(gunshot banging)
- [Garry Tan] Games are violent.
(hooves thudding) (horse neighs)
Really violent. - Don't even
think about it. - Holy crap!
(characters panic)
Really, really violent, seriously.
What, jeez.
(gunshots bang)
Ah, c'mon.
(gunshots bang)
But do they really, really have to be that violent?
This game doesn't think so.
♪ Don't be so serious ♪
Today we're talking about "Death Stranding"
One of my favorite games. It's so beautiful,
it's super fun, and you don't have
to kill a lot of people.
Let's get some things out of the way first.
This is a beautiful game, it's really well done.
It's also deeply original. It's not like
any other game out there.
(bike swooshes past)
As a result, it's not universally loved,
that's to be expected.
But, I love it, I think it's a remarkable
work- something worth studying,
and that's what we're going to do here in this video.
Let's take a look at the four things
that I learned about how they made "Death Stranding",
that is the key to auteurship.
(birds crow)
To start, this auteur clearly has a mission.
Video gamers are notoriously lonely people.
I think Kojima actually means this to be
nothing less than an actual cure for loneliness.
- [Amelie] Living is no different from being dead,
if you're all alone.
(suspenseful music)
(water splashes)
I'm on the beach Sam, our beach, the one where
I was born, come and find me.
- [Garry] Wow that's intense, here's
Hideo Kojima himself talking about what
he wants this game to mean.
- (speaks in a foreign language)
- [Garry] Think about the millions of people
who are shut away, who use video games as a refuge.
In Japan, there are people called Hikikomori.
They're shut-ins who don't interact with
anyone, sometimes not even their own parents.
The only people they might interact with
are the delivery people who bring them
food and essentials.
It's no mistake that that's primarily
what you are. Sam Porter Bridges,
a porter who brings disconnected,
post apocalyptic cities online.
And you are bringing food.
You are bringing medicine.
You're kind of like a DoorDash delivery person.
Kojima doesn't want this to be
just another video game.
He wants this to change people's lives.
A player might spend 50 hours of their life
on this one, and the players who get through it?
They come out the other end changed.
If that's not art, I don't know what is.
Here's Norman Reedus at recent Comic-Con,
talking about working with them.
[Norman Reedus] It's not a kill 'em all game,
it's a bring people together game, he's a visionary.
- [Garry] Once you have a direction,
it's easy to start surveying, figuring out
what's most popular, what's the safe choice.
But it's clear that an auteur doesn't do that,
and that's not what they did for "Death Stranding."
Let's take a look.
- (Yoji Shinkawi speaks in Japanese)
- [Translator] So our main focus is not on getting
as much attention as possible,
it's more about trying to develop
a character that is interesting for us,
and that is cool for us.
- (speaks in Japanese)
- [Translator] I'm sure there are studios that focuses
developing characters on market research,
or what's going to be received well out there,
but for us it's more about creating character
that is fun for us while doing it.
- [Garry] That's why an independent approach
can often result in a way better creative output,
whether that's an indie software maker,
or an indie game developer.
When things get big, they get safe.
And it often feels safer to outsource
your decision making to a survey
to quantitative thinking.
But, when you're making something truly
this creative, you just can't do it that way.
So now you have a direction,
and you have a clear way to make decisions.
Who actually does the real work?
You've got to delegate, but not everything,
you've got to hold on to some of the important stuff.
Here's a great example of that,
launch day is right around the corner,
it's Kojima himself editing the launch trailer.
- (Hideo Kojima speaks in Japanese)
- [Narrator] Both great founders
and true great auteurs know what they can
outsource, know what they can give
to their own team,
and they have an intuitive sense
for what they need to do themselves.
It's not everything, it's just a few things.
Don't get it twisted though,
great auteurs are incredible at collaboration.
In fact, here's Norman Reedus again,
talking about exactly this.
- [Norman Reedus] There's like, there's certain directors
that see a certain scene a certain way,
and if you try to add to it,
they like short circuit, they're like aargh,
you know, Hideo doesn't do that, he's like
yes, and then let's add this,
and you're like yes and let's add that,
and then he's like yes and add this
on top of that, like he's cool,
he doesn't freak out you know,
his mind is always going forward.
- [Garry] Every creative project
ultimately is like this.
You need to be able to listen,
you need to be able to say yes,
you need to be able to incorporate
other people's ideas,
and only then can you collaboratively
create something greater than what
you could create individually.
Last but not least, I think one thing
that's really underrated is how important
it is to have the right level of showmanship.
This is what happened when Conan O'Brien
came over to visit, this is the entry way
to their studio.
(applause)
- [Conan O'Brien] Oh my God.
(dramatic music)
- [Conan] Hideo?
- [Garry] The twist is, this is how
everyone enters the studio,
it's exactly the right kind of theatricality.
It sets a tone, and any newcomer,
anyone whose thinking about joining,
any partner, they get to see a side
that sets the tone, for an auteur
it's about being different,
and setting expectations so that your team,
and everyone around you really treats
this as something that could be great,
something special, that's in the office,
that's in the brand, that's in the design.
So we can learn a lot actually about auteurship
from Hideo Kojima and "Death Stranding".
First mission, have one, think about
what you want to do in the world,
what effect do you want to have?
And orient your whole project around it,
second, make your own decisions, don't rely
on surveys, don't rely on what will be popular.
Third, take action, know what you should do,
know what your team needs to do,
know what you can outsource.
And finally, don't be afraid to be a showman,
it takes a little bit of showmanship
to do something no one else has ever done.