5 ms·

I'm not sure that in the present day of massive teams and > $100 million budgets that there's much room for new celebrity game developers to emerge on that scal

I'm not sure that in the present day of massive teams and > $100 million budgets that there's much room for new celebrity game developers to emerge on that scale. Pretty much every gamer knows who he is. Now, even the biggest breakthrough indie game with a 5 person dev team wouldn't become a household name. These days it's the studios themselves that get most of the credit. Which may only be fair: When there's 100+ people on a project, it's such a group effort that singling out a handful doesn't really represent the achievement.

adamrezich 5y ago
well yeah there's less crucial core stuff to pioneer these days
- VRay 5y ago
  nobody's figured out a UX for VR yet so far as I know
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    it's a much bigger problem space with lots of different ways to do things based on hardware capability etc.
the_lonely_road 5y ago
I think you are right. The closest I can come to a modern example would be Darkest Dungeon (made by 2 people) and Slay the Spire/Stardew Valley (both made by single devs) however owing to your point I don’t remember their names despite reading about them at least a few times. I would recognize John Carmacks face in a crowded room not to mention obviously unlikely to ever forget his name.
- IggleSniggle 5y ago
  Now that you mention it, I know the names of a few of the roguelikes I play. I think part of this stems from it being the work of very small teams that ALSO do all their own game marketing, so your “representative” for the game is the creator themselves. Dwarf Fortress comes to mind, and I know it’s made by Tarn and his brother, but I don’t know their last name…but I guess it’s not exactly modern. Similarly, Kyzrati/Josh Ge, of Cogmind & REXpaint fame, and pender/Brian Walker. To the point above about “who does the representing,” even though I happen to know their names, I think of them by their monikers, pender and Kyzrati, not their real-world names.
- twright0 5y ago
  I believe Megacrit, which built Slay the Spire, is two people, Casey Yano and Anthony Giovannetti. But to the broader point I knew the name of the studio off the top of my head while I needed to look up the names of the individuals.
- sizediterable 5y ago
  Toby Fox and Undertale also comes to mind
- m4rtink 5y ago
  Dwarf Fortress?
rblatz 5y ago
It’s not as recent as it seems in my mind, but Notch is a relatively well known game dev. And in the younger crowd he may be even well known than Carmack.
- albrewer 5y ago
  Ever since Mojang was sold to MS in 2014, I'd say his notoriety has dropped quite a bit. Most people that would have been familiar with him are now in their mid teens at the youngest.
  - kllrnohj 5y ago
    Even before Notch left I'd say others like Jeb or Dinnerbone were more commonly known in the Minecraft communities as they were more active in the community & posting about upcoming things. (then of course Notch went off the deep end and most communities rapidly began distancing themselves from him...)
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      And the fame associated with these names was only possible because they canes from a small indie group that broke through to the mainstream so massively successful that I can't think of any other example on that scale in the last decade. In the 90's and early 00's, many big names practically were studio, the brand.
      - kllrnohj 5y ago
        There are definitely still "well known names" in the indie scene. They may not hit mainstream success, but there's for example there's some pretty well known members of the Factorio team in the Factorio community (kovarex & Klonan come to mind). There's people like Maddy Thorson of Towerfall & Celeste fame. If they decide to embrace it I imagine one of the very few people on the team behind Valheim would also fit this, but it doesn't seem like they are interested in that. There are still small indie groups that make breakout or successful games that hit mainstream awareness (Untitled Goose Game anyone?), but it seems like many prefer to use a company branded twitter than make their own name(s) public or just let the game stand on its own.
omega3 5y ago
It happened recently with Markus Persson and Jonathan Blow.
- klohto 5y ago
  Jonathan is definitely not on the same scale as Notch. There is only a brief period where Jonathan was well known and mainly due to Indie Game: The Movie
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Most people on AAA studios certainly know Jonathan, if nothing else for his contributions at GDC.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  That wasn't a dev coming out of a major studio though, which is what I think is significantly harder these days. Notch got there only because it was a small indie team that hit a black swan event to hit the mainstream in a massive way, at the same time that it caught fire on YouTube with many current game streamers and channels having their roots in the early days of Minecraft videos. Had Minecraft come from a major studio, even hitting it just as big, I don't think we associate it nearly as much with particular devs, and I can't think of another indie hitting it like that in the last decade. But if big names do still emerge, I think it will be from small breakthrough indie teams.
sumedh 5y ago
I guess you remember the names who make history. You remember the names of the astronauts who first went to the moon but no-one knows the names of the other people who went to the moon.
pie420 5y ago
Cliff Bleszinski worked on $100M+ projects, Martin O'Donnell did, so did Notch. Definitely still possible.
blackoil 5y ago
Don't know about the person or his work/fame, but Brendan Greene is PlayerUnknown(PU) in PUBG.
meheleventyone 5y ago
Fame in gaming has largely moved into “content creators”. The most famous game developers are almost certainly YouTubers first and game developers second. There are some fairly big channels now that produce memey content about making games in nearly exactly the same way as people make memey content about Minecraft or Fortnite. People like danidev: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIabPXjvT5BVTxRDPCBBOOQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIabPXjvT5BVTxRDPCBBOOQ
- ineedasername 5y ago
  I think you may have a point. I don't play Fortnite, but I know who Ninja is, and casual observers of the gaming world pretty much know his name regardless of playing fortnite. (Though he's not a game dev). It is an interesting trend that players can now become more famous for playing a game than the people that create the game. However I think that's only possible with the advent of user-created content: Minecraft gameplay on YouTube ~2012-2013 was a big driver in Minecraft's popularity and catalyst for mote activity like that. I think gaming culture would have reached this point without Minecraft, but as it stands right now it was the foundation of the massive gaming channels and streaming.
  - meheleventyone 5y ago
    It’s not that unusual that players get famous for playing games rather than developers. Games are much more active way of engaging with media and playing the game is a far more common experience than making it. Streaming and gaming personalities both pre-date Minecraft but for sure it’s had a massive cultural impact. Particularly in terms of the growth of an audience through all the kids participating.
cm2012 5y ago
ConcernedApe with StarDew valley has more revenue than any sega genesis game had back in the day.
wolverine876 5y ago
> These days it's the studios themselves that get most of the credit. It certainly serves the studios' interests to reduce their talents' market power. If customers recognized individual devs and wanted games made by them, those devs could demand more money and more influence.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Very true. Atari did it deliberately with their devs. Probably to their detriment: Having big name devs with their own brands would only have brought more attention to the market. Who cares if they make they own game studio? Atari would still get royalties on cartridges sold. With today's game studios though, they aren't the platform owner, so a game dev with a personal brand branching off to do their own thing is still a net loss for them. I wonder if they have rules in place about that sort of thing. I could even take the appearance of something benign & reasonable: "No one talks to the press, everything to the press comes out of PR & marketing" If that's the case, there may very well be a dozen Carmacks in the big dev studios that made something seemingly impossible happen, and without whom their games would simply have died, or been flops. Then again with that level of fame, failures hit the individual quite a bit harder than the dev teams as well. Look at someone like Warren Spector, Richard Garriot, or Dennis Dyack. I might read each of their examples as situations where their singular influence on their games and rise to fame ultimately lead to their failures & blame as well. It created a lot of pressure (somewhat self-imposed to be sure) to do something bigger & better each iteration that they eventually couldn't keep up. A situation made worse along the way by financial backers giving them too much money to develop, meaning the devs didn't have to think as critically about what to include and what to prune from games. It lead to games that were a mess of shiny features or broken promises lacking a solid core. Fame cuts both ways.
tylorr 5y ago
Some names that come to mind are Jonathan Blow, Rami Ismail and Edmund McMillen

adamrezich 5y ago

well yeah there's less crucial core stuff to pioneer these days

VRay 5y ago
nobody's figured out a UX for VR yet so far as I know
- adamrezich 5y ago
  it's a much bigger problem space with lots of different ways to do things based on hardware capability etc.

the_lonely_road 5y ago

I think you are right. The closest I can come to a modern example would be Darkest Dungeon (made by 2 people) and Slay the Spire/Stardew Valley (both made by single devs) however owing to your point I don’t remember their names despite reading about them at least a few times. I would recognize John Carmacks face in a crowded room not to mention obviously unlikely to ever forget his name.

IggleSniggle 5y ago
Now that you mention it, I know the names of a few of the roguelikes I play. I think part of this stems from it being the work of very small teams that ALSO do all their own game marketing, so your “representative” for the game is the creator themselves. Dwarf Fortress comes to mind, and I know it’s made by Tarn and his brother, but I don’t know their last name…but I guess it’s not exactly modern. Similarly, Kyzrati/Josh Ge, of Cogmind & REXpaint fame, and pender/Brian Walker. To the point above about “who does the representing,” even though I happen to know their names, I think of them by their monikers, pender and Kyzrati, not their real-world names.
twright0 5y ago
I believe Megacrit, which built Slay the Spire, is two people, Casey Yano and Anthony Giovannetti. But to the broader point I knew the name of the studio off the top of my head while I needed to look up the names of the individuals.
sizediterable 5y ago
Toby Fox and Undertale also comes to mind
m4rtink 5y ago
Dwarf Fortress?

rblatz 5y ago

It’s not as recent as it seems in my mind, but Notch is a relatively well known game dev. And in the younger crowd he may be even well known than Carmack.

albrewer 5y ago
Ever since Mojang was sold to MS in 2014, I'd say his notoriety has dropped quite a bit. Most people that would have been familiar with him are now in their mid teens at the youngest.
- kllrnohj 5y ago
  Even before Notch left I'd say others like Jeb or Dinnerbone were more commonly known in the Minecraft communities as they were more active in the community & posting about upcoming things. (then of course Notch went off the deep end and most communities rapidly began distancing themselves from him...)
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    And the fame associated with these names was only possible because they canes from a small indie group that broke through to the mainstream so massively successful that I can't think of any other example on that scale in the last decade. In the 90's and early 00's, many big names practically were studio, the brand.
    - kllrnohj 5y ago
      There are definitely still "well known names" in the indie scene. They may not hit mainstream success, but there's for example there's some pretty well known members of the Factorio team in the Factorio community (kovarex & Klonan come to mind). There's people like Maddy Thorson of Towerfall & Celeste fame. If they decide to embrace it I imagine one of the very few people on the team behind Valheim would also fit this, but it doesn't seem like they are interested in that. There are still small indie groups that make breakout or successful games that hit mainstream awareness (Untitled Goose Game anyone?), but it seems like many prefer to use a company branded twitter than make their own name(s) public or just let the game stand on its own.

omega3 5y ago

It happened recently with Markus Persson and Jonathan Blow.

klohto 5y ago
Jonathan is definitely not on the same scale as Notch. There is only a brief period where Jonathan was well known and mainly due to Indie Game: The Movie
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Most people on AAA studios certainly know Jonathan, if nothing else for his contributions at GDC.
ineedasername 5y ago
That wasn't a dev coming out of a major studio though, which is what I think is significantly harder these days. Notch got there only because it was a small indie team that hit a black swan event to hit the mainstream in a massive way, at the same time that it caught fire on YouTube with many current game streamers and channels having their roots in the early days of Minecraft videos. Had Minecraft come from a major studio, even hitting it just as big, I don't think we associate it nearly as much with particular devs, and I can't think of another indie hitting it like that in the last decade. But if big names do still emerge, I think it will be from small breakthrough indie teams.

sumedh 5y ago

I guess you remember the names who make history. You remember the names of the astronauts who first went to the moon but no-one knows the names of the other people who went to the moon.

pie420 5y ago

Cliff Bleszinski worked on $100M+ projects, Martin O'Donnell did, so did Notch. Definitely still possible.

blackoil 5y ago

Don't know about the person or his work/fame, but Brendan Greene is PlayerUnknown(PU) in PUBG.

meheleventyone 5y ago

Fame in gaming has largely moved into “content creators”. The most famous game developers are almost certainly YouTubers first and game developers second. There are some fairly big channels now that produce memey content about making games in nearly exactly the same way as people make memey content about Minecraft or Fortnite. People like danidev: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIabPXjvT5BVTxRDPCBBOOQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIabPXjvT5BVTxRDPCBBOOQ

ineedasername 5y ago
I think you may have a point. I don't play Fortnite, but I know who Ninja is, and casual observers of the gaming world pretty much know his name regardless of playing fortnite. (Though he's not a game dev). It is an interesting trend that players can now become more famous for playing a game than the people that create the game. However I think that's only possible with the advent of user-created content: Minecraft gameplay on YouTube ~2012-2013 was a big driver in Minecraft's popularity and catalyst for mote activity like that. I think gaming culture would have reached this point without Minecraft, but as it stands right now it was the foundation of the massive gaming channels and streaming.
- meheleventyone 5y ago
  It’s not that unusual that players get famous for playing games rather than developers. Games are much more active way of engaging with media and playing the game is a far more common experience than making it. Streaming and gaming personalities both pre-date Minecraft but for sure it’s had a massive cultural impact. Particularly in terms of the growth of an audience through all the kids participating.

cm2012 5y ago

ConcernedApe with StarDew valley has more revenue than any sega genesis game had back in the day.

wolverine876 5y ago

> These days it's the studios themselves that get most of the credit. It certainly serves the studios' interests to reduce their talents' market power. If customers recognized individual devs and wanted games made by them, those devs could demand more money and more influence.

ineedasername 5y ago
Very true. Atari did it deliberately with their devs. Probably to their detriment: Having big name devs with their own brands would only have brought more attention to the market. Who cares if they make they own game studio? Atari would still get royalties on cartridges sold. With today's game studios though, they aren't the platform owner, so a game dev with a personal brand branching off to do their own thing is still a net loss for them. I wonder if they have rules in place about that sort of thing. I could even take the appearance of something benign & reasonable: "No one talks to the press, everything to the press comes out of PR & marketing" If that's the case, there may very well be a dozen Carmacks in the big dev studios that made something seemingly impossible happen, and without whom their games would simply have died, or been flops. Then again with that level of fame, failures hit the individual quite a bit harder than the dev teams as well. Look at someone like Warren Spector, Richard Garriot, or Dennis Dyack. I might read each of their examples as situations where their singular influence on their games and rise to fame ultimately lead to their failures & blame as well. It created a lot of pressure (somewhat self-imposed to be sure) to do something bigger & better each iteration that they eventually couldn't keep up. A situation made worse along the way by financial backers giving them too much money to develop, meaning the devs didn't have to think as critically about what to include and what to prune from games. It lead to games that were a mess of shiny features or broken promises lacking a solid core. Fame cuts both ways.

tylorr 5y ago

Some names that come to mind are Jonathan Blow, Rami Ismail and Edmund McMillen