About

Game Developer Research Institute (GDRI) was officially established on August 26, 2006 with the installation of this wiki. Our mission is to figure out the identities of the real developers behind the games we have all enjoyed over the years and give them the credit they deserve.

What do you mean by "real developers?"
For a long time, we have taken for granted who developed our favorite games. The publisher took the credit (or the blame) for the games it released. But the fact is that there were individuals involved in making those games. And they didn't always work for the publisher.

These individuals might have actually worked for a development house contracted with the task of making games for the publisher. Sometimes, the publisher had no objections to revealing the developer. But many times, the developer's identity was concealed completely or only mentioned as an afterthought.

There are some general reasons why this might have occurred. Perhaps it was a way for publishers to prevent other companies from stealing away their talent. The developer itself might not have cared about recognition. Or in the case of the elusive TOSE, it might not have wanted any at all. But when all is said and done, the game industry is a business. For many, making these games was just a job and the primary objective was a paycheck, not being recognized for their work. If that was the way the publisher wanted it and enough money was changing hands, there was little reason to question that.

Are there cultural differences when it comes to crediting developers?
Yes, there definitely appears to be. In Western games, it was not uncommon to see the name of the development house or at least the credits right at the beginning of the game for all to see. This practice can possibly be traced back to the founding of Activision, which was started by Atari employees who were tired of not being given credit for their work. It was Atari policy not to mention its game makers in order to keep headhunters at bay. This attitude extended to the other big players in the console market, Mattel and Coleco. At Activision, the game designers were promoted as individuals. A similar approach was taken during the early days of Electronic Arts. EA treated its developers like rockstars. Their names were displayed on the front cover of the games they created. Gamers came to know the likes of Bill Budge and Dan Bunten.

In Japan, the situation was different. A number of games in the 1980's and 1990's did not have any sort of credits or staff mentions and if they did, they used awkward pseudonyms. While a corporate mentality similar to Atari's might have come into play here, Hideo Kojima explains that the game industry was not respected early on, so the staff withheld their full names. [1]

In short, Western developers tended to want credit for their work, while Japanese developers were more willing to take a backseat. Today, however, companies on all sides of the Pacific have become more open about who worked on their games.

How did you get the idea for GDRI?