Decline Video-Game Executives Lament Lost Creativity at Developer’s Show GDC

[GamerCat_]

Am I allowed to say on this site that for the most part Western video games have never been creative?

I think more recently things like the VGAs reveal an increasingly desperate desire on the part of the western industry and surrounding entertainment infrastructure to parasitically attach and associate themselves with the Japanese industry and scenes because that's almost exclusively where interesting things are happening. And as old hype dies and more mature eyes look upon the past the Western classics shelf is pretty bare compared to the Japanese library.

Look at the companies being named in this event. Epic Games. Tencent. These peoples work and production models are so vulgar and profit oriented and devoid of redeeming artisanal elements that they might as well be pornographers for the most part. Genshin Impact at least has the decency to look nice and rip off good games, but I don't see any Chinese names here.

Western games that could have been called "creative" were always outliers, exception cases, generally performed poorly and got little support, and were often destroyed by the big companies like the ones named here. "Serial killer", as has already been said in this thread. The danger hairs and whatever are a serious problem, but these massive WESTERN corporate entities were always western gaming's biggest problem. But we have to emphasise WESTERN because Japanese corporations have never behaved like this. It's a distinctly western and especially AMERICAN thing. Sort of like the above VGAs thought, I think due to chauvinism and a kind of innate leftist resentment animosity towards the Japanese there's a desire to project our failings onto the Japanese among gamers because they simply mog us so hard as a nation that it makes our ongoing existence much harder to bear.

It's possible to support visionaries and artisans and even auteurs at the absurd scale video games have reached in 2024. The people in power to in our society chose not to. And frankly the sheer lack of taste and sense among western consumers was a significant factor in making that possible. America is so absurdly wired against the creation of art and culture and has been all along. I don't draw a line on this at any point in the history of video games. This problem is older than video games and has been holding them back all along. There was very little lost creativity. There is no point in the history of American video game production I would like to go back to. Everywhere else is mostly fine (American corporations raped a few euro-developers to death, rather serious shame).

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

2. Is the talent actually there in the industry? Again there's this assumption that there's loads of creative people in this industry who'd unleash lots of brilliant experimental games if rising costs and suits at these big companies weren't holding them back. But is that actually true? The indie scene shows even when today's game devs have more creative freedom than your average Triple A dev studio, a lot of them just end up making copies of what has come before.

It's hard to tell. The problem with the current AAA model is that more or less everyone is chewed up and spit out on each game. They're given a miserable, thankless job and even if the game turns out to be good, their contributions are ignored for whoever directed said game, maybe a few others. Some people here will say it doesn't matter because those people were incompetent. The thing is the good people are thrown out with the bad people too, and we don't know which is which because the good people have to work on shit in order to put food on the table. In order to make an indie game you have to have a certain lack of obligations and a spark of insanity which isn't going to describe every good game developer.

I think more recently things like the VGAs reveal an increasingly desperate desire on the part of the western industry and surrounding entertainment infrastructure to parasitically attach and associate themselves with the Japanese industry and scenes because that's almost exclusively where interesting things are happening. And as old hype dies and more mature eyes look upon the past the Western classics shelf is pretty bare compared to the Japanese library.

You're making several different observations and trying to tie them together in a weird way. Tying journalists inability to enjoy past western classics as said classics not being very good; Americans hating creatives as western games not being creative; Then pretending that the east doesn't have their own problems killing creatives and pretending journalists' current self-loathing isn't going to praise a Japanese title even if it's an inferior copy of a western game. Seriously, every single Japanese developer I can name who didn't work at Nintendo has been fucked just as hard as a western one, if not harder.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Am I allowed to say on this site that for the most part Western video games have never been creative?

I think more recently things like the VGAs reveal an increasingly desperate desire on the part of the western industry and surrounding entertainment infrastructure to parasitically attach and associate themselves with the Japanese industry and scenes because that's almost exclusively where interesting things are happening. And as old hype dies and more mature eyes look upon the past the Western classics shelf is pretty bare compared to the Japanese library.

Look at the companies being named in this event. Epic Games. Tencent. These peoples work and production models are so vulgar and profit oriented and devoid of redeeming artisanal elements that they might as well be pornographers for the most part. Genshin Impact at least has the decency to look nice and rip off good games, but I don't see any Chinese names here.

Western games that could have been called "creative" were always outliers, exception cases, generally performed poorly and got little support, and were often destroyed by the big companies like the ones named here. "Serial killer", as has already been said in this thread. The danger hairs and whatever are a serious problem, but these massive WESTERN corporate entities were always western gaming's biggest problem. But we have to emphasise WESTERN because Japanese corporations have never behaved like this. It's a distinctly western and especially AMERICAN thing. Sort of like the above VGAs thought, I think due to chauvinism and a kind of innate leftist resentment animosity towards the Japanese there's a desire to project our failings onto the Japanese among gamers because they simply mog us so hard as a nation that it makes our ongoing existence much harder to bear.

It's possible to support visionaries and artisans and even auteurs at the absurd scale video games have reached in 2024. The people in power to in our society chose not to. And frankly the sheer lack of taste and sense among western consumers was a significant factor in making that possible. America is so absurdly wired against the creation of art and culture and has been all along. I don't draw a line on this at any point in the history of video games. This problem is older than video games and has been holding them back all along. There was very little lost creativity. There is no point in the history of American video game production I would like to go back to. Everywhere else is mostly fine (American corporations raped a few euro-developers to death, rather serious shame).

Well there was Black Isle, Troika and Looking Glass. But yes, you're right.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Am I allowed to say on this site that for the most part Western video games have never been creative?

I think more recently things like the VGAs reveal an increasingly desperate desire on the part of the western industry and surrounding entertainment infrastructure to parasitically attach and associate themselves with the Japanese industry and scenes because that's almost exclusively where interesting things are happening. And as old hype dies and more mature eyes look upon the past the Western classics shelf is pretty bare compared to the Japanese library.

Look at the companies being named in this event. Epic Games. Tencent. These peoples work and production models are so vulgar and profit oriented and devoid of redeeming artisanal elements that they might as well be pornographers for the most part. Genshin Impact at least has the decency to look nice and rip off good games, but I don't see any Chinese names here.

Western games that could have been called "creative" were always outliers, exception cases, generally performed poorly and got little support, and were often destroyed by the big companies like the ones named here. "Serial killer", as has already been said in this thread. The danger hairs and whatever are a serious problem, but these massive WESTERN corporate entities were always western gaming's biggest problem. But we have to emphasise WESTERN because Japanese corporations have never behaved like this. It's a distinctly western and especially AMERICAN thing. Sort of like the above VGAs thought, I think due to chauvinism and a kind of innate leftist resentment animosity towards the Japanese there's a desire to project our failings onto the Japanese among gamers because they simply mog us so hard as a nation that it makes our ongoing existence much harder to bear.

It's possible to support visionaries and artisans and even auteurs at the absurd scale video games have reached in 2024. The people in power to in our society chose not to. And frankly the sheer lack of taste and sense among western consumers was a significant factor in making that possible. America is so absurdly wired against the creation of art and culture and has been all along. I don't draw a line on this at any point in the history of video games. This problem is older than video games and has been holding them back all along. There was very little lost creativity. There is no point in the history of American video game production I would like to go back to. Everywhere else is mostly fine (American corporations raped a few euro-developers to death, rather serious shame).

Well there was Black Isle, Troika and Looking Glass. But yes, you're right.

And NWC. And SSI. And Origin. And Old Blizzard. And Westwood. And Shiny. And id. And… the list goes on and on. If one’s personal preferences tend towards Japanese design sentiment then fair enough, but pretending there weren’t tons of western dev houses putting out extremely creative, innovative, and FUN games is just flat-out ignorant.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Old and Dead. Now you have Starfield. Enjoy your Toddslop.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

pre-halo there was lots of creativity. post-halo devs realized that ignorant retards are more than willing to spend if they didn't know what quality was, so the most important thing to do was to maintain the status-quo, if you showed quality to the aforementioned retards the game was over. all they had to do at that point was to gamergate the very few surviving honest people out of the business. we've already had several generations absolutely convinced that halo was not just the best fps, but one of the best games ever overall for ever and ever. i doubt there's a coming back from this.

 

[luj1]

Western games that could have been called "creative" were always outliers

This motherfucker never witnessed 1999 or 1996

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

1991

Aside from Lemmings, Another World, and Civilization, 1991 also saw the release of Death Knights of Krynn (2nd game in the Krynn/Dragonlance Gold Box trilogy), Pools of Darkness (4th game in the Gold Box quartet beginning with Pool of Radiance), Eye of the Beholder and its first sequel, Might & Magic III, Populous II, Alien Breed, Amnios, Blade Warrior, Carcharodon, Fate: Gates of Dawn, First Samurai, Hunter, Moonstone, Wayne Gretzky Hockey II, SimAnt, and Oh No! More Lemmings, leaving aside a few notable console and arcade releases.

 

[duskvile]

Top titles can cost up to $300 million to develop — the same as a blockbuster movie. And just as the film industry loaded up on superhero pictures, video-game makers are relying on well-known franchises as budgets balloon, according to executives at some of the industry’s top companies.

Is there problem with modern engines not having the emphasis on better and faster game production ? I saw a lot of devs concern about this.
For example, Unreal took a lot of work on reduction cost of movie production but every dev I know want to have Unreal scripting language like in Unity.

 

[Hellraiser]

Good, good, a crash is approaching.



While what comes after is unlikely to be much better and those most responsible will walk away with huge bags of money anyway, I will still take great pleasure in watching at least a part of it crash and burn.

 

[lycanwarrior]

You see a lot of the same issues in video games being discussed in movies, TV, sports and other entertainment industries.

Frankly, the malaise doesn't even sound all that different from the discussions around the increasingly unaffordable housing and auto markets.

Everyone talks about "solutions" and workarounds to these issues, but none of them (whether in gaming or housing) ultimately addresses the ROOT CAUSE!

The ultimate issue is the INSANE amount of money out there chasing the limited number of goods and services.

Even calling it inflation is too mild and watered down. It should be called CURRENCY DEBASEMENT.

In other words, our money is becoming more and more worthless. If not already useless already. Everything else is downstream from this fundamental phenomena IMHO.

Plenty of blame to go around, whether that's too many immigrants, welfare, corporate greed, government spending, the Federal Reserve/Central Banking, etc.

 

[ind33d]

there's probably a breakaway civilization playing Half-Life 3 and Chess Backgammon 2 right now, they just trickle out slop to us plebs

EDIT: apparently Chess 2 already exists

 

[Azdul]

You see a lot of the same issues in video games being discussed in movies, TV, sports and other entertainment industries.

Frankly, the malaise doesn't even sound all that different from the discussions around the increasingly unaffordable housing and auto markets.

Everyone talks about "solutions" and workarounds to these issues, but none of them (whether in gaming or housing) ultimately addresses the ROOT CAUSE!

The ultimate issue is the INSANE amount of money out there chasing the limited number of goods and services.

Even calling it inflation is too mild and watered down. It should be called CURRENCY DEBASEMENT.

In other words, our money is becoming more and more worthless. If not already useless already. Everything else is downstream from this fundamental phenomena IMHO.

Plenty of blame to go around, whether that's too many immigrants, welfare, corporate greed, government spending, the Federal Reserve/Central Banking, etc.

Monetary policies are not consistent around the world. There is no cabal of lizard people that decides that Switzerland or Russia cannot introduce gold standard.

However -global capital either invests in turbo capitalist countries or countries with cheap labour.

Going back to games -:crazy amounts are malinvested into initiatives that provide no benefit to consumers - like acquisition of developers, Nintendo or Take 2 legal teams, Stadia, Facebook and Sony VR, GamePass or GAAS.

The bubble had bursted - and capital is.moving away from vidya. People are stil buying games - but some companies scaled back their plans for taking over the world.

 

[GamerCat_]

I think more recently things like the VGAs reveal an increasingly desperate desire on the part of the western industry and surrounding entertainment infrastructure to parasitically attach and associate themselves with the Japanese industry and scenes because that's almost exclusively where interesting things are happening. And as old hype dies and more mature eyes look upon the past the Western classics shelf is pretty bare compared to the Japanese library.

You're making several different observations and trying to tie them together in a weird way. Tying journalists inability to enjoy past western classics as said classics not being very good; Americans hating creatives as western games not being creative; Then pretending that the east doesn't have their own problems killing creatives and pretending journalists' current self-loathing isn't going to praise a Japanese title even if it's an inferior copy of a western game. Seriously, every single Japanese developer I can name who didn't work at Nintendo has been fucked just as hard as a western one, if not harder.

I don't believe Americans are fundamentally lacking in creative potential. But on the whole America's creative output is very weak. This is an organisation and incentives problem, not a lack of raw human talent. America organised and run like Japan could compete with if not surpass it, but Japan embraced Hjalmar Schacht while America considered murdering him, and from there the different paths led to where we are today.

And the thing about the west being sparse on classics is my perception, not that of journalists. Those chauvinistic racist bastards will go to their graves certain that those stupid yellow monkey fuck bastards are ignorant perverted cretins incapable of producing anything good even as 99% of their media intake becomes Japanese.

I believe that the western, especially American canon is weak and lacking.

Excluding Nintendo from analysis of this issue is a pretty fucking huge and unjustified exception. Nintendo is probably the most artisan-friendly corporation on Earth, and what are you going to say? That it's a coincidence that it formed in Japan? It could have just as easily been the USA or Guatemala or Estonia? The Japanese are better to their artists. Every creative industry in Japan is an auteur uplifting artisan supporting machine of high quality output.

Japanese creative leads get kind of fucked now and then. But even during these hard times and disputes they're treated as artists, which I believe is a fundamental difference. For example, Kaga, the Fire Emblem guy. He had this big thing with Nintendo over whether or not the form of game he pioneered should be considered a general form anybody could replicate, or a specific thing which could be owned. And then whether it was his or Nintendo's. Nintendo got hard about this because his leaving them was taken personally. He wasn't seen as a potential financial asset that get away. He was seen as a person who betrayed the team.

The Japanese creative industries have this unique capacity to get personally vindictive with people. But I consider that far healthier than what America does with its artists, which is to basically view them as potentially cash generating assets to be discarded as soon as something better comes along. This is offensively anti-human, in addition to also being obviously wrong about how to make money when running a creative enterprise.

When Shigeru Miyamoto made Donkey Kong and it succeeded, Hiroshi Yamauchi recognised that Miyamoto would be a great source of success for Nintendo's future. Not Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong was great because Miyamoto was. So he treated Miyamoto well. And yes, if Miyamoto started talking to another company Yamauchi might have killed him. That kind of extreme negative treatment is only conceivable if you see and value your staff as humans.

Japanese and Americans both have stories of being fucked over in this industry. But if you look at these stories, something fundamentally different is happening in each country.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Old and Dead. Now you have Starfield. Enjoy your Toddslop.

Way to shift the goalposts. The argument as initially posited was that Western game design has NEVER been as creative as Japanese game design. And that’s just… really not true from where I’m standing, and I’m not sure how one can make that argument other than from a position of ignorance.

I haven’t played, and likely will never play, Starfield, but suggesting that it’s (or any game’s) existence is an argument that the Japanese development houses are inherently more liberally creative is a hot take of the highest order.

 

[REhorror]

Cleanse. Purge. Burn.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Old and Dead. Now you have Starfield. Enjoy your Toddslop.

Way to shift the goalposts. The argument as initially posited was that Western game design has NEVER been as creative as Japanese game design. And that’s just… really not true from where I’m standing, and I’m not sure how one can make that argument other than from a position of ignorance.

I haven’t played, and likely will never play, Starfield, but suggesting that it’s (or any game’s) existence is an argument that the Japanese development houses are inherently more liberally creative is a hot take of the highest order.

In the past, creatives were more respected in the industry. You had your Lord British, Warren Spector, Romero, Will Wright, Sid Meier, etc. Today, only franchises matter. Doing business the old way (aka doing business) has been gradually captured and destroyed by rent seeking sharks. And it continues. The only way to stop this would be politicians coming together and agree on a global capital gains tax and closing all tax havens, making it easier to tax capital flows and restore the power-balance between capital and labor. If this balance continues going out of whack, you'll lose a lot more than your precious games industry. Like Swen said, the issue is too much greed. But greed has become "normalized" in Kwanzania, less so in Japan.

 

[Reinhardt]

western developers were creative once upon a time. i mean japanese still copying wizardry formula to this day. but not anymore.
even western indies are just doing "pixelated deck building tower defence survival crafting simulators" slop in hope to ride on tail of success of someone who tried something. every idea will be killed, fucked, eaten, digested, shat, eaten again to infinity.

 

[GamerCat_]

Old and Dead. Now you have Starfield. Enjoy your Toddslop.

Way to shift the goalposts. The argument as initially posited was that Western game design has NEVER been as creative as Japanese game design. And that’s just… really not true from where I’m standing, and I’m not sure how one can make that argument other than from a position of ignorance.

I haven’t played, and likely will never play, Starfield, but suggesting that it’s (or any game’s) existence is an argument that the Japanese development houses are inherently more liberally creative is a hot take of the highest order.

In the past, creatives were more respected in the industry. You had your Lord British, Warren Spector, Romero, Will Wright, Sid Meier, etc. Today, only franchises matter. Doing business the old way (aka doing business) has been gradually captured and destroyed by rent seeking sharks. And it continues. The only way to stop this would be politicians coming together and agree on a global capital gains tax and closing all tax havens, making it easier to tax capital flows and restore the power-balance between capital and labor. If this balance continues going out of whack, you'll lose a lot more than your precious games industry. Like Swen said, the issue is too much greed. But greed has become "normalized" in Kwanzania, less so in Japan.

Were these men respected, or just incidentally enabled? If they were respected, what happened? You can say the money happened, but I don't think anything that deserves to be called "respect" evaporates that easily. Money happened to Japan. And they did not fire everyone to replace them with indian slaves to create clones of successful products.

I do think you're right to identify crass financial incentives as a serious problem. Investigation of Japanese economic history here might be enlightening and offer some more practical ideas.

Disempower shareholders. Only give central bank loans to industry that creates real value. Incentivise company loyalty and competition within industry with limits against undercutting national rivals. In America the shareholders won these battles and now benefit from nobody talking about them anymore. All opposition is funneled into "communism". But of course nobody would call Japan a communist country. Perhaps a certain brand of socialist though...

western developers were creative once upon a time. i mean japanese still copying wizardry formula to this day. but not anymore.
even western indies are just doing "pixelated deck building tower defence survival crafting simulators" slop in hope to ride on tail of success of someone who tried something. every idea will be killed, fucked, eaten, digested, shat, eaten again to infinity.

That's a certain kind of creativity, sure. But who's still playing Wizardry today, compared to old Final Fantasy games? American innovation in video games was driven and cursed by its well developed STEM field. Wizardry is an interesting and novel piece of technical work, but it's only art as far as it's fine and idiosyncratic craftsmanship. It's video games as toys for computer enthusiasts. The Japanese took the wizardry formula and incorporated it into multimedia art. That makes all the difference and is what gives their work lasting life. How many of the "creatives" named in this thread is this true for? American nerd creates a technical novelty to amuse himself, the Japanese artfag sees this and reconstrues it to express himself. The latter vision wins and outlasts every time.

What the Japanese do is not comparable to the "steam trend car crash" school of gamedesign. The Japanese are very naive and sincere for the most part in their imitation. They elevate what they take. That something as simple and silly as Wizardry could serve as the seed of a creative genealogy leading up to a work like Final Fantasy 7 should be considered miraculous. Spiritual alchemy. The Japanese made it gold.

 

[Ash]

The 90s was just gold, period. Japanese and western devs (namely American and British) were absolutely knocking it out of the park. There is no beating that era. If you know, you know.

 

[Baron Tahn]

Golden ages mean creatives get paid and the quality of art increases because more people are wealthy enough to support vibrant culture. We see this with U.S post WWII with the hollywood age and that bled into games and PCs during the beginning of its decline. May as well be a crumbled ruin post 2000ish.

Now all the creatives are in advertising, which is the only way to get paid - and holy SHIT does it pay, compared to making actual creative prpducts like movies, paintings, music or games. You want the creatives back you need to stop forking out money for crap and learn how to defend against brainwashing. Aint gonna happen.

A good marker for who is rising into a golden age is where all the innovative new games, mediums and ideas are coming from.

 

[GamerCat_]

Golden ages mean creatives get paid and the quality of art increases because more people are wealthy enough to support vibrant culture. We see this with U.S post WWII with the hollywood age and that bled into games and PCs during the beginning of its decline. May as well be a crumbled ruin post 2000ish.

Nobody loves postwar Hollywood. And Japan had some of their best times in gaming in the aftermath of their economy exploding. Countless creative innovations are made by poorfags working on the fringes of industry, and general prosperity has very little correlation with quality.

Now all the creatives are in advertising, which is the only way to get paid - and holy SHIT does it pay, compared to making actual creative prpducts like movies, paintings, music or games. You want the creatives back you need to stop forking out money for crap and learn how to defend against brainwashing. Aint gonna happen.

Nobody in that retarded excuse for an industry is worth anything. Can you name a single great creative who went into advertising? Or one who came from it? Prospects for working in video games in any kind of meaningful sense being awful are probably bouncing a lot of people, but we aren't losing them to marketing in particular. They're just becoming normalfag job havers of any kind, or probably increasingly likely, lost burnouts.

You really need pathways people can follow to get creative led work at scale. Video games don't have this. In film you can at least make a smaller film or something if you impress people in school, or with an amateur work. In video games you can do things yourself, but this is very hard, and then what? Nobody's going to put you in charge of the next Activision game because you made Brutal Doom. You continue being an "indie" forever. Or you build your own studio starting at zero and you'll never catch up to AA so don't bother. Compare this to Shinji Mikami's backstory.

Show up, they like you, you become a probationary ideas guy, and after a few years you're allowed to utilise the company's resources to make Resident Evil.

Sure, video games are so damn big now that nobody's backstory can be this miraculous. But even in the 2000s

In Japan there's an inherent understanding in their video game culture that there's a certain type of person who is just good for this, and you take them in and give them a chance. Not every company is doing things like this, but this is a very common class of creative person backstory. In Japan this happens in video games. In America this happened countless times in film, but video games always excluded and selected against this type with their iron curtain of STEM autism. I think this unfortunate idea, that COMPUTER people are the natural types to lead video games, dovetails very well with the American masochism and innate spiritual communist hatred of outliers and talent over WORK.

The idea of the ideas guy is a subject of derision and scorn in America (and broader english speaking culture) perhaps not because this is absurd (if you look at Japan it's obvious that ideas guys are real and essential) but instead because American culture has been taken over by resentment and small people with mean minds. America produces plenty of men like Shinji Mikami and Hidetaka Miyazaki. But it's not giving them a shot in high stakes creative industries. It's spitting on them and trying to brutalise them into serving as self-loathing tax-cattle. If you aren't valuable out the box as a programming slave you aren't being allowed anywhere near video game development, unless you are a woman or non-white, in which case enjoy your place on the design committee. Always by committee, centralised leadership is fascist and scary.

A good marker for who is rising into a golden age is where all the innovative new games, mediums and ideas are coming from.

Japan then and Japan now.

 

[Baron Tahn]

I didnt read your shit essay. I can say however that working in sonys advertising department, or in tv ads, pays SHITloads more by the day than working in a regular tv show does, from personal experience. Indeed its how they are poaching good creatives out of the industry and straight out of uni too.

 

[Hellraiser]

While you can certainly blame corporate culture differences on why Japanese AAA might be less retarded in some areas, drawing the conclusion that it's because the american one promotes autistic computer science engineers to designers rather than creatives is silly. The problem is marketing (or rather it being risk averse/prone to following the leader), design by committee, investor activism (read: whining about revenue/stock value growth), micromanagement from clueless suits and various other corporate cancers restricting what project teams can do.

When Tim Cain and the other guys made Fallout nobody gave a shit and bothered the team, just like with the example of Miyazaki and Demon Souls, same fucking scenario, the company thought it would fail but let it go on anyway so they and the teams could do what they want. When Cain started talking on bits and pieces of how work on TOW looked like you notice how much bullshit at Obsidian was getting in the way when he tried to do X or Y, and honestly at this point I am willing to absolve him from at least some of the blame for it being a turd because it is clear he was constrained by organizational bullshit to some degree.

Finally I wouldn't dismiss engineers as not being creative or bad fits to lead creative teams, they aren't bureaucrats from the city hall or from a bank. You can't design a decent system or machine if you aren't creative, you can't make a design into reality in any kind of organization without some people skills or at least the ability to recognize the competence and skill of others, just like you can't make breakthroughs in other STEM fields without thinking outside of the box to some degree.

 

[GamerCat_]

While you can certainly blame corporate culture differences on why Japanese AAA might be less retarded in some areas, drawing the conclusion that it's because the american one promotes autistic computer science engineers to designers rather than creatives is silly.

The STEM autism is more like a historic phenomena with bad lingering influence. They are obviously not running games now. The history of the American game is STEM toy into more complex STEM toy into Hollywood but skipping almost straight to the current lowpoint of Hollywood. Historically western games weren't promoting these people. That suggests a spread of candidates. They're just the only ones who got in, because there was never really much supporting infrastructure that would uplift people. You got in by making. Which I believe did more harm than good. Not many artfags are really the drawn to computers for stem types. Best case is an artfag learning enough computers to do artfag stuff because they got interested in the possibilities of video games in a less stembug way (the common british backstory, like Peter Molyneux).

The problem is marketing (or rather it being risk averse/prone to following the leader), design by committee, investor activism (read: whining about revenue/stock value growth), micromanagement from clueless suits and various other corporate cancers restricting what project teams can do.

These are symptoms of not having real leadership or purpose to projects. Everything is run via the diffuse influence of parasites when there's no master will to overpower and suppress them.

When Tim Cain and the other guys made Fallout nobody gave a shit and bothered the team, just like with the example of Miyazaki and Demon Souls, same fucking scenario, the company thought it would fail but let it go on anyway so they and the teams could do what they want. When Cain started talking on bits and pieces of how work on TOW looked like you notice how much bullshit at Obsidian was getting in the way when he tried to do X or Y, and honestly at this point I am willing to absolve him from at least some of the blame for it being a turd because it is clear he was constrained by organizational bullshit to some degree.

Americans could only do interesting things as far as they were beneath notice. There's no positive cultural force behind the idea that games should be good because it's nice to make good things, and that this should be facilitated from above. Have you ever heard about a good looking project that meant something to its creators being enabled from above in this industry? The closest people come to enabled are small poppy creeps like Ken Levine and Neil Druckmann who actually have rather minimal will and vision and are basically a face pasted on top of design by committee. They're allowed because it's understood that they play to all of the miserable anti-art trends that maximise SELLpower and cheap institutional prestige (which also allows you to farm more money from rubes, sell the thing again with a GAME OF THE YEAR subtitle).

Finally I wouldn't dismiss engineers as not being creative or bad fits to lead creative teams, they aren't bureaucrats from the city hall or from a bank. You can't design a decent system or machine if you aren't creative, you can't make a design into reality in any kind of organization without some people skills or at least the ability to recognize the competence and skill of others, just like you can't make breakthroughs in other STEM fields without thinking outside of the box to some degree.

They're great artisans. I consider John Carmack one of the most important men in the history of video games. But despite his good work, I consider him someone the industry has to grow past. Great tools and technical miracles can come from enabling this man. But creatively, he's a solution in search of a problem. You can build incredible things on the work of John Carmack. But in isolation, John Carmack won't do anything of lasting artistic interest. Unless you want to call particularly brilliant technical work "art", and there is something to that. But it's only of so much interest to me and not what I play video games for. This is all largely semantic. John Carmack is very "creative" and what he does is "art", but he doesn't make complete video games of the kind I enjoy. I don't believe any engineers have. Though they've done many brilliant things.