Where Have All The Game Gods Gone?

GameDailyBiz's media coverage article examines the absence of newly-minted 'game gods' from modern design. The article stems from PC Gamer's look back on the occasion of their 150th issue. One of the covers they show off is one proclaiming 'the game gods', well-known designers such as Will Wright or John Carmack. Modern game design, often with large teams, would seem to preclude elevating many new designers to such lofty heights. From the article: "Aside from a smattering of recognizable names like Naughty Dog's Jason Rubin and David Jaffe of God of War, renowned developers don't spring to mind like they once did. Even worse, Media Coverage would have trouble recognizing these two 'game celebs' if they showed up wearing matching shirts that said 'I'm with Jason Rubin' and 'I'm with David Jaffe'."

Will Wright to Rule Them All

[WillAffleckUW]

So long as Will Wright is around, who needs other Game Gods?

Game-god athiesm

[FooAtWFU]

The problem with game gods? Well, one "game god" at least... they can get to have too much of an ego. Consider Chris Sawyer, of Roller Coaster Tycoon fame. (And just consider Roller Coaster Tycoon and its expansion packs and such, since I haven't spent $$$ to buy RCT2 or anything :P).

So someone developed some cheats and patches and "trainers" and the like for RCT. Several people, actually, a variety of things you could do... But Chris Sawyer didn't like people cheating, apparently (never mind that this is a single-player game of a fairly open-ended nature)... so what does he do? There was some code, either in the original game or an expansion pack, that would sit and watch for some obvious signs of cheating (I think the main one was that if you had researched ALL the rides and stalls and such in the game). If it caught you cheating, the game would crash. Intentionally. And not just that! The game would create a secret little data file so that it would crash again, next time you started, whether or not you were trying to cheat this time around. Eventually some people provided a patch, but with the next expansion pack and such things were changed so you would need a DIFFERENT patch, and this time it would check if there, like, weren't enough trees (did you clear the land so you could have your own little sandbox world? HORRORS! You're not allowed to do that!)

Roller Coaster Tycoon was great. Transport Tycoon was a gem as well. But I don't like getting bossed around by the God of my Game. If these multi-programmer teams can realize things like this better, and let people cheat at their single-player games (at least) if they want to cheat, please, why stop them? (Heck, you can cheat until the cows come home in a game like Morrowind/Oblivion or Half-Life (2 or otherwise) by using the console, and the Sims 2 takes codes as well...)

Well I can name two

[masklinn]

Chris Taylor of Total Annihilation fame (1998) soon coming back with Supreme Commander, and Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims) with Spore

what about 'directors' or 'producers'?

[schweini]

while i agree with the other people opinion that this lack of gods is mainly due to better team-managment and the fact that no single person plays that big a part in the development of a game as before, i am kind of surprised that the team-leaders responsible for the overall project don't get more credit - for movies, everybody markets the director or the producer of the movie, because that info gives you a rough idea what style or quality that movie will have - but i have rarely seen this in games (Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, Will Wright and Ron Gilbert [what happened to him, anyhow?] come to my mind).
but which single person was the 'director' or driving force of e.g. Halo? Command & Conquer? Grim Fandango? Why do those people not get more credit?

Size & Effort...

[OneFix at Work]

It's really because of size and effort involved in doing a "good" game now...look at the origonal games by these developers...

John Carmack - Wolf3D
Will Wright - Sim City

Both "ground breaking" *IDEAS* in their time, and both have what would be considered lack-luster graphics now. The sad fact is that if Sim City or Wolf 3D were released today, they wouldn't be given the time of day. The big companies (Sony, EA, Atari, etc) have pushed us to the point that no one great person could come up with a new breakthough game...

Todays blockbuster games are developed by large teams of programmers, designers, sound artists, voice actors, 3D modelers, etc...

Of course, 2D graphics were much easier to hack together than 3D graphics...2-bit sound was easier to hack together than 16-bit CD quality surround sound...this is just the evolution of the gaming industry. Want to see where it's headed, look at film...we are about where film was back in the 60's...audiences are starting to demand more...story and gameplay have taken a back seat to better graphics and commercial crossovers (RIAA musicians, MPAA voice actors, etc)...

There will occasionaly be a few independent breakthroughs...but in general, these will be a thing of the past.

Where is video gaming's Kevin Smith or Quentin Tarantino? Open source is a good bet, but everyone knows open source are rarely the result of a single person's effort...Flash games show some promise...but just like independent film, fans are going to seek out these developers until they become a commercial success...

The ROM pit

[Anonymous Coward]

Download a "1000 NES ROMS" pack (e.g. from a torrent site). Play some of the games. There are a few gems like SMB 3, but any NES collection with any aspiration to completism has tons of completely shit games.

See also somethingawful's ROM pit, dedicated to remembering the crap of yesteryear:
http://www.somethingawful.com/rompit/ [somethingawful.com]

Now I've broken your rose tinted spectacles you'll be able to see the sneaky pink elephants better.