Whether it’s thinking that girls don’t play games, that PC gaming is dead, or that your Xbox will grant you a towering intellect, there are some beliefs about videogames that are just plain wrong.
What do Bigfoot, the Easter Bunny, and the idea that videogames are all made by auteur geniuses have in common? The answer is that they’re all myths, with little basis in truth. In Issue 266 of The Escapist, C J Davies takes ten of the most common gaming-related myths and busts them one by one.
Myth: Game Design Is An Auteur’s Medium
Blame the Molyneuxs. Blame the Wrights. Blame the Bleszinkis. Blame anyone who boldly proclaims a game as their “vision,” creating a skewed impression of a lone Terminator-like figure, battling with inhuman power against all odds to lovingly handcraft every line of code.
Just as Hollywood likes to venerate the director (shunting every other important filmmaking role out of the limelight), the videogame public all too often focuses on one benevolent figurehead. While there invariably has to be a Big Boss calling the shots, this can often mean that the collaborative nature of design is shamefully overlooked. Games are not made by one person, but rather a team of dedicated designers and support staff.
Davies weighs in on whether videogames can make you more violent or more intelligent, whether games are art, and whether casual gaming will be the death of “real” games. You can read more in his article, Videogame Myths Debunked.
