Isometrics: Is There Such a Thing as a Gaming Auteur?

Auteurs: the great powerful entities of the cinematic world, and a theory about how the authorship of a work goes beyond the written word. But does this idea of great artists uniting a team under a singular vision gel with the technical nature of video games? David Rose investigates...

Welcome to Isometrics, the long-dormant look at the literary world of computer and video games. Currently we're in a fairly interesting world of gaming, with lots of interesting news, but right now I want to talk about the Auteur theory. So while there's plenty to talk about with regards to commercial ethics, Steam Refunds, major releases being so buggy on launch they were recalled from entire platforms and the next wave of great Kickstarter games, for now we are going to discuss something that closely approximates literary criticism.

The Auteur Theory, commonly attributed to François Truffaut and the writers of the French periodical Cahiers du Cinéma (Literally translating to “Notebooks on Cinema”), primarily concerns itself with the notion of creation or authorship in a film. Unlike a work of fiction or even a scripted theatrical piece, where there is a clear author and often therefore a person (or small group of people) to ascribe particular stylistic, narrative, metaphorical and other literary quirks to, a film is usually a massive undertaking with a team of dozens, sometimes hundreds working to bring a project to fruition. In that sheer sea of humanity, who is the author? And given the multiple forms the language of cinema takes (photography, performance, framing along with the narrative content of the script), what does it mean to be the creator? This is simplifying, but the Auteur in cinema is the driving creative force, which in many cases is a role the director shoulders. A good director, so it is argued by proponents, unifies the creative process, and ultimately creates a film which has the particular fingerprint of that director.

Segue into the world of film aside, what does this have to do with video games that have evolved from the FMV watchathons of the 1990s? Well video games, much like films fall into that difficult critical territory of being designed by a large swathes of very creative people, and so can any one person really claim to be the captain of a creative vessel, steering the concept through his vision? Besides, given that the main artistic disciplines are so diverse and multi-stranded (A single author must ensure that gameplay, art assets, narrative, music and enough technical capabilities to put them all together work to create a unified whole).

Now before we go any further, I'm not necessarily talking about one man projects, or even projects with teams you can count on one hand, since the author of a one man project is pretty self-evident. The main interrogative thread is that, given the spate of incredibly successful kickstarters by famous video game developers, what the meaning is, if any, of a by-line in a video game. Is it simple marketing, or is there something to be said for the ability of a single artist who can bring these assets together? The best place to start is probably the most obvious.

Hideo Kojima is a name that either you are familiar with, or you haven't played enough games. The ace game designer at Konami and a man who revolutionised gaming in countless ways through game of the year after game of the year after game of the century. He's probably one of the easiest examples of gaming auteur to show in many ways, in part because his style owes at least a little to fellow auteur Quentin Tarrentino. His works are unashamedly postmodern: built on medium bending, genre manipulation and using that fragile nature of the game's reality as a powerful tool. There is a distinct style to his work, and that is what makes a game instantly recognisable as his, despite massive differences in game engines, technical sophistication, gameplay genre, setting, mood, atmosphere and even intent. Pretty much every game he's been involved him has some kind of fingerprint, from the metafictional construct of PT, through the bizarre and highly innovative solutions redolent in games like Snatcher to the delightfully literal solution to the insular nature of gaming found in Boktai.

Kojima is a very obvious case, and were the accusation that he desires to make films more than games actually to come to pass, he would probably be considered an auteur in that as well. But gaming doesn't quite play as simple a game as that, and a designer/director/project lead can show his/her influence in other ways. Roberta Williams' uncompromising attitude manifests very clearly not merely in the brutal and often sadistic levels of death her poor players suffer when playing any given King's Quest, but through a diverse legacy of adventure games that pushed the genre to new heights commercially, creatively and technologically.

On a similar note, Shigeru Miyamoto's fervered belief in “kyokan” (literally “feel-one” but generally refers to empathetic research based around emotional connections) is the emotional heart that Nintendo built its empire around and shows in an astoundingly diverse body of work and his influence will likely live forever in developers he has influenced.

The ever-controversial Peter Molyneux certainly counts as well, with his particular focus being the interaction between the player and the world in which they interact, which manifests in his god games (Populous, Black and White, Godus), his devil games (Dungeon Keeper), is paid particular focus in the Fable series with somewhat mixed results, and even his odd management sims like Theme Hospital. His incredible habit of overpromising on his games sheds even further light into this particular theme.

Finally, there is Kenji Eno, the force behind WARP software, and as interesting as he was when I covered all his US-released games. His distinct desire to not play by the standard rules and conventions of video games and his theories about the future of virtual media led to concepts like the virtual actor, games trying to be films to the point that they have a film-like length, games with invisible monsters and basically every single bizarre thing about D2 that wasn't a direct homage to Hideo Kojima.

So a gaming auteur (what's even the word? A Gáuteur?) can come from many different disciplines and bring a style in different ways. The key to each of these examples, as well as the other (Yu Suzuki, Suda51, Swery65) gaming auteurs out there is that they bring a style, a distinct vision and their own quirks that for better and worse identify them as the driving force behind a particular game. I could probably write a somewhat hefty book if I tried to cover every single gáuteur out there, but here's a small taster of how the Auteur theory applies to gaming, something we will cover in greater detail once I start showcasing the more literary examples mentioned here, along with a bunch of other crazy theories.

This doesn't mean of course that the rest of the team don't matter. Far from it, team management ultimately is the most important weapon in any auteur's arsenal, and it is even more important in gaming with the incredible amount of dependent artistic and technological parts to games. To answer the question more directly if the fact I'm trying to come up with pretentious words doesn't provide enough clarity: Yes, there absolutely is such a thing as a gaming auteur, and the fact that these authorial developers are influential, important and design incredible games in most if not every genre is a rather large smoking gun in any argument that games are a thriving art form.

All the people who bought Metal Gear Solid can't be wrong...

Hello there. Many thanks for reading Isometrics. It's been months since I've had the time and the opportunity to really get back into writing articles about something I love so much in an academic manner. The plan is to do an article a week at first, being put up on a Wednesday, though that may increase if I have time, and I may do some special articles concerning particular issues. The plan is not to cover as many current events and instead focus on gaming's place in wider literary debates. Hope you enjoy, and if you have questions, thoughts or names of Auteurs I missed (I didn't even name ten, and didn't even mention Geoff Crammond or Will Wright), feel free to drop me a line on Twitter @HuggyDave, in a comment below or on Facebook (look up David Rose – Writer).