The majority of my art/game design insight comes from the numerous artists and game devs I follow on Twitter. Each person provides a unique perspective on how the industry works, thoughts on new trends, and of course, their wealth of portfolio work that continues to be an inspiration for me. One thing that caught my eye in light of the recent callout culture on Twitter is the recurring post made by artists on the platform labeled: “Don’t do this” or “Don’t be like this”.
With the lack of moderation for stolen IP for most of the internet, artists are typically the first people to have their artwork stolen, reposted, and profited solely on ad revenue. Being an artist on the internet can be very difficult. To take matters into their own hands, artists can only call out bad behavior with their own voice and hope people will agree.
The common trend with these “don’t do this” posts are callouts on people who repost other people’s art without crediting the original artist at all. In these cases, I totally agree that reposting someone else’s art is awful because the person who stole it can profit off of the views and can sometimes also take the de facto credit for the work. However I have also seen these call out posts go as far as disparaging other artists for tracing parts of other people’s art, copying the pose or shape of a drawing, or redrawing parts of it, reposting it, and calling it “fixed”. This, on the surface can also sound like the first example, but I argue is different.
To start off, I would never agree with someone arguing that editing someone else’s art as “fixed” is right or true. Art is solely subjective and the idea of one piece of art being “right” over another simply makes no sense. However, I would not agree that we should refrain from ever using other pieces of art work to boost our own.
A stark contrast to art is games. Though not stated, it’s commonly understood that game design is malleable, and criticizable at any given point during a game’s development even after release. In the gaming space it is totally okay, in fact, welcomed to take someone else’s property and make new content from it (unless you are Nintendo of course). Sega fans have made fan games so impressive that it has gotten jobs for its developers. Fans praise fan remakes of Metroid II, and fan sequels like Oddity (previously titled Mother 4). Game composers like Toby Fox and Nelward use literal sound samples from Earthbound for songs to make their own music and sometimes even get praise from the original composers themselves. People make hour long commentary videos about what went right and what went wrong in games. Game design interviews even have built in questions like “What do you like and don’t like about our games?” and “What would you do to change them?”
At the end of the day both traditional art and games are creative mediums. So why is criticism and derivative works handled so differently between art and games?
One reason is due to the sphere of influence an individual has on the product. Despite their title, a game designer typically has a small sphere of influence on the final product of a game. When a game designer clocks out of their shift, the game is out of their hands. Ultimately any decision made in a game is the product of a team effort. Decisions are made to appease clients, fit programming constraints, and sometimes are the product of a disagreement amongst other designers. Ultimately every decision a game designer makes will eventually be checked by other people. This means if there are any problems or criticisms lobbed at the game, the blame can’t possibly be the fault of one designer. Therefore nobody really has a problem with people suggesting that a game’s design could’ve possibly been different. In some cases developers even applaud and praise those who have those opinions because their hands were forced to make worst decisions.
On the opposite side, artists tend to have a close sphere of influence of the final product of their artwork. In most cases, the artist would be the only person who actually influences the final product of their artwork. If a person were to give their negative opinion on a piece of art or make a close derivative of the work, the original artist is more likely to be offended by the gesture due to a typically high accountability the artist has over the piece’s faults.
The next factor that contributes to the difference is the intended audience of the derivative work. Criticism about video games often is often found in reviews, YouTube videos, or discussion board forms. None of these platforms are direct messages to the original designer’s of the game. None of these criticisms are meant to be as attacks on the original designer’s character. Instead, these criticisms are more intended to be used as learning points for other designers instead. There would be no reason to get the original designer in on the discussion, because none of these messages are requests to change the game (for the people who actually do intend this are met with little to no success). Twitter on the other hand is a very small circle. Often these derivative works or criticisms are either one click away from the original artist or sometimes made as direct replies on the original post. With that small of a distance, it is nearly impossible for the original artist not to see it. If they do miss it, followers tend to also bring it directly to their attention by tagging them. This distance is crucial because it is not only nearly directed straight at the artist, but also in a public manor. This sort of distance makes the message read like a call for public humiliation rather than education. In essence, the post itself reads like a callout post. As a response the author has no choice but to fight fire with fire and make their own call out post.
The third factor that contributes to the difference is the inherent nature of the development of each medium. Games are inherently an iterative medium. It is understood by developers and the community that a final game typically reflects the final iteration of a product rather than a solidified final decision of a product. Even after a game releases, developers still have to make revisions, additions, patches, and DLC, so it is hard to think of a game as a rigid structure. Changes made in a game happen often and the amount of time to change something in a game is vastly quicker than restarting from zero, so offering suggestions in the form of constructive criticism hypothetically makes sense. Code can always be changed. In contrast, artwork rarely goes through iteration after the concept stage. Art is typically done after it is posted; rarely are changes made afterward. Typically a large amount of time gets put into one piece of art and depending on the medium, changes can be difficult to nearly impossible to make without serious damage to what is already there. Criticism or derivative works can be seen as hindsight or a fundamental lack of understanding of how rigid the art process can be.
In summary, games live and breathe. Their ability to be changed easily has formed a culture where art is a two way street between the developers and their community and critics. It is not so simple for an artist to do the same, but chasing off people who have differing opinions about your art doesn’t foster a discussion. The least we can do is recognize that there is always new insight to be found when a person engages with your art in some facet.
Game Design - Hard Questions 