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Dan Houser gave a pertinent reminder to all the fans about the nature of video game development.
Lex Fridman capped off his recent interview with Houser with these sentiments:
Thank you for everything you’ve created in this world. Me and millions of die-hard fans of your games are forever grateful. I know there’s a lot of people that would like to say thank you to you.
But then, Dan took Fridman by surprise when he corrected him with this:
Just to be clear, ‘cause I always like to make this very clear, it was never me. It was always me sat alongside people with actual real talent who did amazing things.
What Did Dan Houser Mean By This?
Fridman took this to mean that Dan was being self-effacing. With all due respect, his response indicates he isn’t listening to what Dan is saying.
If you go back to study the history of Rockstar Games and Grand Theft Auto, you will realize that Dan wasn’t part of the developer team from the start. As it turns out, Dan and his brother Sam where not working at Rockstar North when they were still called DMA Design.
The Housers found DMA Design and the prototype of Grand Theft Auto and made a deal to acquire them. After their own employer was bought by Take-Two, they settled under a new deal to be the heads of Rockstar Games.
To put it more plainly, Dan is pointing out the objective fact that he was not part of the studio doing the work of actually making the games. He was in a leadership and creative positions, but that was never the reason to call him the creator.
You would understand this if you looked closer at the creation of these games too. Dan and Sam were not the people coming up with the programming miracles that made a 3D open world game possible.
What Video Game Fanboys Need To Stop Doing
But this indicates a broader trope that the fans have forced into the video game industry. And that’s the idea that video game developers are auteurs.
There is a case for certain developers, such as Hideo Kojima or Jonathan Blow, to call them auteurs. The way they make games, and also the way they take over their productions, makes that true for their games.
But that just doesn’t apply to everyone who’s famous and successful in the video game industry. And that’s because it isn’t intrinsic to how video game development works.
Like Dan Houser, a lot of people like to say that other famous developers, like Shigeru Miyamoto or Todd Howard, must also be auteurs. But we should remember that this trope mistakenly puts these people on a pedestal when their games were always made by teams.
Of course, there are developers who really did make games by themselves, such as Éric Chahi and Another World. And some indies bear that distinction today, such as LocalThunk of Balatro fame.
Even then, not all of these solo developers would fit the very specific and narrow definition of an auteur. We suspect some of them would even dislike to be called that.
At the end of the day, what makes media like video games great, or movies, or music, is not that they are ‘perfect’ or particularly ‘exceptional.’ It’s the fact that they can evoke deep reactions within us, whether there was a singular mind behind its conception, or if it was just the convergence of a team working towards a common goal.
