name the one person most tied to a product's success

[Don]

So I was in some random MMORPG thread and some guy made the claim that what made WoW great was because of Jeff Kaplan, and I thought that's a ridiculous claim because I bet 95% of the poeple who play WoW don't know who he is before even considering whatever he made have contributed. But then I thought if it's not the guy whose name shows up the most on the interviews, then who is it? Does WoW even have one person you can go to and say 'yep WoW is great because of this guy?' For that matter how many games can even say this game was good (or not) because of one guy? If the next Zelda game sucked people will definitely hold Miyamoto responsible, asuming he actually worked on the game, and vice versa if it was good. But he's on a pretty short list of such individuals. Offhand, I can only think of the following:

Miyaomto
Kojima
Sid Meier
John Romero
Brad McQuaid

These are the guys who I know, for good or bad, are the guy responsible for whether their game turned out to be good or not. Are there any other you consider to be so influential that they alone determine the game's success or not?

Edit: since I brought up Sid Meier, I decided to check out what he's been doing and they're still using his name as a brand (Sid Meier's everything) and I found this picture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Civrev_ds.jpg I bet the pikemen wins in this fight!

[Zeus]

Will Wright
Tomonobu Itagaki (he's Tecmo's Kojima...or was)
Kenji Inafune
Richard Garriot (even if he ain't doin' too much, Tabula Rasa was solely his)

Those are the ones just off the top of my head. I'm sure if I had more time I could come up with more

A lot of companies have one or two guys who are the heads of the body, which lead everything. Miyamoto is a bit different than them in that he overlooks all of Nintendo's game development and has his hands in MANY pies. But there are tons of guys like Kojima and Itagaki who are the driving forces behind their games

[Don]

Inafune didn't have much to do with the success or lack there of for most of the later Megaman games.

Obviously every company has a head designer of some sorts, but for example I don't really consider whoever is the head designer of Final Fantasy to be responsible for the series's success or lack there of.

[Julius Seeker]

Tetsuya Takahashi - Xeno games
Yasumi Matsuno - Ivalice games
Kitase - FF6, FF7, and FF8

[Zeus]

Inafune didn't have much to do with the success or lack there of for most of the later Megaman games.

Obviously every company has a head designer of some sorts, but for example I don't really consider whoever is the head designer of Final Fantasy to be responsible for the series's success or lack there of.

Inafune was the driving force behind Dead Rising and Lost Planet. Those two games were incredible success for Capcom and for all intents and purposes proved to Capcom that they should be looking globally as opposed to just in Japan. They've had a significant impact on Capcom's next gen strategy.

And yes, he may not have been the driving force behind the Zero or Battle Network series' or the latter X games (that explains those ones...), but Mega Man is his and he laid the foundation for all that is Mega Man. They were his babies until the PSX (the last of the good Xs too, I might add) and the Zero series is more of a progression of the X series. If I'm not mistaken, was at least consulted on the Zero games. And the PSP remakes, some of the best Mega Man games ever made, were made because he wanted them to be.

And you can't deny Sakaguchi's influence on FF or even Square as a company or the entire console RPG genre in general. He's another that's right up there with Kojima and Miyamoto. Same with the driving force behind the DQ games.

[Don]

Maybe I didn't phrase this correctly. Obviously there is always someone who is important to the series, but I'm talking about important enough that anybody can associate his name with the series. I'm sure there's some guy who is most responsible for WoW's success but no one has any clue who he is, and even if we do most people would have never heard of his name. I play Final Fantasy games without ever realizing who designed it so I cannot consider anybody involved with Final Fantasy as important enough to have a name that defines the brand. I'm betting more people know about who composed the music or did the creepy illustrations for a FF game than whoever designed it. Now obviously Uematsu or Amano's presence does not make or break a FF game, but if they are the most identifiable persons associated with FF then I think that means FF does not have an identifiable icon.

Most of the names you're saying here I have never heard of their name. I only know about Inafune through Megaman and again I can bet you a significant portion of Megaman fans have no idea who Inafune is.

[Zeus]

Maybe I didn't phrase this correctly. Obviously there is always someone who is important to the series, but I'm talking about important enough that anybody can associate his name with the series. I'm sure there's some guy who is most responsible for WoW's success but no one has any clue who he is, and even if we do most people would have never heard of his name. I play Final Fantasy games without ever realizing who designed it so I cannot consider anybody involved with Final Fantasy as important enough to have a name that defines the brand. I'm betting more people know about who composed the music or did the creepy illustrations for a FF game than whoever designed it. Now obviously Uematsu or Amano's presence does not make or break a FF game, but if they are the most identifiable persons associated with FF then I think that means FF does not have an identifiable icon.

Most of the names you're saying here I have never heard of their name. I only know about Inafune through Megaman and again I can bet you a significant portion of Megaman fans have no idea who Inafune is.

By nature, a lot of the "main men" (or women) behind games are not well known. They're kind of behind the scenes doing the work. So yeah, people may not know who Inafune is, but they sure as hell know his work.

It's like that in all media, though. I may follow movie directors and/or producers, but most people only know of / care about the actors. But that don't mean that the director is just a plug. In games, it's even more prevalent. The script and "acting" is nothing without the man behind the scenes and there is no actor to save a mediocre game. It's all about those main men even if people don't know who they are.

And isn't it sad that a lot of people could tell you who Jade Raymond is before Sakaguchi, Inafune, or even Will Wright?

[Kupek]

I think something that defines the role of producers and directors in a videogame is you can't point to an element of the game and say "They did that."

Their role is inherently one of guidance, not implementation. The larger the staff of a game, the less obvious their direct impact.

[SineSwiper]

FF12's story sucked because the dismissal of one person.

[RentCavalier]

FF12's story sucked because the dismissal of one person.

Who?

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

Yasumi Matsuno.

[Kupek]

But had he stayed on, you wouldn't have been able to point to a particular part of the game and said "He did this." I didn't not say producers and directors are unimportant; I said their influence on a game is often intangible.

[Andrew, Killer Bee]

But had he stayed on, you wouldn't have been able to point to a particular part of the game and said "He did this."

Agreed, but I think you would have been able to tell the game that he'd produced had he not left apart from the game that Square actually did release. So, while you may not be able to point at a specific element in a game and say, "Dude did this", the impact a decent director will have on a project will be obvious.

[Don]

Well if you take Sid Meier's (whatever) I doubt you can say this part is good because Sid Meier did it, and the game has his name on the title. So is it just who is more willing to tell everyone 'hey look I did everything?' I actually have no idea who any of the guys behind Square is besides their music composers, since that's the only thing you can definitely know for sure that will be good/bad depending on who did the music.

[Kupek]

So, while you may not be able to point at a specific element in a game and say, "Dude did this", the impact a decent director will have on a project will be obvious.

I thought I said this, but I guess not.

[Zeus]

I think something that defines the role of producers and directors in a videogame is you can't point to an element of the game and say "They did that."

Their role is inherently one of guidance, not implementation. The larger the staff of a game, the less obvious their direct impact.

See, I don't think that's exactly true when it comes to games. Take a look at the Kojima doc on the MGS4 special edition or d'load the Ninja Gaiden 2 doc and you'll see how, even with a very large team, the "main man" still influences the game to such a large degree that you can say "it's their game".

Miyamoto may not have been the director of Galaxy, but it's quite clear that his influence is a huge factor in it. Compare that to Zelda Majora or Mario Sunshine, where he took a little more of a backseat, and you can clearly see his influence in games, even when there's 200 people on his team.

[Zeus]

FF12's story sucked because the dismissal of one person.

Who?

Sakaguchi was there in the beginning but was let go part way through the development

[Zeus]

So, while you may not be able to point at a specific element in a game and say, "Dude did this", the impact a decent director will have on a project will be obvious.

I thought I said this, but I guess not.

I actually took it as you sayin' "they don't have as much direct impact when there's a bigger team" as well. But after re-reading it, i can see you actually agree with me. Sorry 'bout that

[kent]

But had he stayed on, you wouldn't have been able to point to a particular part of the game and said "He did this." I didn't not say producers and directors are unimportant; I said their influence on a game is often intangible.

you can tell very specifically when he left, eventually the game stopped having Ondore read from his memoirs.

Matsuno is all about the chapters and narration stuff, from FFT, Vagrant Story all the way back to the Ogre games.

[Kupek]

This is bizarre. People are arguing with me, but they're not saying things I disagree with.

Directors and producers - the people whose name is often associated with the product - are not implementers. Their influence may be obvious, but you can't point to a single thing and say "They created that." For example, chapters might be one of Matsuno's trademarks, but he didn't do any of the writing. He was a consultant on what to write.

I'm making this point because Zeus said that they're the people behind the scenes doing the work. But to me, "doing the work" implies actual implementation, which they don't do. They're behind the scenes guiding and directing the work.

[kent]

are you taking the phrase "doing the work" too literally? if it's not manual labor it's not work to you?

and the thing with FFXII is that, the memoir stuff completely disappears in the middle and late parts of the game. nobody actual does what you consider "work", nobody is doing the writing for that stuff at all, it's just gone.

if no one is guiding it, the thing does not get implemented at all. so how can you say the guidance is not work?

[Kupek]

I think I clearly stated what I thought "doing the work" meant in the context Zeus used it.

[Zeus]

I think I clearly stated what I thought "doing the work" meant in the context Zeus used it.

Well, I agree with you now as I stated in the post above. I misread your post the first time.

I think everyone else agrees with ya too. It is kind of an odd argument

[Julius Seeker]

FF12 would have been a masterpiece if Matsuno had his way. Of course, we'd be seeing it in Winter/Spring 2009.

Back on track

"Iga" Koji Igarashi and the Castlevania series.
Final Fantasy series (1-10)- Nobou Uematsu; while not a developer, he is probably the most recognized figure with the Final Fantasy series and a major contributer to its success.

[Flip]

American McGee is tacking his name on games nowadays.