Rock Stars of Videogames

I was flying home from the weekend in LA (where I didn't really go to E3, just sampled the afterparty and saw some friends) when I found myself next to Chris Hecker, whom I hadn't seen in a long time. We got to talking about why there are still very few recognizable names and faces in the videogame industry. He reminded me of the famous ad announcing the founding of EA, headlined, "Can Computers Make You Cry?"

Well, we're still struggling to answer that question, but take a look at the photo on the right - the founding members of a company that ambitiously and grandiosely called itself Electronic Arts. A name that defies the Eberts who don't see the art in computer and video games. And the photo itself says unequivocally, "Not only are computer games art, we are artists."

It looks like it could be a publicity shot for a moody rock band. The photographer has captured real personality here, individuals - dressed in dark clothes and seemingly passionately united under the aegis of a single goal.

With a few notable exceptions (you know who they are - Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto) - the industry has turned away from personalizing game development, from regarding the people who work on games as individually important. No, far better for a studio like EA to let the public see the studio behind the franchise rather than a handful of creative geniuses. The franchise is longer-lived that way, the studio system more stable.

And I suspect that many game creators themselves are uncomfortable with the attention. Many are modest, acknowledging that it takes many, many hands and many collaborative hours to create videogames. Others reject what they see as posturing, preening, taking center stage in a way that reeks of insincerity. And still others may simply be truly uncomfortable in the spotlight. Appearing in public is not, generally, what they are paid to do, aside from the trade show here and there.

My friend Paul actually wrote a great essay that should have been published on GGA, except that we got into an argument over it and I didn't end up running it. I should find it and see if I can still publish it. He was writing in response to the (rhetorical?) question of Chuck Klosterman in Esquire, "Why is there no Lester Bangs of videogames?" Paul's answer was, there is no Lester Bangs because there has been no Vasari of videogames. The book Smart Bomb touched on a Vasari-esque way of refracting art and product through the perceptions and personalities of those who craft it, but that was just one small step. There is still no tradition of valorizing game creators, of making up celebrity stories about them, of identifying eras and epoques and styles (Vasari, one could argue, invented the Renaissance).

Of course, not everything about a project like that will be edifying. Vasari, in pursuit of his goals, fabricated details about the artists to make them more interesting and appealing to people. But from his half-lies were born the twin disciplines of art history and art criticism, just as Livy's sycophantic myth-making seeded the study of history in the West.

We need to get a dirty here - a little messy, maybe. We need to lift the veil and expose the brilliance and ugliness that lies behind making games. If we want real game critique, we also need to attach names to project and faces to names and personalities to match. We need to address motivations and mistakes, drama and scandal and passion. This is how we begin to finally know that yes, games are art made by individuals, and yes, games are important expressions of our culture.

We need rock stars.

Comments

[Alice Lee]

I think I can name a lot of rockstars, especially when you think of the people who head up Japanese franchises (Igarashi, Aonuma, Kojima, Itagaki, etc). Maybe this is because I am firmly entrenched in games.

[fish]

i think the other big reason why there are so little rockstars, or even just well known developers is because the industry wont let it happen. or atleast, will only let it happen if it thinks it can benefit from it.

when i was trying to promote the first GAMMA, i ended up talking with a lot of media outlets. Magazines, local papers, live TV. i was an independent talking about my projects. doing some DIY promotion.

But then, my employer heard of what was going on and was very displeased. even tho i in now way associated myself with my employer when talking about my own project, the employer believed that as one of their employes, anything i could say to the media would be said on behalf of the company. no matter what i did or said, i represented then, and thus, couldnt say whatever i wanted about the sorry state of commercial game development, and the virties of indy dev.

the company hated that they had no control over what was being said on air. even tho it was in no way related to them.

i think this is pretty common.
companies are afraid of a free voice.
companies are afraid of a rockstar.
they like a game to be a faceless product.
unless that face is jade raymond's, strategicly chosen to rub the fanboys the right way.

a rockstar will almost never organicly emerge.
a rockstar will be chosen, manifactured.
you, you will be the face of this project.
you are good with a camera and you have a way with words. go, represent us.

not to get all evangelical again but i think the indie community will have its share of true rockstars way before the rest of the industry does. unlike an EA developer, and indie developer often CAN take credit for the game he made by himself.

we are rockstars.

[ggKimmieGal]

It will never happen. There's no market.

Rock stars have personalities and lifestyles that are extremely different from the average person. People want to read about their $10,000 meals. People want to see pictures of them driving around in Bentleys. Their relationships are the height of gossip. People want to know who is having who's baby, and who is sleeping with some other famous person. They want to know what designers they are wearing and what clubs they are at.

But game programmers aren't like that. They are normal people. They drive Honda Civics. They have normal size houses that most other people can afford. They spend their Saturdays mowing their lawn (not in Malibu flashing their stuff for the photogs... *cough*Paris Hilton*cough*). They wear jeans and t-shirts. And their love life is non-existent to 2.5 kids, wife and dog. There's nothing exciting there.

Unless a real character is out there working on video games, I wouldn't expect for this to emerge anytime in the future.

[Patrick Dugan]

I work damn hard, but I don't know if I'll be as succesful as I hope.

What I do know is that on monday night I put down my work, went out, got blazed, then drunk then coked out, got up with some random chick I'd never met before, was too blasted to get it up, went to bed, was woken up by some college-aged douche-bag making noises - then the girl came back and I was able to get it up, then after that, I went back to sleep, and the douchebags (reinforced) woke me up by throwing a rubber ball at my ear repeatedly, so I flipped out in a rage, screaming "you want to fuck with the contra? You gonna get fucked maine!" somehow identiftying in my half-woken stupor with oppressed latin american guerillas, and I clocked a mother fucker in the face.

I left, its now 6:30, I've gotten maybe three hours of sleep, physically exhausted.

I get some cofee, start reading blogs and news at 7:00 to get my mind in gear, and then take a business call at 10:00. I knocked it out of the park.

[Zild]

"a rockstar will be chosen, manifactured."

So exactly the same as in the move, TV, music and fashion industries then?

"People want to read about their $10,000 meals. People want to see pictures of them driving around in Bentleys. Their relationships are the height of gossip. People want to know who is having who's baby, and who is sleeping with some other famous person. They want to know what designers they are wearing and what clubs they are at."

I always thought I was an alien... I guess this proves it, because I conform to none of the above. Thankfully, neither do the majority of my friends. What I want to hear about musicians and actors is their performance in those roles, nothing more. It's what I would like to know about developers, too.

But who should be the star in the gaming industry? Remember that for every actor, there are hundreds of lighting technicians, camera operators, make-up artists, special effects personnel, stunt performers, stand-ins, writers, grips... So who do we want the masses to follow? Coders? Designers? Testers? Producers? Artists? Musicians?

I would rather see the focus on studios, not the members that comprise them, nor the publishers and distributors that seem to take most of the credit...

[kpallist]

The Rennaissance didn't happen in 25 years either...

It'll happen. It's already happening. The fans know who some of these people are, and the fanbase is growing. Sure, we have Will and Miyamoto, but there's second string of celebs that are at a strata below that, but that are recognized as well (Cliff, Dave Perry, Carmack, etc), sometimes even outside gaming circles.

Raph told me a story of people giving him dozens of roses when visiting Korea. Recognizing him on the street.

The revolution will be televised, it's just not on this season's program. :-)