It’s not the first subject where I’ve heard that sentiment, the other big one being difficulty in video games. But it’s pretty disingenuous, since most great media authors I know seek some level of feedback on their creation, and adjust based on how people have perceived it because some part of their work isn’t quite coming across how they’d hope. Valve famously does oodles of QA testing on all their properties.
The question isn’t just between “Is providing attractive characters good/bad”. It can also be more nuanced, like “I want to make this character really attractive, but some people feel soured by the designs I’ve given where she has a bikini. Is there some way to design her that’s still really visually appealing, in a slightly sexual way, but also feels enjoyable to people who view her more as a role model?”
A great example of that nuance was in the “Tracer victory pose debacle” in Overwatch. Tracer had a victory pose that was just her, facing away, shoving her butt out. Someone commented that it felt off-kilter for her personality, and Blizzard ended up replacing it with another one. A censorship crowd wailed on the occasion, but when comparing the two poses, there’s a more reasonable take there; the ass-centric pose didn’t fit the character much, and the new one was both cute and still managed to show off her slender legs while also fitting the “pilot” theme. It also helps that media of that type has a lot of character designs on offer, so it might just be a matter of hitting more archetypes correctly, instead of everything leaning in the direction of “big booba no clotha”.
I definitely don’t want to open the topic of difficulty in games right now, enough ink has been spilled and hardly anybody ever changed their minds.
I do want to point out that an ongoing conversation with your audience is an optional part of the creative process - and one you’d expect to see normalized when art is mainly treated as a product. My view is that the value of art is lessened when that’s taken for granted. It can be really interesting when a writer’s relationship with their readers causes a story to go someplace unexpected. But some creators are jealous of their vision, and couldn’t bear to take such candid feedback in the middle of their creative. It’s easy to see both sides of that coin, I just wish people could be free to make their choices without thinking too much about the coin.
Yeah, I’m fine with leaving the difficulty subject alone; as you said, it becomes pretty polarizing.
What you describe about a more individual, self-owned experience is often what makes novels/writing so compelling to people, since they generally come from one crazy mind, undoctored. Even then, you might be surprised how many different professional editing roles tend to go into a very refined book.
Movies and games tend to involve an order of magnitude more people, not all of them holding the title of “Game Designer” but all having a very important form of input to the end product, both for effort and for decisionmaking. If the studio’s lawyer takes a look at a virtual vending machine’s set of drinks and says “No, change those two, they run a risk of lawsuits from Pepsi”, is that “outside censorship”, or does the lawyer count as “part of the studio” because he’s at the same risk of publisher layoff as everyone else?
The hazy answers to that question, in my mind, are part of the reasons I don’t find the “Author vision, unfiltered” argument so compelling, especially as games involve larger studios. I think you’re right at least that it does create something more unique when a smaller, talented team is given reigns, eg Half-Life 2 or Expedition 33.
With big projects it’s definitely not a single person’s pure vision, but for me the important difference is between letting the creative be dictated by people’s ideas versus designing around what the suits think will sell (or avoid lawsuits, or other uninteresting choices). And for me it’s all about interesting choices - I could care less if something was done perfectly, if the idea itself is boring. What excites me about any art is always the thinking behind creative choices, which are a lot harder to spot when there’s a lot of ulterior motives affecting the creative. I keep circling around an apprehension that all art is the study of choice, and the choice to sell well is always the most boring of impulses.
It’s not the first subject where I’ve heard that sentiment, the other big one being difficulty in video games. But it’s pretty disingenuous, since most great media authors I know seek some level of feedback on their creation, and adjust based on how people have perceived it because some part of their work isn’t quite coming across how they’d hope. Valve famously does oodles of QA testing on all their properties.
The question isn’t just between “Is providing attractive characters good/bad”. It can also be more nuanced, like “I want to make this character really attractive, but some people feel soured by the designs I’ve given where she has a bikini. Is there some way to design her that’s still really visually appealing, in a slightly sexual way, but also feels enjoyable to people who view her more as a role model?”
A great example of that nuance was in the “Tracer victory pose debacle” in Overwatch. Tracer had a victory pose that was just her, facing away, shoving her butt out. Someone commented that it felt off-kilter for her personality, and Blizzard ended up replacing it with another one. A censorship crowd wailed on the occasion, but when comparing the two poses, there’s a more reasonable take there; the ass-centric pose didn’t fit the character much, and the new one was both cute and still managed to show off her slender legs while also fitting the “pilot” theme. It also helps that media of that type has a lot of character designs on offer, so it might just be a matter of hitting more archetypes correctly, instead of everything leaning in the direction of “big booba no clotha”.
I definitely don’t want to open the topic of difficulty in games right now, enough ink has been spilled and hardly anybody ever changed their minds.
I do want to point out that an ongoing conversation with your audience is an optional part of the creative process - and one you’d expect to see normalized when art is mainly treated as a product. My view is that the value of art is lessened when that’s taken for granted. It can be really interesting when a writer’s relationship with their readers causes a story to go someplace unexpected. But some creators are jealous of their vision, and couldn’t bear to take such candid feedback in the middle of their creative. It’s easy to see both sides of that coin, I just wish people could be free to make their choices without thinking too much about the coin.
Yeah, I’m fine with leaving the difficulty subject alone; as you said, it becomes pretty polarizing.
What you describe about a more individual, self-owned experience is often what makes novels/writing so compelling to people, since they generally come from one crazy mind, undoctored. Even then, you might be surprised how many different professional editing roles tend to go into a very refined book.
Movies and games tend to involve an order of magnitude more people, not all of them holding the title of “Game Designer” but all having a very important form of input to the end product, both for effort and for decisionmaking. If the studio’s lawyer takes a look at a virtual vending machine’s set of drinks and says “No, change those two, they run a risk of lawsuits from Pepsi”, is that “outside censorship”, or does the lawyer count as “part of the studio” because he’s at the same risk of publisher layoff as everyone else?
The hazy answers to that question, in my mind, are part of the reasons I don’t find the “Author vision, unfiltered” argument so compelling, especially as games involve larger studios. I think you’re right at least that it does create something more unique when a smaller, talented team is given reigns, eg Half-Life 2 or Expedition 33.
With big projects it’s definitely not a single person’s pure vision, but for me the important difference is between letting the creative be dictated by people’s ideas versus designing around what the suits think will sell (or avoid lawsuits, or other uninteresting choices). And for me it’s all about interesting choices - I could care less if something was done perfectly, if the idea itself is boring. What excites me about any art is always the thinking behind creative choices, which are a lot harder to spot when there’s a lot of ulterior motives affecting the creative. I keep circling around an apprehension that all art is the study of choice, and the choice to sell well is always the most boring of impulses.