"auteurs": s&d

who are your favourite and least favourite videogames "auteurs"?

classic or dud, as well

Does Sid Meier count? I've been into his games since Civ 1. Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri were esp. great, the latter even having a pretty good story.

i dont think this exists

^^^was part of my motivation for starting the thread, hence the scare quotes - the theory's largely questioned in film, as well, where no one dudette can make something which is the product of competing economic, physical, and artistic forces. however to the extent that it might exist for vgs on the face of it, are the 'auteurs' just the most vocal and public-facing of companies' PR machine (cliffy b)... or are they really the directing hand, their PR-function coming later (cliffy b)?

is sid meier an 'auteur'? dunno, what does it mean to be a vg auteur?

if it means anything

x-posted for ref: Ebert Video Game Commentary Hullabaloo

this might have existed back in the day when games were written by either one guy or a bunch of brothers, but i dunno about now. my lack of knowledge of the internal workings of VG production doesn't help me either.

i'll say Archer Mclean

gollop x:

To the extent that an analogy with film holds up, I think you can certainly recognize the voice/style/predilections of a certain key figure - I mean, it's not coincidence that Pirates and Civ have a lot in common, you know?

So, accepting the premise of the thread, I'd have to say Sid Meier, and Richard Garriott of Origin (who actually did start out as the dude in his parents' attic making these things all by himself). The later OSI work kind of tarnished his reputation, but you look at the first 7.5 Ultima games and you have to say they're pretty fabulous.

Miyamoto surely? Hideo Kojima has done great stuff, of course. I really Suda 51 and Grasshopper's games, as flawed as their usually are, they make up for it with personality.

Here's the thing - I think most of the personalities that have broken out as auteurs have been good, even guys like CliffyB have produced exactly what his audience wants to a certain respectable level of quality. Sure, you have your odd Peter Molyneuxs who made maybe one good game and have been desperately trying to coast on it for years and years, but people like Will Wright and Sid Meier have brought their personal visions and advanced the industry as a whole through their efforts.

I think there's more games being developed by small, or even one person teams now than ever before (I could be wrong). Some of these folks are definitely trying to make games with a little more personal vision...

a few off the top of my head (or from my bookmarks)...

http://nifflas.ni2.se/index.php?main=01Home
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/
http://www.cavestory.org/downloads_1.php
not out yet, but looks promising http://eriksvedang.wordpress.com/blueberrygarden/
ditto http://ibbandobb.com/
played the demo http://www.crayonphysics.com/
some of his other stuff http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games
everyday shooter
braid
two person team (I think) http://www.thewayoftheninja.org/n.html

This piece on Jason Rohrer is pretty interesting.
http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208

And yeah, n+ team is two people (although they outsourced much of the porting to PSP/DS/360)

i dont think the size of the development team matters, really, because the relationship between "author" and player are so different in games than in film. i mean, ive worked on indie games and yah they're an expersion of personal vision to an extent but yr also, weirdly, constantly colloborating with this unseen player.

i feel i may be setting up a false binary i dont know anything about auteur theory beyond an ex's commentary during boring new wave films we watched together but... i strongly distrust attempts to think about video games in film terms.

I jsut think there's a lot to be said for someone curating a game's overall presentation; games are, perhaps even more than films, very prone to feeling like the parts are disparate, since the physics programmer and the texture artist are SO far removed fomr each other, know what i mean?