Over at Quarter to Three, we have a great discussion on who should get credit in games. That is, in the manual or the in-game credits, who should be listed.
It's not as easy of a question as one might think to answer because making games is not like making a movie, making a game is an engineering effort as much (if not more) than being a "creative endeavor". That means, the amount of contribution person A makes to a game may absolutely dwarf that of person B even if they hold the same position.
So when you look at the credits of a game, who should get listed? Anyone who participated at all? Only people who were part of the team when they game launched? Or what?
Personally, I'd establish some threshold. I'm all for "additional thanks" to certain people but under headings like:
Engine developers and the like, I would probably have some threshold of how much they added to the project to get into one of the "primo" title.
In the industry, there's a big difference between being "Lead Engine Developer" and say "Additional programming". If you're a lead on a game and leave a year before the game's done, I'd probably be inclined to move that person's credit to "additional programming" unless their contribution to the project was truly substantial.
I think Firaxis have made a habit of even crediting beta testers (not in-house testers, I mean). That is probably taking it too far. But at least everyone in house workig on the project, and probably a mention of engine developers too, if they were involved in the project to any degree.
Oh yeah, and when browsing the credits, I sometimes wonder why more space is devoted to crediting the people from the publisher as opposed to people from the developer. I know the publisher plays a big role in getting the game out, but please. I really don't care who is licensing director for the publisher
Morten
I'd tend to say that if somebody is not present at release, and didn't contribute for a significant portion of the project's length, then they can go into an "Additional Contributors" section. But to remove anyone who has left or moved off the project completely (regardless of the magnitude of contributions) as some companies are doing, that's just insulting.
I hope this was duly noted...this is a very nice touch to those "little" people of the world who in some small way contributed to tweaks and bug squashes.
If you have your staff and contractors log hours worked to the project, you could build some formulae to do the main credits based on role and time worked as a portion of the total project time. That would automatically handle things like someone working hard for a year, but leaving a year before the job finished. You could also throw in a variable to weight a contributor's work quality.
It can be a serious disruption to have an employee leave before project completion, but I feel they still deserve mention if they left on good terms.
Regarding titles, this is something we tried to avoid in the credits. In a smaller studio we all wear many hats - it would feel forced or even humerous to slap titles on everyone.
more important question: does anyone who pays for the game actually read the credits?
I do when I get a printed manual, but not usually if they're just onscreen. Well, did is probably the better verb. I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to, mostly because the credits have turned out to be more like branding than, say, learning a director or author whose work you'd like to follow.
Both Sid Meier and Will Wright seem totally snared in mega-corp crap. The last couple of games I tried with their names on or behind the title were, well, rather disappointing. Brian Reynolds seems to have wandered off into RTS and consoles, so I haven't seen his name on a title I play in quite a while either.
The best credits I saw I think were for Portal. If I am remembering this correctly the credits were snaps of the various bodies knocking around the office and the credits just pointed out who they were and their title.
Makes the credits watchable when you get that sort of personal touch, a bunch of faces you can connect with, espacially when you see them in the enviroment in which they spend hundreds of hours making the game you love.
Then if your not around enough for someone to take a snap of you, you can go into the additional thanks bit at the end.
I also remember that the characters in the game I'm thinking of were all much beardier and plumper than the average joe. I would also like to know if game designers in general have a penchant for candy and facial hair.
Facial hair during crunch time for sure Can't say anyone falls in the other category here though.
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