Sat, Nov 06, 2010 | 16:15 GMT
Bilson: Games should not “be directed from corporate in any way”
Core games EVP Danny Bilson said during his IGDA Leadership Forum speech in San Francisco this week he didn’t take a job with THQ to “make SpongeBob” games.
According to Gamasutra, which was in attendance during Bilson’s talk, the executive chatted a bit about his history and what his plans were when he started at THQ as creative director.
He said upon his hiring he wanted to “raise the quality of the games in general” at the company which was know more for its GameBoy titles than anything else.
“I walked in there, and I’ll be frank, I said ‘this is all opportunity, there aren’t a lot of creative leaders here, so I can maybe get something done’,” said Bilson who believes the only way to make stockholders happy is to use “creative vision and drive it” by making “a great game”.
“I want [the creators'] vision,” he said. “That’s what creative management is. It’s enabling talent to get their vision through. I don’t really believe in collaborative art. But people say ‘well we’ve got 200 people!’ There has to be one vision though, and it has to be communicated to all those people. All those people have the ability to create within their disciplines.
“There was this gag in the past, where [marketing] would make a forecast. The forecast would dictate the budget. And the budget dictates the features and what you can do in the game. So they can change the forecast to manipulate what they want. Why are the non-artists in charge of the art? Makes no sense to me.
“I don’t think games should be directed from corporate in any way. If you want to design the game, you should get in the studio. You shouldn’t be in the corporate headquarters, and you shouldn’t be an executive.”
Bilson is quickly becoming one of our favorite game executives, especially when talking like this.
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Posted in: Development, THQ
Tags: danny bilson
11 comments
#1
M2Kx
06/11/10, 4:50 pm
So Rachel is his daughter? :3
#2
Stephany Nunneley
06/11/10, 4:51 pm
@1 Yep!
#3
Razor
06/11/10, 4:58 pm
Well she doesn’t get her appearance genes* from her dad, that’s for sure…
*that’s the biological expression, I’m pretty sure…
#4
Callum
06/11/10, 5:01 pm
I get his point, but I think corporate has its place in design; you need constraints. Without constraints a crazy talented designer could go wild and come up with something like APB, an MMO shooter with mad customisation, but with constraints from someone more focused on budgets and buisness you can create a design that is more realistically achievable.
I’ve been asked in interviews:
“If you could make any game, what would you make”
and they always follow with: “Now tell me if you think it is possible”
#5
hitnrun
06/11/10, 5:07 pm
@4: That’s an under-appreciated aspect of game creation, or any media: the importance of an editor. We gamers and game media tend to throw our hosannahs at these celebrity game designers, but we don’t see pop-ups in the middle of our favorite games which read, “The producer wanted to insert crazy bullshit X here but the publisher told him to switch to decaffeinated.”
#6
SaintRasmus
06/11/10, 5:13 pm
There are nothing wrong with SpongeBob
#7
M2Kx
06/11/10, 5:23 pm
@2: Thanks, good to know
@3: Well, now that I know, that he’s her father I see some similarity.
#8
DJ Deathstar
06/11/10, 5:48 pm
Most interesting thing from this news story is the Rachel Bilson is his daughter!
#9
manamana
06/11/10, 6:11 pm
^ try to read, then. Because this man is really getting into things. His words are music to my ears and I really do hope, that he can achieve his visions for crafting new and creative games. The industrie needs new ways and ideas (no, neither move nor kinect is meant…) and he trys to make the wake-up call.
So please, read the words. You can google for Rachels titts afterwards
#10
M2Kx
07/11/10, 12:40 pm
“You can google for Rachels titts”
are there any pics? :>
#11
Chris2pher_Jack
07/11/10, 12:51 pm
Love the direction THQ is heading, quite interested to see what new franchises they can bring out in the near future.