Sable

Digital Games and the Category of Auteur: A Re-Evaluation and Perspectives

This extended abstract, presented at DiGRA 2023 by Filip Jankowski of Jagiellonian University, re-examines the application of auteur theory to digital games.

• The paper argues that the auteur concept, borrowed from film studies, carries problematic associations, including conservative origins, legitimization of exploitative labor conditions, and canonization of a narrow demographic of designers such as Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier, and Will Wright regardless of their actual production roles.
• Rather than abandoning auteur theory for games, the author proposes a contextual redefinition built on three principles: an auteur may be an individual or a small persistently collaborating group, developers with varied roles can qualify if their output is coherent, and an authorial signature such as placing one's likeness in a work can signal attachment to co-created material.
• Tale of Tales, run by Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, is cited as an example of a small, persistently collaborating group that can be considered an auteur under the redefined framework.