I'm not going to argue with you there, I think I might've mentioned this in the Prototype topic (or to someone on AIM) but when I followed a link to IGN from the Prototype official website, IGN had a blurb like:

AMNESIA? GLOBAL INTRIGUE? TONS OF EXPLOSIONS?

and I immediately thought they would follow this with

THIS MAY SOUND UNINSPIRED, BUT

instead what followed was

SIGN US UP!!!!!!

I mean, this is a site that used to run BABE OF THE WEEK columns. It's def lowest common denominator and penned by retards

1UP has a handy tracker for this stuff actually, Brutal Legend is in a shocking 44th for XBOX360 games right now, though that could just be because there hasn't been much new for a month.

Uhh, I was saying exactly the opposite. Maybe I didn't word it correctly. Since I used the word "people", apparently I mean everyone. Even though the rest of my post was about showing how little recognition he got.

But if we are arguing the point about

whether or not the necessity of adding celebrity and basically GIMMICKS to games that will otherwise flop is worth it to have better games come out

then I would side on that it's not a matter of being worth it or not. Whether or not you decide to put some sort of celebrity, gimmick, or whatever vapid selling point makes it noticed by the general unaware public,  the neccessity is still going to be there. I thought that's what I was referring to when I was talking about how Tim Schafer is about as unnoticed as a great gamemaker gets (Even that is a flawed viewpoint though. It's not like he is the one that made the entire game, and can put all the credit of how great the games under his name are, but I'm sure people already know that).

But I digress, the point I was trying to make was that getting a game noticed is now part of the process, because it equates so highly into the game's sucess. This doesn't boil down only to gimmicks and endoresments, but to the entire process of developing the game itself. It's what drives innovation, even if it's only innovation in celebrity voiceovers or pointing phallic white appendages at invisible glowing eyes. It's not like the general public doesn't know what a good game is, and just because they are folks that don't go around cataloging lists of all the "Tim Shcafers" and "Peter Molyneuxs" of the world, doesn't mean you can credit them with the inception of every poorly contrived game with an overly bloated advertisment budget.

The best game developers can adapt on all levels to not only create a great game, but a game that everyone knows is great. Hell, I respect Tim Schafer for not only finding a great concept to play to the interests and imaginations of the general public, but to perpetuate that game in such a way as to generate genuine interest in it, by filling it with a role already ideal for the concept at it's most fundamental level.

It's in a lot better taste than a CGI rendered panda full of additude and wontons. Just because Jack Black doesn't have the scruples to be picky about what his name endorses, is no reason to look down on Tim Shcafer for associating with him. Just like how each thing Tim Shcafter makes should be viewed in it's own right, and credit given to every person involved in the production, so should each ting Jack Black is involved with. Society isn't that impartial though, it's much too inconvenient.

I loved Full Throttle. I recognized that it was the same guy but I thought it would be interesting to talk about media convergence rather than the changing conceptions of the developer but this has been pretty interesting, I must say.

i can't really play those old schafer games without a walkthrough. it's ridiculous. it takes forever to walk across an area and if i didn't have the guide on which of 10 items to use with which of hundreds of objects in the game environment i don't think i would be able to play through them without giving up on them entirely, which is a shame because they're all really good. i may just reeaally suck at them though.

there are basically only three names i'd say that if they were attached to any project we would discuss the name as well as the game and those are hironobu sakaguchi, nobuo uematsu, and shigeru miyamoto. there might be a few more but the first two have a rabid RPG audience and it's been proven that virtue of being attached to shit we acknowledge it (unless you think anyone would have noticed BLUE DRAGON on its own merits) and miyamoto made mario and founded nintendo.

if nobody mentioned it what about Will Wright

everyone steels just medicated.........

but uh to fuck up his point a little anyway Tim Schafer!? fuck yes! dude psychonauts was the shit im so down. the whole uh JACK BLACK thing made me think uh NO THANKS but idk he works with Schaferian (heh) humor i bet so this could be awesome actually!

note to self: hunt down copy of beyond good and evil

I didn't even really find Psychonauts that funny, like everyone always says he's a funny man but his humour is usually like "good Saturday morning cartoon" stuff. I don't know, like the videogame equivalent of Pinky and the Brain or something? Psychonauts was great because it always felt new and different around every figurative corner without ever feeling jarring or inconsistent. It was a game about diving into the minds of people and turned into a really good platformer. His stuff never quite gets me laughing but it's still sharp, clever, or witty, and definitely great relative to the medium.

Also Beasley, you probably know this but Beyond Good and Evil wasn't a Tim Schafer game, I only mentioned it because it came out around the time of Psychonauts, was heaped with praise like Psychonauts and flopped like Psychonauts.

Also Beasley, you probably know this but Beyond Good and Evil wasn't a Tim Schafer game, I only mentioned it because it came out around the time of Psychonauts, was heaped with praise like Psychonauts and flopped like Psychonauts.

i know just sayin. and yea i agree psychonauts was not that funny! it was just such a cool game and i was i dunno YOUNGER so i chuckled a couple times

i found the uh, that level with the secret government agents on really funny. it's dumb obvious humour, but the voice actor had the best voice ever for accusing someone of being a skank.

Well, there is definetly a list of more than three notable names in video games, and those of us even vaguely interested in the industry have probable heard it all more than once (I'm suprised no one has mentioned Sid Meier *little heart* yet) and these usually are 'faces' we come to see attached to games. People who don't know what IGN or Gamasutra is, however, probably have no idea who most of these people are, and so I think to them, like someone already pointed out, Jack Black's name is going to stand out a lot more than Tim Shaefer's.

Let me ask this: would you buy a videogame because it featured your favourite film/television actor? I'm fairly sure there are people out there who would go "oh man van damme is in this game i want to buy it because that is spiffy" the same way they do with movies.

i dunno, im not too sure about this but i think the kind of person who recognizes these big game-making name people is also the kind of person who knows that games featuring actors tend to be horrible 90% of the time

the only time a name attached to a game makes me want to buy it is when it's suda51 (also ARINO but that's all of two games that have already been released and about no one knows him)

and even then that's not a huge percentage of people who play games!

also speaking of arino:

would you buy a videogame because it featured your favourite film/television actor?

i bought retro game challenge because of arino so uh i guess i would!  buuuuuut it's also a really good game, i think if i had expected it to be awful i wouldn't have bought it

also fuck sid meier i almost left a store thinking they didn't have civ rev when it first came out just because it was under fucking s instead of c like any other human being would have put it, stop putting your name in the actual title