| I saw a talk by Warren Spector about 10 years ago in Australia. It was an interesting experience - he's not at all who I expected. When I think of the greats of game development, I think of people with a singular vision and a deep drive to create beautiful things, like Jonathan Blow. Warren Spector wasn't like that at all. He was much more focused around how to build big teams and make them succeed. A few nuggets from his talk, as best as I can remember it a decade later: - He's bought several houses on his street and he's filled them with lots of stuff from various games he's made. He describes it as a sort of living museum to himself and his work. - He said you shouldn't expect games to be fun when you first get them working. He described making Deus Ex, and said they spent years on the game and the first time they played it it wasn't fun at all. He thinks you shouldn't worry about that, and just make something with content in it and then make it fun to play at the end of the process. - He seemed very pro-crunch. Like, to him it felt like the most obvious thing in the world that people would "work super hard" near the end of a video game project to make it the best it could be. Its interesting - after hearing him talk about that I kinda get why his games turn out how they do. I've played a lot of his games. I grew up on Wing Commander. System Shock 2 is of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. But take Deus Ex - There were about 8 different creative ways to finish deus ex's first level. But by halfway through the game, it was very samey and the levels had mostly linear paths. The team obviously didn't have time to finish it properly. The boss battles were even outsourced to another team and they didn't fit the rest of the game. But having seen him speak, I doubt that would have particularly bothered Spector. He's clearly successful by any measure, but I still came away from his talk somehow not respecting the guy as much as I thought I would. My impression was that he cares a lot more about financial success and his personal image than he does making great work. Apparently Hayao Miyazaki rewatched Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind decades after making it and he was on the verge of tears, saying "Its still not done!". I can't imagine Warren Spector ever caring about his work like that. And thats fine - he can have whatever values he wants. But his values aren't my values. |
Well, that's not the way he sees himself, from the article,
> People have appreciated the work my teams and I have done and have expressed it loudly and affectionately. I may or may not deserve accolades, but I've been lucky enough to receive them and I'm grateful for all the kind words and well-wishes I've received. Maybe it's just my ego, but what I consider to be my successes have nothing to do with reviews, sales or revenue. Success for me is connection with players (and not in the data-collecting way some of you may be thinking). I've had people send me handmade plush toys based on characters in my games. I've had people send me artwork they were inspired to create. I've had people tell me a game I worked on helped get them through chemotherapy. Autism. Cerebral palsy. I ran into a young woman at Disneyland dressed as Ortensia, in a homemade costume, before the character was a star in the Disney firmament. “I started my company because of your game,” I’ve been told. And “I changed the way I thought about design because of a game you worked on.” Now those are success criteria that have kept me going, even when things got tough.
What he seems to care about the most is that his work has an impact on the players in some way - which I think is the goal of many artists.