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04/21/09(Tue)18:25 No.30262589  There
are tons of gifted Western visual artists, but it seems like only in
recent years have they become widely involved in the making of games.
In
Japan (and I fully admit this is just my impression, not absolute
sociological fact), it seems like games have longer been an accepted
part of the culture at large, and in turn have had a wider variety of
minds at work on them. The guys who are the superstars of the industry
over there are people like Miyamoto and Kojima, who have always been
more idea guys than hardcore code monkeys who cream their pants over
engine optimization.
Western game development has always been
dominated by programmers, people who are CS majors, or physics experts,
but who couldn't draw a stick figure if their lives depended on it. In
turn, Western game development has always focused on scope and
complexity, with narrative and aesthetics that fall back on the same
rote Tolkien, D&D and Star Trek/Wars sensibilities that they're
already familiar with.
Western game development has never placed
much of an emphasis on art, hence games like Fallout 3 that are
commendably ambitious on the gameplay front but have amateurish
animations and character designs. I think it's really only in recent
years that you've begun to see, on the indie scene predominantly, a
greater influx of actual, talented illustrators, animators, graphic
designers etc. who are elevating the look of games over here beyond
just "Brown = Fantasy" and "Green = Sci-Fi". |
