Games – Art vs Product
This medium is still maturing away from the purely technical games design (racing games, RTS, sports simulations etc), away from the cliched, pulpy, teenage male wish fulfilment stories (FPS, pretty much any Japanese RPG) and it has a long way to go. This isn't helped by videogames having a combination of a high barrier of entry and corporate control of the “product”.
Games we all know of, like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, Killer7 and No More Heroes, Rez and Amplitude are triumphs of more than one “USP” or unique visual style (arguably unlike Okami, beautiful though it is). They are the result of a purity of a singular vision from Fumito Ueda, Goichi Suda (aka SUDA-51), and Tetsuya Mizuguchi respectively. Yes, they all work with a development team, but their investment in the game is more than simply creating a design document then sharing it on the company intranet with a comment “Make this!”. These are all games which could never have been made by committee. They needed individuals with creative talent across many disciplines to direct them from inception to Gold Master.
These are the lucky few who have three things:
1) The artistic talent to create such works of art
2) The production ability and people skills to be the “director” of the project and make sure everyone is working towards their vision
3) The corporate backing to be allowed to do something so individual
In the current risk-averse climate it is exceptionally rare that a game developer/publisher gives a single person the confidence (and then the money) to produce such works.
I'm sure there are designers out there who can create works like these. Problem is they are currently rotting away inside development studios, gradually being worn down by the need to “fit” the game to focus testing, demographic analyses, ignorant marketing demands and ridiculous feature requests that they have cried out all their talent, now content to fill in blank “Concept Approval Document” templates with the features they know the board will sign off on with the least amount of hassle.
How can this change? Essentially, the creative side needs to be almost completely divorced from the business side of the industry. Yes, the publisher still controls the money and release schedule and has a say if they think things are going off the rails, but they need to trust the individual to deliver their vision.
How can this come about?
1) We need publishers willing to take risks on talent. Not IP or the worth of the development studio, but artists. There needs to be someone on the board who has a knack of spotting good creatives (because they are creatives themselves) and has the vision to see what the game will look and play like. Someone who understands the creative process and is willing to let those they know have talent make great works and learn to market the results properly. As long as the process of signing games is based purely on product to fill schedules to satisfying the shareholders and the limited focus of what these people know how to sell, we will never see the nurturing of any new talent.
2) Alternatively (and less realistically it has to be said) Angel investors or wealthy mentors could provide backing for those videogame artists whose work they admire. Traditional art history is as old as human history and is an easily recognisable form of artistic expression. Movies are over 100 years old and such arrangements have been commonplace for lower budget films for many years. However videogames are still seen as “entertainment product” meaning most people rarely venture beyond their preconceptions of the medium to start investing money in it.
3) Lower the barrier of entry to the industry. With the millions devoted to crowd-pleasing, competitive graphics the risk has to be small for the publisher, and so the generic flourishes. Cheaper development means bigger risks can be taken. And if anyone baulks at that suggestion saying “My artistic vision cannot be limited by money!” then you are not a true artist. A good artist can be wildly creative with the most limited of palettes, and the analogy follows into videogames.
Things are slowly changing on consoles with things like Wii Ware and the XBOX and PS3 stores where the development costs are less and potential exposure very high. On the PC there are still active MOD communities (although not so much nowadays), Microsoft's XNA Game Studio, several low-cost game engine/studio solutions (such as 3D Game Studio, Torque Game Engine, and Unity) and the simple fact that anyone can learn a programming language, graphics package or try and team up with some like-minded individuals to create their art.
And that's it really. Not complicated, just unlikely 🙂
Relevant links:
Fumito Ueda talks at Nordic Game Conference 2008
