Slashdot Mirror
Death of the Auteur?
Thanks to TerraNova, and specifically Timothy Burke, for the article entitled Death of the Auteur. In it, Burke examines the modern reality that games are no longer made by a single person and ponders the meaning of game authorship. "Who is the author of a game? How should we speak of authorship?" What kind of weight does a personal and public apology have when a games authorship is up in the air?
Besides the fact that the linked article doesn't work, are they just being fancy-schmancy or aren't you supposed to spell "author" like this?
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/10/deat h_of_the_au.html
That said, I agree that there isn't a single author to blame or praise in most big-company games. And this is why current games largely suck. Group projects sound nice, but their real purpose is for everybody to share the praise and nobody to share the blame, and this is exactly what has been happening in the gaming industry. Not all is lost, though. There are still some developers (most notably Chris Crawford and Trevor Chan) who stand behind their games as their real authors, and who still seem to be willing to take full responsibility for them. I just hope others wouldn't hide behind a corporation like some bureaucrats, and instead face their fans as only artists can.
this isn't exaclty a new 'problem'.
if you want to put a name to a game you just choose the one who is most famous and who you're going to use for the pr.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
auteur n: a filmmaker who has a personal style and keeps creative control over his or her works
GET YOUR WEAPONS READY! --DR.LIGHT
There should still always be one person attached to the game. Design by committee has always had problems in timeline management and product quality control. A single vision is required to put out a solid product that performs strongly in what it's designed to do. "Group" projects tend to never see the light of day due to feature-creep, budget problems, and a general lack of quality. "Ownership" on the other hand is a different idea. Responsibility is another idea as well. Credit should be given where credit is due because yes, games are no longer developed by a single person.
"Don't feel bad for me child; I'm the monster that hides under your bed."
Motion pictures parallel this. Back in the early 1900s and the late 1800s, they were made by one or two people, while now, hundreds of people work on a hollywood production. When you go and see a movie, most people realize that it's a collaborative effort, and that there is no one "author". The Director or DP contributes as much to the film as the scriptwriter, and the actors themselves bring their own take on the role.
Now back to videogames. The author of the article seems to be confused as to who the "author" is of a game. Just like a film, it is the production company. Bungie, Blizzard, Bioware ARE the authors of the game. He wants to have somebody to give the blame. Well, look at the level designer in the credits. Email him about poor level design. Look for the AI programmer, and email him about bad pathfinding. Film critics havn't had any trouble blaming directors or actors or scriptwriters in the past. Why would it be so hard with videogames?
The only games I play at the moment are the Avernum series by Spiderweb Software. Great RPGs designed by one man, Jeff Vogel.
I remember old games:
:( I miss the old days...
Mission Impossible (c64). Wonderful gameplay.
Project Firestart (c64). A survival horror classic.
Flashback (PC). Platform game with a great story.
Ah yes, those were the days... if you want to ask me, i preferred good 'ol written dialogues (Loom, PC - LucasArts). Graphics just required a good painter and a scanner.
But now, we require a good 3D engine, a whole team of artists, coordinating the voice actors, doing the 3D scanning of real live stunt doubles...
hey, i just wanna play, k?
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault by Electronic Arts
- Star Wars Battlefront by Lucasarts
- Asheron's Call by Microsoft
- Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay by Vivendi
- ...etc...
You have to dig to find out who actually developed a software title (2015, Pandemic, Turbine, and Starbreeze, above), which is the opposite of how it works in literature. One could argue that this is because entertainment software publishers often fund development of a title, but I think the same is true with books, in the form of royalty advances. Most people who have read Cryptonomicon will be able to tell you that it was written by Stephenson, (rather than by Avon Books). I think this makes a great deal of sense for the consumer; sharks aside, one of an author's works can serve as a recommendation for another. The same is not often true when you compare publishers. Burke puts this as follows:What seems clear to me is that middlebrow games criticism cannot function without some reference to authors: a critic needs to know who to blame or praise, how to assign and imagine intentionality, how to accessibly discuss the intertextual relations between games.
The gaming public does, indeed, seem to care who's recognized for a title. Development studios should be lauded for their successes, just as book authors are. To wit, we'll be self-publishing our next title. I'll personally bear responsibility for the game, whether it unleashes a horrible plague upon the world, or becomes a hit.
I'm sorta hoping for the latter.
____________________________
Inago Rage - Bound between rooftoops and create your own 3D arenas.
Give the Stress Test a go, and let us know if you enjoy it.
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
Article: "What seems clear to me is that middlebrow games criticism cannot function without some reference to authors: a critic needs to know who to blame or praise, how to assign and imagine intentionality, how to accessibly discuss the intertextual relations between games."
Why is it necessary to have an author reference that is different from the developer of the game? I firmly believe that teams of talented people make better games than any single person would be able to do, and that teams of less talented people can make far worse games than you'd ever want to spend money on.
Many reviews discuss their thoughts about the game directed towards the developer, why the developer didn't do a better job with a certain feature when other developers have shown it can be better.
The article mentions Peter Molyneux, but when I read interviews with him he is always giving the development team credit, and sometimes specifies individuals working on specific features.
Games are different from many other media in that development is much more iterative. You prototype something, test it out, improve it as opposed to a movie which you really only shoot once (apart from scenes that need to be reshot at the end, but you don't refilm the entire thing just because you didn't like the feeling of a movie), so in a way authoring a game depends more on how the game works rather than design specifications and scripts, and because of that it owes more credit to the team behind it than the lead designer.
A single designer is fine for making the initial plan and the decisions for what to cut in the end but most things inbetween are more related to a software development project (You wouldn't really credit Bill Gates personally for the entire Windows XP project for example).
I have occasionally used examples from videogames in my essays for college. Sometimes it is just to mention a particular game scenario, sometimes I quote a line from the game, and none of the standards we are told to use to write our essays seem to have any guidelines on how to properly reference a videogame.
I just use the name of the developing studio as the author and the publishing company as the publisher. I haven't encountered any problems yet for this practice, but that may just be because I have lenient profs or they are just as unsure about how this is supposed to be done. (BTW I reference comics too, and who am I supposed to list as the author? Comics is usually seen as a collaborative movement, and so I usually list both the writer and the penciller.)
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
but I don't see anything wrong with associating games and development houses. In fact, I like it. When I buy a game made by Treasure or Tri-Ace, I know exactly what I'm getting (Same for Acclaim, it goes both ways :) ). If it's teams of people building them games, the only sensible way to identify who makes what is by team, and teams are usually broken up by publisher.
It's the same for anime actually. I don't worry about who directed Evangelion or FLCL, I just know it's Gainex, so it'll rock.
The fact that we focus so heavily on the Director of a movie here in the States is the result of some _very_ clever marketing by the Director's Guild (it that way they call themselves?).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The authors has it wrong, the auteur is not a one man band, the auteur is an individual with a pervasive influence over all aspects of a product, creative project or design. These people still exist, Will Wright(sp?), Carmack, Peter Molyneux etc.
Easy: the author of a game is the TEAM (bungie, id, lionhead) or maybe the lead designer (director/writer) Peter Mollineux, Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto. Or havent you heard of the expression "is a George Lucas Film" or "Fellini film"? MGS actually says "a hideo kojima game" in the intro title.
next question.
Also the author of an engine is its lead programmer/designer
John carmack, Derreck Smart, etc.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here