It might be “how it is.” Doesn’t mean it’s how it *should* be. Though we both seem to agree it’s wrong, even if there’s little we can do about it.

Here’s hope the debates being raised by all the attention this is stirring can see some much needed progress occuring.

So let’s not pretend that decisions like leaving the Vienna studio out of the credits for Manhunt 2 was anything other than a punitive act. Maybe the decision was made to give the credited personnel more importance than they deserve. Maybe the decision was made to punish former members of the Vienna studio. Maybe the decision was made after ingesting large amounts of illegal substances.

The bottom line is that nobody’s ever going to know why the decision was made — and that includes any situation where someone supposedly ‘in the know’ steps forward and explains it all. Nobody’s ever going to really know why the decision was made.

But it was made. And decisions like this are made all the time, in all industries. (People take credit for other people’s ideas all the time.)

For example, credits used to be given out like scout badges in Hollywood, until the Writers Guild took ownership of the credits process. Except….

Even today you can still get screwed out of a credit if you work on a film but don’t materially shape the final outcome sufficiently to warrant credit — based on a complex and ultimately subjective formula determined by the Writers Guild. The food service people will all get credited in the film, as will the Key Grip and the Best Boy and all the personal assistants and the Cockroach Wrangler, but if you only wrote one or two key scenes in a movie you’re not going to show up ANYWHERE in the credits, no matter how valuable your contribution.

Why? Because the Writers Guild has a vested interest in perpetrating the mythology of the lone author — or lone co-authors — or multiple teams of lone co-authors, not to be more than blah blah blah — and they need to protect that mythical status. Writers aren’t a dime a dozen, like, say, Cockroach Wranglers, they’re special, uniquie, visionary talents. Like directors.

My guess is the same attitude informed the decision by RockStar. They can’t have people playing a game that was made by people they fired, because that wouldn’t make sense. Rockstar’s games are made by great people that they employ, not people they fire. Cool people make Rockstar’s games, not unemployed people.

So Vienna disappears off the map, and once again history is written by the victors. Or, at least, by the people with the money and power on that day.

Blog Post By: Mark Barrett