just thanks to their films -- even if some people haven't seen them. But most casual gamers do not even know the names of the producers of the biggest games. Of course, a lot of them know who Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamoto are, but these same people couldn't name the main producer of their favorite games.
I think the problem lies in that the game developers' merits are not publicised enough. Whereas when you go to see a film, the directors' name is in a font as big as that of the actors' namers, when you buy a game, you'll only find the credits once you've finished reading the manual, or finished the game. Most gamers cannot recognise a game developer simply because the people who are actually behind the games do not revendicate their involvement in the making of the games enough.
On the other hand, I had hardly played MDK when I developed an obsession for David Perry simply by reading what he had done in the booklet attached to the game which my friend had handed to me.
It is clear that the industry needs to attach much more importance to the people behind the best games.
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval