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To me it was more prominent in the 90s, with names like John Romero, Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, American McGee, Tim Schafer, and so on. I think that after the

To me it was more prominent in the 90s, with names like John Romero, Peter Molyneux, Will Wright, American McGee, Tim Schafer, and so on. I think that after they failed to deliver in one way or another, their names faded into obscurity from pop culture, and weren't replaced by new ones. There are two possible reasons for this: either consumers realized that these creators were never the geniuses they were propped up to be (I find this unlikely), or the big companies realized that they didn't really like the idea of having these rockstar designers doing whatever they wanted instead of what the shareholders wanted. The idea of the genius designer is therefore much more prevalent in smaller indie studios, where somebody makes an innovative game basically single-handedly, and then becomes known throughout the community

willis936 7y ago
It has everything to do with the big-businessification of the industry. As soon as people with money realized there was a growing market they dumped tons of money into it. You can't just allow a risk such as having a person put their name on art, since that person might one day give you the finger and do something else. In reality you can't even tolerate the risk of making art. That's the games industry today. Kojima got away with it because his eccentric egotism meant that he could put his name down hard and fast before that privilege was taken away. And while Konami were trying to take it he made a point to put his name on everything even more so that when they did show him the door he'd have an exit strategy. He's one weird dude but at least his games are art and was the one person to be able to tell a publisher to eat dirt.
mikepurvis 7y ago
Even with indie, it's often the studio that has the reputation more than the individual— thinking like Klei, Supergiant, Drinkbox. Unless you watch GDC talks or Noclip docs, you wouldn't really know who the people are who are involved in those companies. That said, there are of course exceptions— thinking Jonathan Blow and Edmund McMillen. But even in those cases, their name recognition is probably more about them having been featured in widely-watched documentaries than because their names are front-and-centre in their creations.
NoodleIncident 7y ago
Bennett Foddy has a GDC talk with another indie game developer (whose name I've ironically forgotten) about how good of an idea it is to release indie games under your own name. At the scale of an indie game, you're not likely to release another game with the same group of people, but you are likely to work on another game yourself.

willis936 7y ago

It has everything to do with the big-businessification of the industry. As soon as people with money realized there was a growing market they dumped tons of money into it. You can't just allow a risk such as having a person put their name on art, since that person might one day give you the finger and do something else. In reality you can't even tolerate the risk of making art. That's the games industry today. Kojima got away with it because his eccentric egotism meant that he could put his name down hard and fast before that privilege was taken away. And while Konami were trying to take it he made a point to put his name on everything even more so that when they did show him the door he'd have an exit strategy. He's one weird dude but at least his games are art and was the one person to be able to tell a publisher to eat dirt.

mikepurvis 7y ago

Even with indie, it's often the studio that has the reputation more than the individual— thinking like Klei, Supergiant, Drinkbox. Unless you watch GDC talks or Noclip docs, you wouldn't really know who the people are who are involved in those companies. That said, there are of course exceptions— thinking Jonathan Blow and Edmund McMillen. But even in those cases, their name recognition is probably more about them having been featured in widely-watched documentaries than because their names are front-and-centre in their creations.

NoodleIncident 7y ago

Bennett Foddy has a GDC talk with another indie game developer (whose name I've ironically forgotten) about how good of an idea it is to release indie games under your own name. At the scale of an indie game, you're not likely to release another game with the same group of people, but you are likely to work on another game yourself.