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Game Designers: Rockstars, Auteurs, Dweebs?

Posted by John Constantine

One crummy thing about living here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. is that we don’t get issues of Britain’s Edge Magazine for a full month after they hit stands in Britain. Yes, I know, it’s a hard life. We’ve been at war with two separate nations for close to a decade, the economy is disintegrating, and our health care system is an atrocity but all that pales in comparison to not getting pretty videogame rags in a timely manner. But I digress. Yesterday, while flipping through their July issue, something stuck out about their Platinum Games cover story: the photo spread of Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya, Shigenori Nishikawa, Hifumi Kouno, and Tatsuya Minami made them look like a god damn boy band.

I’m conflicted about the emerging designer-as-rockstar image. Once upon a time, it wasn’t unusual for a game to be made by a single person, but in 2008, it’s the rarest exception to the rule. Big games, the vast majority of games the public plays, are made by studios whose collective creative vision makes the game what it is, not one woman or man’s vision. Instead of celebrating and promoting the individual, the rockstar of David Jaffe, Cliffy B, or Shigeru Miyamoto, maybe it should be about the rock band image like in the Platinum Games spread. I’d wear a Valve t-shirt over a Gabe Newell one any day, wouldn’t you?

Related links:

Independent at a Price: Sega and Platinum Games
Clover Returns, Heavy as Platinum


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT

Comments

Amber Ahlborn said:

At least the teams get to put their names in the end game credits.  This was not so back in the early years when the first easter eggs often led to hidden rooms plastered with the names of programmers...the only way they could get their names on their work.

July 3, 2008 1:34 PM

QKC said:

Two words on the designer as a rockstar thing: John Romero.

July 3, 2008 4:20 PM

Dick Hard said:

This is one of the dumbest articles ever. Who cares about your opinion?

July 7, 2008 9:30 AM

Derrick Sanskrit said:

ha, oh man, "Dick Hard", that's a classic. I gotta remember that one...

July 8, 2008 12:00 PM

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about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia's prized possession is a certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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