I Guess I Was Wrong About Auteur Theory Being The Worst Thing To Happen To Video Games

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The debate of whether or not video games can be art came up a lot when I decided to take some Video Game courses that also counted towards my major. One idea we learned about was “Auteur theory,” the idea that video games cannot be art because they don’t reflect the vision of a single author.

I was annoyed by that argument back then because, frankly, I don’t think that’s true of things like movies or TV Shows. Yes, a film director can have a vision, but other people with other skills such as scoring, costume design, set design, location scouting, etc. help that vision come to life.

Without those people, the works of a lot of great filmmakers would not be nearly as striking as they are now.

When Tango Gameworks was closed, despite releasing an incredibly popular game, one of the reasons given was that the founder, Shinji Mikami, had left. I flippantly told a friend online, “Auteur theory is the worst thing to happen to video games.”

All these people worked on this game, but because there's one big name left, somehow they’re incapable of making another one? Don’t they even get a chance? It was ridiculous.

Ah, what a fool I was. How naïve.

I still have a problem with auteur theory as a definitional part of making something art, but there’s something much worse: IP.

At the end of February, Warner Bros. Games announced that they were shutting down three studios: Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and WB Games San Diego.

In a statement to Polygon, a company spokesperson said:

The implication, of course, is that focusing on large franchises will create games that are good, or at the very least, games that make money.

I can’t really speak to the latter, but I can promise you focusing solely on IP will not help the former. And I can say this because all of these franchises have had major flops.

• Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions came and went with barely a comment

• The Mortal Kombat movie from a couple of years ago did poorly

• The entire DCEU before James Gunn’s revamp

• The final season of Game of Thrones, in general.

• One of the studios that closed created MultiVersus, a fighting game that featured tons of Warner Bros. IPs. Together even!

Sticking a popular name brand on something doesn’t mean that it will be good. And not being good makes it rather hard to make money!

Things that are widely considered to be bad critically but still make a lot of money are unicorns or actively stealing from people.

The only thing IP will guarantee is more mainstream media attention, which isn’t always a good thing. It means more fans coming in with more expectations, which could mean a bigger backlash if the product is bad.

I don’t know how the executives who make these decisions don’t understand this, but somehow we’ve gone from “the most important thing is the name on the poster” to “the most important thing is the brand,” despite example after example of that not being the case.

If I had to give the strongest argument I could, I would say that the company can’t afford to make a ton of smaller games that might sell ok, they need to focus on large things with broad appeal.

But as I’ve already pointed out, broad appeal doesn’t mean anything if the game is bad. Monolith Productions was working on a Wonder Woman game. If it was good, people would have played it without knowing anything about Wonder Woman.

I’m increasingly convinced that the executives behind these decisions are willfully choosing to ignore or are just incapable of mapping out long-term plans or consequences.

They remind me of my roommate’s cats. Whenever I try to feed them, they’ll stick their heads right under the can to get as much food as possible, and as a result, instead of getting food in the dish they can eat, they get it on their heads.

If games are going to survive, they have to be people first. And not just one big name; they have to acknowledge all the people who worked together to make something. Or else, so many people who can make these IPs great will leave the industry, and all we’ll have is mediocre slop.