When will we see credits used in advertising of games?

The beginning of the most recent bombcast got me thinking. When will we see "From the makers of ... " or "Tim Schafer presents ... " on the covers of video games?

Video Games is really the only medium that doesn't have an emphasis on the artists behind the games. People know certain developers, but why not the project leaders?

The way things are now is like if people knew what studio payed for a film, but not who directed it.

Thoughts?

Sid Meier and American McGee have almost always done this. I've seen a lot of advertising focused upon Peter Molyneux, Hideo Kojima, Ken Levine, and we will definitely see advertising focused upon Jonathan Blow as well.

That's been going on for years. Only for the most high profile games, but it has been going on. Every game Sid Meier is involved in is prefaced by "Sid Meier's". And it happened to a lesser extent with Chris Sawyer for a while. And there is certainly plenty of marketing aimed at the enthusiast crowd focused on personalities involved in the development of the game. It'll be a while before you see TV adverts that focus on things like that because they're aimed at a more mainstream market who don't know who any of these people are. But it's definitely going on with marketing aimed at the enthusiast market.

@Little_Socrates: Sid Meier is basically like Tom Clancy though. But yeah, I think we are slowly headed that way with the famous people you listed.

I wonder if when people get super famous for their work they will be able to just float around to different studios like film directors.

@MattyFTM: I remember knowing Chris Sawyer's name back when I was about eight years old. The first game developer whose name I ever learned.

@Little_Socrates said:

Sid Meier and American McGee have almost always done this. I've seen a lot of advertising focused upon Peter Molyneux, Hideo Kojima, Ken Levine, and we will definitely see advertising focused upon Jonathan Blow as well.

I was about to say 1993ish, yeah. That's when we can expect them.

Ever since the beginning of the film industry there was always an emphasis on the directors. I wonder if this is because there was a focus on credits. Showing them at the beginning of the film, or people staying through the end of the credits after the movie.

People don't often watch the credits of a video game. The credits that show at the beginning is often just the names of the studios/publishers involved.

But maybe there is a slow shift in focus happening. Game directors/project leaders are certainly having bigger personalities in the media than they have in the past.

Over 800 people worked on GTA IV. It's not gonna be branded Dan Houser's Grand Theft Auto IV when so many others made it too.

Also, a lot of the time the people who make a game keep within that franchise. The audience doesn't need to read Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid 4 because he's done all the MGS games. If he only did one off games he'd be more likely to brand himself. When Spielberg makes Jaws he's done with Jaws once it's released. He doesn't work on Jaws 2 or Jaws 3. He moves on to ET or whatever. For the audience to associate the 2 films the studio needs to associate Spielberg with both. Konami doesn't need to associate Kojima with MGS branding because MGS2 already has MGS branding.

Another reason is that publishers do the marketing/branding/PR part while the developers are the creative team behind the product. Publishers also pay for the development (in most cases). So it doesn't make sense for a publisher market something like Jason West's Call of Duty when Jason West could leave the developer and start up somewhere else. If they do then they promoted him, and by extension his next project, even though his next project isn't associated with the publisher.

EDIT: I'd like to add that it works for Sid Meier because he doesn't tend to work on sequels but rather create new franchises. Sid Meier's Pirates, Sid Meiers Civilization, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Sid Meier's Gettysburg, and so on. It's his studio that he founded and EA purchased. EA will brand Sid since the franchises aren't sequelized as much as other franchises and he works on many different franchises, not just one and all those franchises belong to them.

@mosespippy: Great response!

It's happened before.

If I remember my history correctly, that's why Activision was founded.

I don't want to see this. Entire teams make games, not single people. And the Developers are always on the cover.

Maybe there's exceptions if say, the game is all about story and the writer is famous for good stories, so they use him, but still, it seems dirty to discard all of the other people that worked on it. It's not comparable to movies, everyone contributes a lot more equally in games.

From award-winning director Young Clifford...

@Cabbage_TheMan said:

The beginning of the most recent bombcast got me thinking. When will we see "From the makers of ... " or "Tim Schafer presents ... " on the covers of video games?

Sooner than you think, like 2009.

Scratch that, 1993.