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> Many of the indie darlings from that era would be lost in the noise now. What to make of the absence of A-lister game development personalities? There are ma

> Many of the indie darlings from that era would be lost in the noise now. What to make of the absence of A-lister game development personalities? There are maybe exactly zero. Notch disgraced himself, and he may be the single only person to have ever gotten into the regular person popular consciousness enough. In the near past, Sid Meier and Will Wright had their names on games, but I guess not in a memorable enough way. I'm not sure anyone watched the three or so TV series about John Carmack and John Romero. Gabe Newell, Shigeru Miyamoto, Sam Houser, Tim Schafer, Hideo Kojima... A baby boomer is not going to recognize any of these names. None of these names pass the "Mom, have you heard of..." test. So there will be lots of noise. There are benefits to this - the absence of a system - though. - no institutional power: As you may have experienced, there's no one taste maker. When you are trying to market for $0, it's literally all serendipity. - the heritage: There's no such thing as a nepo baby in game development. All those ex-Blizzard people have just as little chance of making something anyone plays as you do, even as they finance 8 digit budgets to your 0. - the data: Valve, benevolently, shares the data that movie, TV, music and book financiers hoard, allowing any 1 smart person to correctly play the role of the 10,000 studio executives at Disney. - there's even some up front money, for nothing: Facebook, also benevolently, gave out lots of development checks for games, expecting basically nothing in return; Epic Mega Grants similarly.

lukas099 3y ago
It seems rare for there to be famous personalities as 'in the background' as game developers are. The exceptions I can think of tend to have their name in huge letters on the covers of things (book authors, movie directors). But most famous people have their face or at least their voices directly in front of people at least a good portion of the time. One exception I can think of is influential business people like CEOs and founders of large companies.
- tonymillion 3y ago
  To extend on your point, and to brain dump something that went through my mind about the parent comment: I can tell you the name of (most of) the characters of the Avengers movies. I can also tell you the name of some of the actors who play those characters. I have absolutely no idea who directed them (nor do I really care that much). I can't tell you the names of anyone involved in the production (art/music/cgi etc). I can tell you it came from Marvell Studios via Disney. I can tell you the names of the characters of HalfLife series. I can't tell you the names of the voice actors (apart from the fact nobody voiced Gordon (lol)). I can't tell you the name of the guy who wrote the story, other than he left Valve and published a story outline for HalfLife 3. I can't tell you the name of a single programmer, visual or level designer, artist, musician etc. I can tell you Valve made it. So yeah, unless your character also shares your name, and as you point out, unless the game is titled "John Smith presents a John Smith game directed by and starring John Smith: JOHN SMITH THE GAME" you can all but forget about me knowing your name.
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    This guy might be familiar to you :p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau
- guestbest 3y ago
  It is telling that game developers are not storytellers like those who write novels or even performers in a niche like like opera singers. It looks like after all these years, computer games have been around since the 1970s, they don’t have not only don’t have the cultural cache of writing but also music.
  - adamrezich 3y ago
    the nature of the medium allows one to create games that don't have "writing", per se—where the "narrative" is the emergently-developing narrative you the player are telling yourself as you play. in this way, games have the potential to be fundamentally different than all other forms of linear storytelling. I still enjoy story-centric games, but as time goes on, I find myself looking more and more for something different and better. some of my best and most meaningful experiences with games have been these emergent narratives. it would be nice if more people tried to make games like this, because it's really something you can't get anywhere else, aside from a tabletop RPG (but even then, that's different, too).
  - vkou 3y ago
    There's a reason the 'storytellers' in games aren't getting star billing. Games are a hugely collaborative effort, unlike books (which are just a collaborative effort). Music is also collaborative, but there's way more people involved in making most games, than the people whose names end up on an album cover. Movies are also a highly collaborative effort, but even there, there's usually one 'czar' - often the director, that gets to stand behind nearly every creative decision made in the film (Even if they weren't the one who made it). Again, no such thing usually exists with games. There's just too many parts to them, no one person owns all of them, and the costs of making 'cuts' preclude a single opinionated personality from doing an eleventh-hour pass on it in post-production.
matthewrobertso 3y ago
>I'm not sure anyone watched the three or so TV series about John Carmack and John Romero Which series were these? I'd love to watch them but can't find any information. From googling they shot a pilot for a Masters of Doom series in 2019 but it seems to have never been released.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>None of these names pass the "Mom, have you heard of..." test. do they need to? I'm sure a boomer wouldn't recognize Linus Torvald either. They may not even have Tim Cook ring the bell as they type on the very device he likely helped design. Games are much more popular but they are still a young medium. We don't know who or what will be the supposed Quinin Tarentino or James Cameron of games 50 years from now. because millenials are just starting to give that prestige to games. > There's no such thing as a nepo baby in game development. I'm not sure I really buy this angle. Sure, Blizzard can bomb on a game, but if we suppose it's the product of some trust fund son of a CEO; they definitely had a LOT more chances and resources to work with than some indie dev in a basement.

lukas099 3y ago

It seems rare for there to be famous personalities as 'in the background' as game developers are. The exceptions I can think of tend to have their name in huge letters on the covers of things (book authors, movie directors). But most famous people have their face or at least their voices directly in front of people at least a good portion of the time. One exception I can think of is influential business people like CEOs and founders of large companies.

tonymillion 3y ago
To extend on your point, and to brain dump something that went through my mind about the parent comment: I can tell you the name of (most of) the characters of the Avengers movies. I can also tell you the name of some of the actors who play those characters. I have absolutely no idea who directed them (nor do I really care that much). I can't tell you the names of anyone involved in the production (art/music/cgi etc). I can tell you it came from Marvell Studios via Disney. I can tell you the names of the characters of HalfLife series. I can't tell you the names of the voice actors (apart from the fact nobody voiced Gordon (lol)). I can't tell you the name of the guy who wrote the story, other than he left Valve and published a story outline for HalfLife 3. I can't tell you the name of a single programmer, visual or level designer, artist, musician etc. I can tell you Valve made it. So yeah, unless your character also shares your name, and as you point out, unless the game is titled "John Smith presents a John Smith game directed by and starring John Smith: JOHN SMITH THE GAME" you can all but forget about me knowing your name.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  This guy might be familiar to you :p https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Favreau
guestbest 3y ago
It is telling that game developers are not storytellers like those who write novels or even performers in a niche like like opera singers. It looks like after all these years, computer games have been around since the 1970s, they don’t have not only don’t have the cultural cache of writing but also music.
- adamrezich 3y ago
  the nature of the medium allows one to create games that don't have "writing", per se—where the "narrative" is the emergently-developing narrative you the player are telling yourself as you play. in this way, games have the potential to be fundamentally different than all other forms of linear storytelling. I still enjoy story-centric games, but as time goes on, I find myself looking more and more for something different and better. some of my best and most meaningful experiences with games have been these emergent narratives. it would be nice if more people tried to make games like this, because it's really something you can't get anywhere else, aside from a tabletop RPG (but even then, that's different, too).
- vkou 3y ago
  There's a reason the 'storytellers' in games aren't getting star billing. Games are a hugely collaborative effort, unlike books (which are just a collaborative effort). Music is also collaborative, but there's way more people involved in making most games, than the people whose names end up on an album cover. Movies are also a highly collaborative effort, but even there, there's usually one 'czar' - often the director, that gets to stand behind nearly every creative decision made in the film (Even if they weren't the one who made it). Again, no such thing usually exists with games. There's just too many parts to them, no one person owns all of them, and the costs of making 'cuts' preclude a single opinionated personality from doing an eleventh-hour pass on it in post-production.

matthewrobertso 3y ago

>I'm not sure anyone watched the three or so TV series about John Carmack and John Romero Which series were these? I'd love to watch them but can't find any information. From googling they shot a pilot for a Masters of Doom series in 2019 but it seems to have never been released.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>None of these names pass the "Mom, have you heard of..." test. do they need to? I'm sure a boomer wouldn't recognize Linus Torvald either. They may not even have Tim Cook ring the bell as they type on the very device he likely helped design. Games are much more popular but they are still a young medium. We don't know who or what will be the supposed Quinin Tarentino or James Cameron of games 50 years from now. because millenials are just starting to give that prestige to games. > There's no such thing as a nepo baby in game development. I'm not sure I really buy this angle. Sure, Blizzard can bomb on a game, but if we suppose it's the product of some trust fund son of a CEO; they definitely had a LOT more chances and resources to work with than some indie dev in a basement.