Hierarchy.

Hierarchy.

I am beginning to recall why I gave up on trying to be a Game Designer. Anthony once called me an "idea guy" as a mark of derision, and as usual I ignored him. I mean: Ideas are every thing. Deleuze was right: some people go there entire lives without ever having an Idea. Others spend entire lives developing their Ideas into ornate, beautiful philosophies and works of literature and other Art.

It's not so with games now. An "idea guy" is not an honorific, regardless, I am sure, of philosophical education. Will Smith's character from Six Degrees of Separation was right: the Imagination has become debased, a referent to some thing outside our selves, a synonym for STYLE.

I would not mind learning Unity if there were no programmers in San Diego. But how many one-man bands are there out there who are any good? I never learned drums, but I knew drummers. I never learned how to direct. But I knew directors. I never learned how to teach, but I knew teachers. I never knew how to preach. But I knew preachers!

So this is what breaks my heart. That these people say you have to start by programming before you can try to pitch your Art. That Ideas are the special PROVINCE of the Elite. And that programming is such a great Dignity that it is, ironically, a posture of slavery. For only the Experienced Programmers are allowed to have an Idea, and if you don't like that you can go develop your own ideas on your own. You know. Like they're just oranges or some thing.

And lowest on this totem is the Pure Theorist. Some one who only designs but does not create. You would think that people as introverted as game developers would value these Platonic Souls if any thing more so than the Aristotlean ones. Yet whilst there IS this kind of Philosopher King syndrome going on, where the leader is the Idea Man, the director the screen-writer, the frontman the song-writer, etc, there is little if any respect for Ideas As Such. And that is what disturbs me. Because of course any literate person knows that the works of man are suffused with good and bad ideas, and beyond that copies of copies, and archetypes and stereotypes and other types. But does one give up on literature unless it is PRACTICAL? Does one say: opinions are cheap. Books are either manuals or paper for burning? Or does one try actually to scout out good Idea People like one scouts out talent? For after all not any one can do it, and not any one who can has the will to. Art is Hard! And plotting a book is of comparable difficulty to writing code. Writing the book is just the laborious part. It is not necessarily the challenging part. Sigh.

It must be Resentiment. Envy. These people idealise Idea People, appointing them to positions of Leadership, but only granted that the Idea Person is One of Them. So then there can be no fair division of labour in their group because even though some people are humble enough to admit that they have neither the brilliance to be concept artists nor the patience to write code, even they are so humble that they can only follow the group's hierarchical agenda.

And why the hazing? I have attended Game Jams when all these rules were broken. I ended up helping out with Autodesk and Music, as well as concept art and theme. Every one did a little, but no one did every thing. No one even did a little of every thing. Yet as the Taoists would have posited, Everything Got Done. And we had so much fun doing it.

May be this is just an other code we have to break. An other boss we have to beat. Sigh.

Dm.A.A.