Game Auteurism

[Pop]

So Kotaku had this post, see, about "auteur theory" and how it might apply to game developers. Basically the idea is that if a director has a consistent vision, with consistent thematic elements reverberating throughout his work, he is considered an auteur. Example: David Cronenberg, whose movies, even the non-horror ones, tend to revolve around the concept of psychological sickness and change manifesting physically (see: The Fly, Existenz, The Brood)

 

So are there game developers we can think of as "auteurs" with singular visions? Tell me. Here's my argument presented for one Master Chief Avellone. I probably butchered some names and concepts, what with reciting from memory, but the basic points stand:

I've long argued for the consideration of Chris Avellone, lead designer of Planescape: Torment at Black Isle, and then lead designer of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II and senior designer on Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, as an auteur. He's about the best example that I can find, not really because he makes awesome games but because there are thematic elements that resonate clearly throughout all of his works. Some spoilers for the games I mention will follow! So be warned.

 

In all of the games I mentioned, there are common elements -

 

1. In all three games, the player character has a party that is literally drawn to him because of an inescapable, intangible force - there is something about the player character that inextricably draws and exerts power over the party characters. In PS:T, the Nameless One's past lives and the laws of the universe bind others to him. In KOTOR2, the player character's loss of connection to the force draws scarred and broken characters to him. In Mask of the Betrayer, the quest to rid the player character of the spirit eater causes his journey to mirror the journey of the man who became the spirit eater to an exact degree, thus his companions fulfill the roles of the spirit eater's companions, etc.

 

2. In all three games, there is a thematic focus on oaths and codes, and how they go wrong - Dakkon's oath to serve the Nameless One until he dies backfires, as the Nameless One cannot die. Most of the party NPCs suffer because of agreements they made in good faith - the rules of the Planescape setting end up enslaving them to TNO. The very means by which TNO gains immortality come with unexpected and dire consequences. In KOTOR2, Kreia, a Sith philosopher of sorts, teaches Revan and her apprentices in the ways of the True Sith only to see them turn away from her teachings and betray her. She fosters the Exile's return to the force, but is destined to be disappointed and betrayed by him as well, and thus uses him as a weapon against the force itself. In Mask of the Betrayer, the specific themes of Planescape: Torment are revisited. The Spirit Eater's vow to destroy the Wall of the Faithless is twisted by Myrkul such that he becomes a creature of endless destruction and terror.

 

3. In all three games, there is a blind woman whose evil nature is complicated by a maternal relationship towards a central character. In PS:T Ravel the terrible Blind Hag falls in love with the Nameless One and grants him neverending life. Kreia in KOTOR II is clearly Sith (which it turns out means she's an Andrew Ryan-esque Objectivist) but either because of her desire to have a worthy student, or because of the supernatural aspects of the Exile's condition, she develops a deadly protectiveness towards the Exile. In Mask of the Betrayer, Gann's mother (also a blind hag) falls in love with a mortal man and thus is stricken insane and imprisoned by her sisters. There was also a blind cat-lady seer in Icewind Dale 2, but she was basically a cameo of the character archetype, and that wasn't Chris Avellone's joint.

 

So yeah! Chris Avellone, man of thematic ideas. He designed Alpha Protocol as well and I'm wondering if any of these themes will show up again in that game, or perhaps in Fallout: New Vegas. We'll just have to see

Edited February 23, 2010 by Pop

[bhlaab]

Not so much in terms of themes, but in terms of design Tim Cain is also a consistent guy. All of his games have his stink all over it (in a good way). Partially because he has the balls to put something like playing as a Nosferatu in Vampire in their games. To design and code an entire character class where the idea is "you're not going to be allowed to see huge chunks of this game" is pretty... confident.

 

Miyamoto has gone through phases, but most of his career has been centered around the themes of courage and exploration into the unknown and surreal. Of course, even within this "period" (post-arcade and pre-casual) he was involved in so many games that it's hard to find much consistency.

Edited February 23, 2010 by bhlaab

[Pidesco]

Looking Glass Studios.

[Starwars]

A fine sentiment, but I'm not sure I'd put Mask of the Betrayer as an example of Chris' style. People like George Ziets (who developed the story) and Kevin Saunders were the lead guys on it, not Chris Avellone. He did write Gann and Kaelyn but I believe his involvement in the game otherwise wasn't too heavy.

 

Tim Cain has definitely had a vision of player choice throughout his games. Bloodlines was probably the game that strayed the most from this concept, but even so it does have a fair amount of replayability.

[mr insomniac]

Ravel wasn't blind.

 

/nitpick

 

Interesting thoughts. Haven't played MotB, so won't comment about any of that. From what little we've seen of AP it doesn't look like some of that will fit in the game, but who knows. I've actually been looking forward to finding similarities with the older games in both AP and F:NV.

[entrerix]

Pixar is an example of studio auteur theory in film

 

jus sayin

 

 

hideo kojima is a pretty obvious game auteur

 

also...bioware has a certain ...stamp... which hits on their work as a studio

[Enoch]

I always associated "auteur" more with level of control over the creative process and the degree to which a particular work reflects the vision of a single person, rather than having anything to do with thematic consistency across different works. Am I off-base on this?

Edited February 23, 2010 by Enoch

[Pidesco]

I always associated "auteur" more with level of control over the creative process and the degree to which a particular work reflects the vision of a single person, rather than having anything to do with thematic consistency across different works. Am I off-base on this?

 

It can be both.

[J.E. Sawyer]

A fine sentiment, but I'm not sure I'd put Mask of the Betrayer as an example of Chris' style. People like George Ziets (who developed the story) and Kevin Saunders were the lead guys on it, not Chris Avellone.

Not to diminish the significant contributions of many others on Mask, but George Ziets was really "the guy" who developed the story.

[Gorgon]

Misread as 'Game Autism'. Kinda disapointed now. My opinion on game auteurism, that the little islands of excellence in the great vast ocean of mediocrity are few and far in between.

[Gorgon]

Another thing, once you have started spotting 'themes' it's really hard to stop after you have run out of relevant ones.

[RPGmasterBoo]

I like Avellone's work a lot. He does his own thing and infuses games with depth that almost doesn't belong in such an often trivial medium.

 

I noticed many of these parallels and was wondering where it will lead. Because on one hand, while I like those ideas - their repetition can lead to the same sort of stagnation Bioware is in.

 

Torment was a phenomenal game, but repeating the same motifs is perhaps counterproductive. I remember that deja vu feeling with the cast of KOTOR II, and to a lesser extent MotB. Still, the characters drove me to play the games through, even when the gameplay faltered.

 

That's probably the greatest of Obsidian's faults, the inability to mesh gameplay into a fun package.

 

Perhaps they should try making a full blown point and click adventure game. That would probably be mindblowing.

[RPGmasterBoo]

And I completely missed the topic. Congratulations, me.

[Volourn]

Torment was a greta game brought down with its horrible version of IE combat.

 

KOTOR2 was an average game no better or worse than KOTOR. That entire series is a joke. There is nothing deep about 'force is evil must be destroyed'. KOTOR2 characters were mostly forgetabble barring a couple that were great. L A M E

 

MOTB was awesome, and easily's Obsidian's best.

 

However, you forget Avellone's best work: FO2. Now that is sweet awesomeness.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Kojima and Fumito Ueda.

[Orogun01]

Interesting read, I have to agree with the notion that game autherism is present within games; even more than on film because of the author being a team rather than an individual in most cases. So we make names into brands and know what to expect when we see them on a game.

[Wombat]

Oddly, BIS/Obsidian is good at writing when it comes to these old hags. I, actually, didn't think someone else still remembers the Sheer in the prologue of IWD2, though.

 

I have been almost unconsciously following the authors or auteurs of my liking since I tend to read novels and films by the same writers and directors.

 

A fine sentiment, but I'm not sure I'd put Mask of the Betrayer as an example of Chris' style. People like George Ziets (who developed the story) and Kevin Saunders were the lead guys on it, not Chris Avellone.

Not to diminish the significant contributions of many others on Mask, but George Ziets was really "the guy" who developed the story.

And I'm glad that he came back to BIS. However, chemistry, too, an important factor, I think, since I personally don't believe Baudoin and Sawyer in NWN2 worked well. Maldonado and Avellone were not a bad combination at all as well as Ziets and Avellone were. Avellone emphasizes the importance of the other team members, and somehow, I believe it is not only out of his modesty. When Avellone is not taking the lead, he reminds me of what Miles Davis said of John Coltrane, though. It was something like : Having a Coltrane in a band is like having several saxophones in the band.

[J.E. Sawyer]

The amount of time Ferret and I were actually on NWN2 at the same time was pretty brief.

[Wombat]

The amount of time Ferret and I were actually on NWN2 at the same time was pretty brief.

After all, it's just a view from outside. However, in NWN2, I felt as if Obsidian was pretending to be Bioware. Of course, some old members worked on BG...but...

[Volourn]

"And I'm glad that he came back to BIS"

 

Huh? Hard to come back to a dead division of a company concentrating on a MMORPG and a lawsuit. Remember, Obsidian and BIS are not the same. And, that's good news for Obsidian.

[Sannom]

I'm always amused by coincidence, and I always thought that Ziets coming back from Bethesda a few months before Obsidian started working with that company was a good one

 

The amount of time Ferret and I were actually on NWN2 at the same time was pretty brief.

 

What was you role on the game exactly? I heard you were Lead Designer at some point, that you managed to make some sense of what was basically a huge mess, but it's never clear...

[entrerix]

is fumito ueda the guy behind ico and shadow of collosus? cause that guy is an absolute badass awesome king of game design both artistically and in game "feel".

 

the horse in shadow of colossus was one of the most excellent moments in gaming of the ps2 generation. it was as much a landmark in console gameplay imo as the horse in ocarina of time was when that game was released

[RPGmasterBoo]

Shadow of the Collosus makes the PS2 worth owning practically all by itself.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

Shadow of the Collosus makes the PS2 worth owning practically all by itself.

This + Ico. Ueda is amazing.

[RPGmasterBoo]

Never did get my hands on Ico while my PS2 was in working order.

 

Don't remind me of that.

 

 

the horse in shadow of colossus was one of the most excellent moments in gaming of the ps2 generation. it was as much a landmark in console gameplay imo as the horse in ocarina of time was when that game was released

 

To think that some reviewers in their infinite shame and stupidity complained it was hard to control. They expected the poor horse to be a race car or something.

Edited February 24, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo