[No MGS spoilers] Let's be real about Kojima for a second.

[Arshaq13]

Here's the discussion I want to have: which developers, beyond Kojima, are capable of delivering artistic messages solely through their game's mechanics?

What? Seriously what? Kojima delivers very little through game mechanics and mostly through long, long cutscenes.
Now don't get me wrong, i like Kojima.
Metal Gear Solid 5 is my first MGS game but i am having a lot of fun. The Story, while wacky and silly, is interesting so far and the gameplay is just so much fun.
And there are some aspects of the game that get delivered through subtle hints of the game, like Big Boss's Appearance and how it changes the longer you are away in the field. But not much of it is through the actual Gameplay. The Stanley Parable delivers a message through gameplay. MGS really doesn't. But as i said, that's ok.
Kojima is more like Tarantino. He has his own unique Style. He's silly and wacky and doesn't take his games too seriously, while exploring very serious thematics and scenarios. And he still manages to make it all fit together surprisingly well, which is pretty much exactly what makes Tarantino's movies so special.
You can even draw more parralells.
Tarantino is known for long, drawn-out conversations in his movies, Kojima is known for long, drawn-out cutscenes in his games.

You're not entirely wrong but you're not entirely right either. He's used elements of gameplay to send a message, to express a strong emotion and if the popular theory of MGS2 is correct, to send a subtle slow-burning 'mindf**k' to the player throughout the player's time.

I'm really not trying go all out fanboy and try to shut you down or something(hope I haven't come across that way) but while Kojima is known for his long, drawn-out cutscenes, it's an incredibly unfair remark to make of him. His style shown in MGS is far more than just cutscenes :/

 

[RedDeadFred]

Artistic messages through game mechanics? I'll be honest, I haven't played any MGS games (don't really want to read a huge amount of story to catch up), but my impression is that the gameplay mechanics are just excellent stealth and action. How is that in any way delivering an artistic message? Is the message: we do great stealth?

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're asking. I can't think of any developer who does this consistently, but a good example would probably be Spec Ops: the Line.

Also, Hearthstone. The message being: RNGesus hates you.

 

[Amaror]

Here's the discussion I want to have: which developers, beyond Kojima, are capable of delivering artistic messages solely through their game's mechanics?

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Yes of course his style is more than just cutscenes, but that doesn't mean that his style doesn't rely HEAVILY on cutscenes which it does.
And i allready said that there are elements of the story which get expressed through subtle hints in the game, like the Appearance of Big Boss. And i disaggree that it's an unfair remark. His games almost exclusively feature long drawn-out cutscenes. It's not all his games are about, not by a long shot, but it's there. So it is fair to say that Kojima's style features long drawn-out cutscenes.
My remark was not there to express that long drawn-out cutscenes are all Kojima is about. It served more as one more paralell to Tarantino. Tarantino is known for his long dialogues in his movies. It's not the only thing that's special about Tarantino but it's a large part of what he does. He also does great humor, silly situations and beautifull picture-moments in his movies, but it's still not unfair to say that long dialogues are a part of Tarantino'S style. And the same goes for Kojima.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Now I might be stirring the ashes a little here, I do find Hideo's work to be amazing and absolutely unique, but if I'm honest - I think he was also a little proud in putting his label on his work as well. Many designers or devs love to put little easter eggs in the game, such as old paintings in a hallway with their face or whatnot but when you played a Hideo game you knew about it. Even as a younger player who didn't care so much it was extremely apparent to me. And I thought of him as more of a movie/animation director than a game designer due to the length of cutscenes in every iteration.

What I'm getting at is although he's fantastic, there are others who are just as good but don't make as much of an effort in selling themselves. Most games in fact, which I thought had great stories and direction, I only found out more about the writers by researching outside of playing the game itself (unless they made a big deal out of themselves or cocked things up as to make a huge issue with the media, like David Cage or Peter Molyneux).

Whatever he did to piss off Konami so much, I'm pretty sure they took his name off the box because they knew that's where it would hurt him most. As far as I'm concerned, it's a Hideo game, and he's the mastermind behind the series regardless.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I definitely think we need more creative directors in gaming like Kojima. In movies, there's quite a few directors that consistently do great work that I love to follow and see their next movie. Outside of a few people in gaming, there's really not much of that. Publishers want so much of a broad audience that any uniqueness or quirkiness is basically removed from the game. I really enjoyed Watch Dogs gameplay but I would have loved say a suda51 creating the characters, story, and story missions. Instead we got what was great gameplay surrounded by blandness and generic-ness.

Artistic messages through game mechanics? I'll be honest, I haven't played any MGS games (don't really want to read a huge amount of story to catch up), but my impression is that the gameplay mechanics are just excellent stealth and action. How is that in any way delivering an artistic message? Is the message: we do great stealth?

Yeah, I get that a select few games can actually do messages through mechanics but most games aren't going to have messages through gameplay mechanics. Even Ken Levine was mentioned, and Bioshock's mechanics are just a 1st-person shooter.

Kojima works messages into the whole gaming experience I believe like how defeating Liquid in MGS1 shows inferior genes can be overcome. Or how MGS2 shows the player that you can alter one's view with controlling the information they receive.

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What? Seriously what? Kojima delivers very little through game mechanics and mostly through long, long cutscenes.
Now don't get me wrong, i like Kojima.
Metal Gear Solid 5 is my first MGS game but i am having a lot of fun. The Story, while wacky and silly, is interesting so far and the gameplay is just so much fun.

Yes, the developers are capable of delivering """"artistic""" messages solely through their """game's mechanics"""". Kojima? Gameplay? More like a failed film director.

Firstly, only MGS2&4 have really long cutscenes. MGS1 is pretty well paced, and MGS3 doesn't have many cutscenes at all (and I hear MGS5 is similar). Kojima needing long cutscenes to make a game is just false. He definitely, at times, needs an editor no doubt. To properly develop characters, you mostly need cutscenes. Not every game can use use the Bioshock setup as that just wouldn't work in most scenarios. Characters need to talk to each other at times and I'd rather have a cutscene with good framing/cinematography vs my character just standing there as other characters talk and the only gameplay is me walking around the room and maybe searching desks or something. You can't have important conversations during actual gameplay due to you paying more attention to not dying instead of the dialogue. Yeah, you can tell stories without much dialogue but not every story can be told with little amounts of dialogue.

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I'm really not trying go all out fanboy and try to shut you down or something(hope I haven't come across that way) but while Kojima is known for his long, drawn-out cutscenes, it's an incredibly unfair remark to make of him. His style shown in MGS is far more than just cutscenes :/

I actually watched that video about a week back and it was very interesting. I realize now why Kojima did consider MGS2 to be the end of the series.

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As others have said; game mechanics are the last thing most people would think of when Kojima springs to mind. Tonal dissonance, bewilderingly long cinematics, and poor mechanics/controls are where my mind goes to first.

MGS4 still stands as the most sound 3rd-person shooter to date. There's no TPS that has tighter aiming and more control options; you could tailor the sensitivity of all the cameras separately (free look, over-the-shoulder, 1st-person) for example. The game doesn't rely on cover mechanics while having a cover system that never would get you killed. And, the game even allowed for very skillful actions like leaning while in 1st-person mode that very few FPSs even do nowadays. The online component also revolutionized online shooters with its SOP system that you can see making its way into just about every shooter about 3-4 years after MGS4's release; Ghost Recon Future Soldier for example pretty much stole everything from MGS4. Lastly, games like MGS2/3 had pretty solid controls (complex but solid) considering that state of TPSs during that time; there was no Gears or Uncharteds and the aiming just didn't feel "right" until last-gen. Even Uncharted is a horribly unsound TPS, it's easy to play but doesn't offer much for very skilled players like not having a camera sensitively option (in any game) and having aim-assist that makes skill oriented aiming near impossible, try drag-scoping in Uncharted 3 for example.

 

[09philj]

Now, if you were to point to video games and go "Find me the auteurs of this genre" who would I be able to point to beyond Kojima and maybe David Cage on a good day where I don't feel pissed off by David Cage?

Off the top of my head, Ken Levine, Suda51, Tim Schaeffer, and Sid Meier. Really, Kojima isn't all he's cracked up to be, and most of his attempts at subtlety are akin to performing open heart surgery with half a brick and a sledgehammer.

 

[CrystalShadow]

What, no love for Chris Sawyer? OK, OK, so that's really only transport tycoon and rollercoaster tycoon.
But up until RCT3, he did most of those basically alone.
An indie dev attitude before people really used that term much in games.

You can certainly see the somilarities in things.

The problem is, most of the 'auteur' Devs are the older generations.

And many of them have less direct influence on things than they used to.

Shigeru Miyamoto. Peter Molyneux, Chris Sawyer, Will Wright, Sid Meier. John Carmack (Also Romero), Tim schafer, Suda 51...

A lot of these people, you can see their influence if they were heavily involved with something.

It may not always be impressive (Molyneux, seriously?), but you can quite likely see their influences on things.

There's probably others too. Like maybe some if the prominent former Rare devs, but the thing is, while the infuence of various people might be very apparent, without a strong, identifiable name to tie it to, would you notice?

Did you notice that Back to the future and Forrest Gump had the same director? Maybe.

Would you however be able to name two films with the same director of photohraphy?
A person who likely has a decent impact on the 'look and feel' of a film, but rarely gets mentioned when anyone thinks of what makes films feel a certain way.

The same can be said for most games no doubt.
And the majority of games are made by teams that are almost entirely 'faceless'. They don't get mentioned much, so it-s assumed their influence isn't so big.

But, do these other nameless people really have any less influence on the feel of a game?
Is perhaps the difference between the likes of Kojima or Miyamoto and some other dev perhaps just a matter of how frequently or prominently their name gets mentioned in relationship to their work?

Is an 'auteur' really someone with such unusual vision or influence? Or just someone who has their name branded in neon letters onto work they were involved with?

 

[Amaror]

Firstly, only MGS2&4 have really long cutscenes. MGS1 is pretty well paced, and MGS3 doesn't have many cutscenes at all (and I hear MGS5 is similar). Kojima needing long cutscenes to make a game is just false. He definitely, at times, needs an editor no doubt. To properly develop characters, you mostly need cutscenes. Not every game can use use the Bioshock setup as that just wouldn't work in most scenarios. Characters need to talk to each other at times and I'd rather have a cutscene with good framing/cinematography vs my character just standing there as other characters talk and the only gameplay is me walking around the room and maybe searching desks or something. You can't have important conversations during actual gameplay due to you paying more attention to not dying instead of the dialogue. Yeah, you can tell stories without much dialogue but not every story can be told with little amounts of dialogue.

No MGS 5 has very very long cutscenes. Granted there aren't THAT many of them, though still more than usual, but they are pretty damn long.
Hell, the entire start of the game is basically one long cutscene, interupted by "Go to point X to continue cutscene" moments.
But I never said that that's an inherently bad thing or that Kojima is a bad gamemaker because of it. As i allready said he makes it work. The cutscenes are long, but often very interesting.
I just challenged the claim of the OP that Kojima tells his stories through gameplay, which is obviously not true. He does part of his storytelling and character development through gameplay and subtle hints but only a very small amount of it.
And it is possible, btw., to tell a story through mostly gameplay though it's mostly done in the indie space. The Stanley Parable is such an example and Tomas was alone is another that does it.
But that doesn't make Kojima's kind of storytelling any worse. He has his own style and, as I allready said, I quite enjoy it. And I do agree that he is definetly one of the best storytellers in the gaming industry. But saying he does most of his storytelling through gameplay is just plain wrong.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

this entire premise is bullshit, fucking CALL OF DUTY qualifies with that nuke scene in MW1. They've even tried to do one of those in every subsequent game.

FFVII does with the static that interrupts scenes when Cloud has a false memory.

How about Majora's Mask where you explore futility through the time resetting mechanic?

You know why you didn't think of these ones? Because the game's director isn't plastering their name over EVERYTHING. David Cage and Hideo Kojima aren't great because they're super amazing and unique in their style because, Cage at least, is f*cking terrible at making fun games. The reason you think those two are stand-out directors is because they TELL EVERYONE THEY'RE THE DIRECTOR.

Also, Suda51 and Grasshopper like everyone's said. Because... I mean, it's like Michael Bay, the games may not always be GREAT (though generally are, unlike Bay) You can always tell by the explosions it was him.

 

[Therumancer]

No, I'm not talking about the quiet bikini snoipah.

Let's talk about Kojima and metal gear.

The auteur theory of film is true, watch 10 Kubrick films and 10 Hitchcock films back to back, I defy and dare you to tell me it isn't. And for every medium there's a certain manifestation of auteur theory.

Compare Clutch to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, there's two distinct and separate and wonderful worlds of music there. Compare Rembrandt to Michelangelo, there's obvious differences in their stylistic choices. Compare Stephen King to Tolkein, there's distinctions there that run far deeper than their cadence.

Now, if you were to point to video games and go "Find me the auteurs of this genre" who would I be able to point to beyond Kojima and maybe David Cage on a good day where I don't feel pissed off by David Cage?

Fuckin' nobody. When I pick up a Kojima game I know I'm playing a Kojima game, he knows what people think while they play games, he knows how to get into a players head (which is, to an extent, why I'm most disappointed he didn't get to finish Silent Hills) and he knows how to deliver an artistic message through game mechanics alone which sadly, a lot of developers don't understand.

Here's the discussion I want to have: which developers, beyond Kojima, are capable of delivering artistic messages solely through their game's mechanics?

I can think of Ed McMillain with Fingered, that's about it and thatgamecompany with Journey. There has to be more than two.

Meh, the problem is that the game industry tends to be company and team based, it's actually fairly rare when a single person becomes tied to a specific game line. For example Bioware tends to largely operate as a team and is known as Bioware. One also has to look at the legal ramifications behind a lot of it too. Perhaps the first real "Aueur" of gaming was Richard "Lord British" Garriott , his work is still hugely influential in games today, but due to some bad deals with EA the guy who once had himself launched into space is on the fringes and hoping for a come back with his newest game which to me smacks of a virtual real estate scheme (but hey, that's the modern era). John Romero would be up there as well but he destroyed himself. Brian "Mad Dog" Fargo has been a "name" associated with Wasteland and Fallout since virtually the beginning. Those are rare exceptions though, and the company still tends to outlive the person. For example consider most people will remember "Sierra" as being what was behind the classic adventure games that helped defined computer gaming, but for a long time the name "Roberta Williams" was just as famous in association and they even headlined her along with her work. The "Coles" (Lori and Corey) are up there too.

Kojima and David Cage both simply have the luxury of having managed to become known as individuals due to their companies letting them stand out as individuals during a time with powerful social media, and honestly it's not ending all that well for them as David Cage tends to be disliked, and Kojima's apparent self importance caused him to have a falling out with his sponsors and it's unknown if he'll recover. They are just lucky enough that with the current usage of the World Wide Web they can't be erased as easily as some of the other Auteurs I mentioned. Indeed we still use mechanics, or mechanics inspired by, the work of people like Richard Garriott and Roberta Williams today.

That said I still think the tendency for game developers to be known by team rather than individual will continue to be the mainstay for a long time to come. People are likely to continue to remember say Black Isle and Troika for example more than any individuals who were part of those teams.

 

[asdfen]

there is aboslutley nothing special about kojima games. All that I've played have nonsense storyline and a lot of garbage dialogue/movies that actually can go on for as long as an hour each while having nothing much going on on screen. The stealth is alrigh but nothing special.

If you want crazy combined with something more artistic and orijnal sudo51 games are sort of like that but gameplay in them is usually shit. At least they remain games and not movies like mgs4

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

No MGS 5 has very very long cutscenes. Granted there aren't THAT many of them, though still more than usual, but they are pretty damn long.
Hell, the entire start of the game is basically one long cutscene, interupted by "Go to point X to continue cutscene" moments.
But I never said that that's an inherently bad thing or that Kojima is a bad gamemaker because of it. As i allready said he makes it work. The cutscenes are long, but often very interesting.

And it is possible, btw., to tell a story through mostly gameplay though it's mostly done in the indie space. The Stanley Parable is such an example and Tomas was alone is another that does it.

I've only played a few missions in MGS5 but outside of the opening, there hasn't been many cutscenes. I hear MGS5 is much like MGS3 where there's not many cutscenes. I was mainly saying people think Kojima and think MGS2/4 and those are a minority compared to his other games.

I didn't say you couldn't tell stories with only gameplay just that most stories can't be told just through gameplay. You need dialogue between characters to tell most stories.

 

[Amaror]

I've only played a few missions in MGS5 but outside of the opening, there hasn't been many cutscenes. I hear MGS5 is much like MGS3 where there's not many cutscenes. I was mainly saying people think Kojima and think MGS2/4 and those are a minority compared to his other games.

I didn't say you couldn't tell stories with only gameplay just that most stories can't be told just through gameplay. You need dialogue between characters to tell most stories.

Yeah, i agree there aren't THAT many cutscenes in MGS 5, but they are very long when they happen.
One particular that sticks in my mind, aside from the beginning of the game, is one were Big Boss extracts a particular prisoner with the helicopter and the heli gets attacked by a Fighter-plane.
First it shows the Fighter plane attacking the heli with a gun, it flying by the heli, turning around and then attacking again with the gun. The plane flies by, turns around again and attacks with a rocket, which the heli gets rid of with flares. This is again repeated, after which the plane shoots a missile that can't be mislead with flares, so BB readies the helis minigun (You know after severall minutes of doing nothing before), the prisoner interjects and uses the minigun to shoot down the misile himself. The plane turns to attack again and is finally defeated with the help of the prisoner.
This sequence of events could have easily been cut down to about half a minute with all the relevant information, but this version took several minutes to resolve.
It's not a huge problem, the cutscenes are very well done and are often fun to watch, but they are rather long.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

I've only played a few missions in MGS5 but outside of the opening, there hasn't been many cutscenes. I hear MGS5 is much like MGS3 where there's not many cutscenes. I was mainly saying people think Kojima and think MGS2/4 and those are a minority compared to his other games.

The problem is that the opening is a motherfucking chore. The "get ferried from cutscene to cutscene" can get very tiresome, to the point I can see someone just returning the game for it being so very cutscene heavy.

 

[Saltyk]

Funny enough I've had this discussion with a friend. I worded it a little different though. "If you had to name the Rock Stars of Videos Games who would they be?"

We both had the same answers.
Hideo Kojima. And Miyamoto.

I don't think I need to explain the later.

 

[RedRockRun]

No, I'm not talking about the quiet bikini snoipah.
Here's the discussion I want to have: which developers, beyond Kojima, are capable of delivering artistic messages solely through their game's mechanics?

Tim Schafer, Chris Avellone, Tim Cain.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Hideo Kojima is the Michael Bay of videogames. The Phantom Pain is the most Michael Bay-ish of the Metal Gear Solid series, particularly the prologue.

As for auteurs in videogames...

Shinji Mikami - Can Capcom make great RE games without him? Yes. RE6 is a good game. But Mikami has a unique style that defines his games.

Shigeru Miyamoto - Fairly evident.

Toby Gard - the Tomb Raider games he worked on have this "thing" that the others lack, I feel.

Cevat Yerli - Lead developer on Far Cry, Crysis, Crysis 2, Crysis 3, and Ryse. Very unique game developer responsible for some very experimental sandbox FPS gameplay. I feel much of Crytek's unique "feel" can be attributed to him.

 

[JamesStone]

I can name a few


-Jonh Romero
-Suda 51
-Peter Molyneux
-[MAYBE] Todd Howard
-Josh Sawyer and Chris Avellone

 

[hermes]

Many people are missing the point of the OP. It is not that MGS are any good or bad, but that his director (Hideo Kojima) has infused the game with so much of his personality that the game is identifiable by the author itself. It is not that only good artists can adhere to the auteur theory... Micheal Bay is still a good auteur example, because anyone with a grasp of his style can look at Bad Boys 2 and say "this is clearly a Bay movie".

I don't entirely agree with the auteur theory, mostly because games (and movies) are such a cooperative effort that they are influenced (good or bad) by a lot of people. As it stands, auteur theory only work in works where the director has such a strong presence and participation (and ego, up to some point) that it dominates every aspect of the product (Kubrick, Hitchcock and, yes, Kojima are some examples). In games where the director is "pretty much one more of the team", it tends to get dismissed over more noticeable traits like graphics, music or gameplay.

But they are not really the only ones: Suda51, Swery65, Kamiya, Itagaki and Ueda are some of the examples of Japanese directors that fit the auteur theory. On this side of the pacific the Houser brothers, Molyneux, Meier and Cage are some examples.