In 1954 François Truffaut coined the term 'auteur' in his groundbreaking work "Une certaine tendance du cinéma français", a descriptive that would subsequently be used to describe directors whose style or approach is so idiosyncratic that their films would be easily recognized (See Wes Anderson, Scorsese, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Bros). But could this perspective and theory be possibly applied to the video game world?
We don't hear much of names in the video game industry, but the ones that come to the top of my head include Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Toby Fox (for his sheer creative control in Undertale), Ken Levine (of the Bioshock games) and Sid Meier, who has built his own empire from his Civilization games. So my question is: is it possible to consider such visionaries auteurs? Can their games be considered solely products of their own unflinching vision? Or is another step in order: wherein we ought to consider companies/collectives as auteurs in their own right?
An interesting topic - I would argue that the "auteur"-theory is also controversial within the film-community. Theses days, the tag " A Spielberg/Scorsese/Coen Bros... -film" seems to be as much about marketing than about artistic vision. Is the screenwriter not as important in the development of a film than the director? After all, he creates the story/plot, themes, characters? I think the same argument can be made about the production of video games. A video-game does not need to reflect the vision of one individual creator to be considered a work of art. – Nightshade7 years ago