Review Some thoughts on ToEE & DnD at Kuro5

[Voss]

Why is it that anyone who does their job is somehow (magically, comunistically) entitled to an equal share of credit for the end product? I think its time to change the brass plates in the museum so that it credits the guy that sold Schiele the water colours and paper, the model that posed, and the landlady that rented him the studio. I mean who the fuck is Egon Schiele to credit himself as the sole artist? Its not like he pulped the wood himself, or went out into the forest to collect ochres...

Wow, thats... not at all the same.
Back when one guy could sit down and write all the code, do all the art, etc. you'd have something of a point. (as you would if people were throwing in the cd-production crew, the QA people, the marketing weasels, etc). But, no, the point is that the team that worked on the game (code/art/design) are all part of making a game. It isn't simply a matter of the *one guy* (who happens to have his name at the top of a list), bringing it into being by dint of his sole will and effort- that simply doesn't work in modern programming.

It simply isn't a trade for a solo artist.

 

[EEVIAC]

[...] as you would if people were throwing in the cd-production crew, the QA people, the marketing weasels, etc.

Why not throw QA in - my understanding is that they report back on bugs and give opinions on gameplay, which might be altered by request. Isn't that affecting on game design? Why is their contribution any less important than the art designer who asserts that ghouls are green? Or the composer that fights for an ambient soundtrack rather than hard techno? (That's assuming that someone from core design hasn't told them that ghouls are green, or specifically sought out someone that can compose ambient music.)

Egon Schiele is maybe more analogous to gaming's garage days. I still think its relevant because I was trying to illustrate that not every person that contributes to an excercise, no matter how important they are to actual product, is integral. I'll use Andy Warhol as an example. Oft times other people were creating the product, but he was the person instructing them on what to do. Anyone could have made the actual object (after 500 years I'm astonished that art is still considered to be the object,) what it represents is purely and solely Andy Warhol's work. The person that put down the ink is as insignifigant as whether it was placed on a hand pinned canvas or a torn piece of butcher's paper. Its expendable and replacable. Anyway, see below.

It simply isn't a trade for a solo artist.

I'm not arguing the case of a sole artist, except where it directly applies (Joseph Hewitt's Gearhead, Jeff Vogel's Spiderweb games.) My point is that there is a finite number of people (a tiny fraction of the entire team) that you can remove from a team that will drastically change the output of that team. The rest are basically workers operating under guidlines set by superiors. I'm not trying to discredit their contribution or the quality of their work, because that individual work component is not at issue. Its also not that important in the composition of games as a whole.

Harbinger had beautifull 2D art, but someone forgot to tell the art team that three different types of enemy, in a variety of colours, combatted in two different backdrops, is not sufficient. That's not the fault of the artists, they did their job. The person that was overseeing that work and didn't pick up the obvious. He deserves the kick in the balls and the game design privilledges revoked.

I understand that games are created by teams, but invariably someone has veto power. Its the decisions as to what is accepted and what's vetted that define the quality of the product, not the constituent parts, or the sum of said parts. That responsibility is the domain of the few, not the many.