Regardless of whether or not they qualify as celebrities, these characters do fill the same niche that a famous actor fills in a movie. I think it\’s unlikely that the game industry is going to get real celebrities for that niche. The behind the camera celebrity seems far more likely.

I don\’t know if the industry needs (or is ready) for a Tom Cruise or Steven Spielberg right now. What I think we need (and what Will Wright appears to be emulating with his appearances) is a Carl Sagan. Sagan was certainly a celebrity — but he was also an ambassador from his discipline to the general public.

- Hollywood directors are becoming increasingly familiar with games as players.
- As such familiarity increases, they will seek out and find ways to use games as devices within their movies.
- Such ‘mature’ treatment of games within mass market and well respected media can only serve to further drive public adoption and acceptance of gaming.
- Thereby encouraging (not leading to, certainly, but not hindering either) more interest from the mass market public on the individuals who created the games that so prominently featured in their beloved movie.

Thoughts?

A public figure such as a politician or CEO may be famous, but they may not become a celebrity unless public and mass media interest is piqued.

What I agree with is that our game characters are celebrities; there is no components that make up a celebrity. A celebrity is one who is celebrated by the public … there is no need to exist beyond the space which create the celebrity in the first place. Most of our game characters are simplistic but simple values/traits such as honour, bravery, respect, ability, style all all aspirational.

To the specifics:

1. See above; yes its attainable … for Game Designers, Producers, Technical Directors or Art Directors. Using the director analogy, the celebrity directors are those that in some stage of there career have redefined the perception of a particluar genre or subject. Consider GTA San Andreas … over 10million copies sold, entering home with an average of 2 people; estimate about 20million exposed to thee game world wide (an under estimate). Consider the \\\’mass\\\’ media coverage; the focus was on the content and its effects, the response to this was via PR machine, not at any time did the Game Visionary/Designer get questioned about why the game was the way it was. Our games remain faceless because the right people are not being asked any questions via mass media/public … never mind the right questions.
I think it comes down to a couple of things: We are often very guilty in the industry of creating shallow experiences and lack the ability to justify it. If John Romero can speak intelligently about a Zombie horror flick, can\\\’t we do the same for supermonkeyball? Secondly, the mass media don\\\’t know how to communicate with the industry outside of sales … film, literature, music have established languages, rules which form the foundation for writers, directors and musicians to break, bend and influence. Games do not have this.

2. No. Its inevitable this cross-pollenation will happen (already is) but it has little value on celebrity because of the issues in point 1. Games with celebrities attached might as well be a french dressing with Paul Newmans face on it, they are that irrelevant to he \\\’mass\\\’ media.

3. Whats interesting is the retail influence on Videogames right now. Retailers only want successful games, and while Special Features work for DVD, they don\\\’t work for games if the game is crap. Until we can see issues raised on point 1 (among many more) being addressed, retailers won;t buy into this content, publishers won\\\’t support the creation of this content and games will not have funding or time to fully realise this content.

4. I think we only need to work on connecting with a mass audience. Film started with spectacle and slowly ushered in comedy and drama … both highly emotional hooks. We ned to find ways to communicate this via a game medium more effectively and follow this up with informed dialogue about the aims of the product from those that created it and not watered down, edit previews in closed circulation magazines.

5. We won\\\’t be in a position to prevent it when it happens.

Hmm… Depends what you associate with celebrity. Recognized? Rabid fan following? Fans paying homage, etc?

Apple certainly qualifies. Coke? How about “America”?

To one of the comments above:
>No, they aren’t. A celebrity has two components: an on stage (or on screen) persona that you can enjoy, and an off-stage persona. The off-stage persona is the subject of tabloids. The off-stage persona is something young kids (with an interest in entertainment) can aspire to be.

It’s interesting that there is a blurry line in between. Core design went and found a real-life Lara Croft because the fanbase kind of demanded it. They wanted the offscreen persona. What about ‘spoof’ like interviews with Virtua Fighter characters, or pinups of Dead or ALive girls?

>Again, no they aren’t. A huge number of people in India are familiar with Tom Cruise. They’re less familiar with Sonic.

And then Fast Food Nation cites a study (I don’t have it in front of me) showing that Ronald McDonald is a more recognized entity world-wide than… (I forget, it was like ‘jesus’ or ‘Santa Clause’ or such.

Ronald McDonald is to some a symbol, but to others, a celeb?

In the game industry our closest equivalent are the marketing and PR departments that work for the companies that publish the games said \’star\’ works on. The big difference is they don\’t have a vested interest necessarily in the individual\’s success but rather the game as an extension of the company. Even CliffyB\’s fame right now, I would suspect, is promoted within Epic in as far as it helps benefit sales of GoW and, ideally, future Epic titles. I doubt, though, that Mark Rein gave explicit incentives to the marketing team tied to the number of interviews for Cliffy they line up or how many times his name is mentioned weekly in a technocrati search.

Unless this changes I’m starting to wonder if ever even our top names will gain familiarity (let alone celebrity) amongst the masses. If EA decides that Will Wright can make them more money by just being Will Wright The Talking Head rather then Will Wright The Creative Genius, perhaps they will assign him an entourage whose sole purpose is to push find ways to inject him into the public consciousness.

While I do think it could be nice if our industry had true celebrities, I’m not sure I look forward to the day when I have to speak with an agent and two managers to hire a game designer and shape my production schedule around his personal brand building.

I’m torn.

No, they aren’t. A celebrity has two components: an on stage (or on screen) persona that you can enjoy, and an off-stage persona. The off-stage persona is the subject of tabloids. The off-stage persona is something young kids (with an interest in entertainment) can aspire to be.

> They’re huge. They’re every bit as big as any Hollywood celebrity.

Again, no they aren’t. A huge number of people in India are familiar with Tom Cruise. They’re less familiar with Sonic.

Our behind the camera celebrities will get to be celebrities when they have the same advantage as the behind the scenes celebrities in other media: prominent placement in the credits. I know a bunch of celebrity names of people I couldn\’t pick out in a crowd: J. J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, J. Michael Straczynski, James Cameron, Guy Ritchie, and more. Sid Meier has managed to keep his name on the front of the box, and if he shipped more console games he would be far more famous. If Cliffy B had his name on the front of Gears of War, he would have some measure of celebrity outside the industry too.