Spinoff - A discussion on the nature of Genius in game development*

[Extra411]

I think whether someone is a genius can only be seen in restrospective. Many years down the line.

Huge sales may be due to many things. It might be because of great marketing. It might be because the devs launched the right product at the right time. Maybe they really had a handle on the current culture/consumer mindstate.

For example, we all know the American market differs from other regions. Halo and GoW sales are huge here in the US but they are pretty much pathetic in Japan. The games are the same, but sales reflect different cultural preferences and bias. And review scores are succeptible to the same kind of bias.

So perhaps the first thing to do, is to define the parameters of what constitutes a "genius".

Personally, I think the product of a genius should be either revolutionary or strongly memorable in some way.

Following that thinking, I'd consider someone like Alexey Pajitnov (maker of Tetris and I believe Hexic HD) being a genius. Tetris is almost universally loved by everyone (hardcore or casual gamers alike) in every corner of the Earth. Tetris had staying power (it's pretty much the definition of a classic). Even 100 years into the future, I bet people will still know of Tetris (even if only from textbooks or museums). Will people even remember Gears in 10? 20 years?

 

[AlphaWolf]

Following that thinking, I'd consider someone like Alexey Pajitnov (maker of Tetris and I believe Hexic HD) being a genius. Tetris is almost universally loved by everyone (hardcore or casual gamers alike) in every corner of the Earth. Tetris had staying power (it's pretty much the definition of a classic). Even 100 years into the future, I bet people will still know of Tetris (even if only from textbooks or museums). Will people even remember Gears in 10? 20 years?

So pong creator = genius?

 

[Extra411]

So pong creator = genius?

lol dispite Pong being the first, I don't think it had the gameplay tenacity.

This is tough.

 

[V3]

If the game designer is a creative genius, the game won't sell until several generations later when people caught up and realize it.

Pong creator is more pioneer.

 

[Nesh]

How many hours have you spent playing Gears of War?

I did a lot. Awesome game but really it wasnt anything new, unique or jawdropping in terms of gameplay. It was just very fun and had gorgeous graphics. It shows talent, but it doesnt show anything that can be considered "genius" in terms of gameplay.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

How many hours have you spent playing Gears of War?

All the way through. But what does that matter?

 

[tabs]

I played it through, but had no desire to repeat the performance. It was an okay ride.. a bit clunky feeling.

I enjoyed Rogue Trooper a lot more, which employed a remarkably similar cover mechanic to the much lauded, and later released, Gears system.

 

[Arwin]

There used to be a time when Art was written with lower case and referred to craftsmanship, a skill you possess or an activity that requires a certain skill.

Typically, genius is used to refer to someone who takes such a skill to an extreme level of excellence.

I always like to start these discussions there.

Now, from here, you go on to first define the art. Then you compare the art across different individuals, and finally you determine whether the art in the individual you are interested in stands out sufficiently to be considered an extreme level of excellence.

In the case of Cliffy B, I believe he was assigned a specific task by Microsoft / Epic, to produce a certain kind of game. He fullfilled that task, well, pretty successfully I would say. Without even having played the game, this art of fullfilling the requirements of an assignment this successfully would be the most standout feature of Cliffy B in relation to Gears of War, and most easily attributed directly to him. The other standout features, such as gameplay and graphics, are partly related to individual artists and art directors, the Unreal Engine which should be considered at the very least partly separately from Gears of War (it certainly has been considered separately from it in terms of budget), and so on.

 

[archangelmorph]

In the case of Cliffy B, I believe he was assigned a specific task by Microsoft / Epic, to produce a certain kind of game. He fullfilled that task, well, pretty successfully I would say. Without even having played the game, this art of fullfilling the requirements of an assignment this successfully would be the most standout feature of Cliffy B in relation to Gears of War, and most easily attributed directly to him.

Not necessarily directly to him as you failed to specify the constraints of "producing a certain kind of game" (of which Cliffy didn't 'produce' by the way.. he led the design but 'producing' the game was not his responsibility as far as i'm aware..) imposed by MS as well as failing to qualify to what extent his own input (if you even know the answer to that personally) contributed to the final game in the form of what we see today (& more importantly in the context of the areas of the game where it's 'excellence' is defined..)

Alot of critics praised gears for its graphics.. Did Cliffy have anything to do with that..?

Alot praised it's gameplay mechanics & polish.. Did Cliffy come up with every single aspect of the design which defined these areas himself..?

It seems to me that alot of people seem to have a problem identifying how many people were actually involved in the development of the title & to what extent which doesn't provide an easy way of attributing credit to a single member of the development team in a bid to claim that said individual's "genius" or not..

Let me ask you something..
With regards to GeOWs graphics & art direction, imagine Cliffy turned to his team during pre-production & said "I want a gritty, pseudo-realistic world with larger than life-sized characters & an out-and-out 'badass' look & feel.."
The art director went away to his team, worked for a week or so doing verious tests and samples before coming up with the concept art for the artistic direction we see in the game today. Then the technical director took that away to his team who paired up with a few 3D artists, bashed out some code & scripts for a couple of weeks & came back with a test environment demonstrating how close the game could get to that artistic vision using the current engine & hardware..

Would it be fair to say that Cliffy deserves to be qualified as a 'genius' for his contribution to the overall look & feel of the game with respect to the visuals & art..?

 

[Gubbi]

I think it's important to remember that a game like Gears is the product of an iterative and cooperative proces of the entire team behind it. So attributing the success of GOW to the "genius" of Clifford Bleszinski is be a bit strong. I'd rather say that GOW is the product of the accumulated knowledge of EPIC of what makes a good FPS, of which Cliff B. is a great part.

The only guy i with certainty would call a game design genius is David Jones.

Cheers

 

[hoho]

Why hasn't anyone named Will Wright or Sid Meier as the geniuses? Sure, their games are also kind of "one sided" but they certainly are one of the most addicting ones

 

[Arwin]

Oh there are plenty of gaming geniuses. Or at the very least, there have been a lot of brilliant ideas, that were great in the context of their time. I actually think you don't have to be a genius to come up with a brilliant idea.

To me, Populous and Populous II rank very high in terms of brilliant game ideas. The man behind it though, I'm not sure anymore. He may still be brilliant, but in the context of large game development teams and changing market pressures it may require very different talents to be a brilliant game designer.

More recently, the designer of Loco Roco stands out. It's a brilliant concept and I thought it was extremely well executed, and I'm really dying for a sequel, and a development of that concept to more game ideas, or a LBP style editor (Loco Roco already had a very nicely thought out editor with parts you could earn during playing, but the editor was just slightly too limiting - if it would use the editing ideas from LBP, then, wow, my wet dream)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why hasn't anyone named Will Wright or Sid Meier as the geniuses?

Because the thread was spawned from a comment about Cliff B., but I hope it gets extended, especially regards full development teams as well as key figures. Molyneux is another interesting figure to debate. He's been very adventurous in choosing the direction of his teams, but he's had an awful lot of failures. Is he a creative genius?

 

[Extra411]

With regards to GeOWs graphics & art direction, imagine Cliffy turned to his team during pre-production & said "I want a gritty, pseudo-realistic world with larger than life-sized characters & an out-and-out 'badass' look & feel.."
The art director went away to his team, worked for a week or so doing verious tests and samples before coming up with the concept art for the artistic direction we see in the game today. Then the technical director took that away to his team who paired up with a few 3D artists, bashed out some code & scripts for a couple of weeks & came back with a test environment demonstrating how close the game could get to that artistic vision using the current engine & hardware..

Would it be fair to say that Cliffy deserves to be qualified as a 'genius' for his contribution to the overall look & feel of the game with respect to the visuals & art..?

In regards to this, I think there are many activities that require group effort yet cannot be achieved without a single individual.

The most prominent example I think think of, are military/political leaders. Alexander the Great, for example, is possibly one of the most famous military leaders in history. Did he personally win battles all by himself, single-handedly? Of course not. His troops and generals contributed to it. But could Macedon have achieved it without him? Again, I don't think so.

There are people who have "big" ideas, and delegate the smaller/specific tasks to others. Someone has to say, "this is the direction I want us to go", and when an idea is presented, they have to make the decision "this is exactly what I want", or "this needs to be changed".

I don't wish to underemine the group effort that's obviously needed for a project to succeed, but I do want to point out that many people have been referred to as geniuses before for spearheading enterprises and rightfully so. Afterall, sometimes even if you have a talented group of people, but without a strong leader the group often will not be able to perform at its best potential.

 

[Dominik D]

That is kinda what epic does, they kept on perfecting their genre, but they never had that stroke of genius to come up with something totally different.

If you make something well-known perfect, you can't call yourself genius? Music was well known for years yet we call many musicians geniuses.


I think most people here are tu subjective when it comes to determine who is and who isn't a genius. Genius is not the person who created piece of music, painting or gameplay mechanics YOU like. Genius is someone who created something compelling for people, who were striving for that kind of experience it delivered. You don't have to be in that group.

I'm not a Mario fan, I don't dig Gears, but I personally believe both Miyamoto and Bleszinski are gameplay geniuses. Miyamoto's platformers are not for everyone, they may not be for you, but they are perfect for people who like that specific type of platforming experience. It's the same with Gears and Cliff.

Jazz Jackrabbit was a great experience for many, so were Unreals, so are gears. Perhaps he's not consistently satisfying your taste, but please show me another gameplay designer who has that many good shooters under his/her belt.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

By that definition, isn't pretty much every game designer a genius? Pretty much every game is liked by someone somewhere. Even slated games like Untold Legends and Rocketmen have their fans who think them great. And if it's numbers that matter, than the creators of FIFA, regurgitating the same formula with little changes to dynamic for year on year, were geniuses because the series still sold a lot.

 

[tabs]

I think it's going to be hard to state just who, if anyone is the genius behind a game, or part of a game. Probably the only people who could have much valid input on the matter are their colleagues.

 

[archangelmorph]

In regards to this, I think there are many activities that require group effort yet cannot be achieved without a single individual.

The most prominent example I think think of, are military/political leaders. Alexander the Great, for example, is possibly one of the most famous military leaders in history. Did he personally win battles all by himself, single-handedly? Of course not. His troops and generals contributed to it. But could Macedon have achieved it without him? Again, I don't think so.

There are people who have "big" ideas, and delegate the smaller/specific tasks to others. Someone has to say, "this is the direction I want us to go", and when an idea is presented, they have to make the decision "this is exactly what I want", or "this needs to be changed".

I don't wish to underemine the group effort that's obviously needed for a project to succeed, but I do want to point out that many people have been referred to as geniuses before for spearheading enterprises and rightfully so. Afterall, sometimes even if you have a talented group of people, but without a strong leader the group often will not be able to perform at its best potential.

That's the other extreme..

However in the context of Cliffy B or any other lead designer in the games industry, I still don't believe you can say how well the team would/could have done without to designer nor how well the designer could have done without the team without intimate knowledge of the team structure & the inner workings of the development practices of that team on a very specific level..

 

[cbarcus]

The most important toy ever developed.

If genius is going to be discussed in regards to videogames, I think everyone seriously needs to consider Will Wright's latest project Spore. He's combining gameplay from Pac-man, Diablo, Populous, Civilization, and Master of Orion, and turning it into a Miyamoto game that is going to be very multi-platform. He wants everyone to play his SimEverything because he thinks that the philosophical issues that Spore raises are useful if not necessary for dealing with our current global crisis.

I know Spore is not yet out, so many of you may have a hard time imagining the fun to be had with this new toy, but watch this video and see what you think:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/146