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Pixar and Bob Iger saved Disney, which is good, although I don’t think any of Pixar’s animation compares to the Aladdin-Lion King days – but that just may be childhood nostalgia. Apparently, Iger is getting the credit for putting creative decisions back in the hands of the people who get paid to be creative. I’d think that is common sense, but I’ve seen firsthand how the converse is justified.
Before Mr Iger took over, Disney had a factory-like process for animation in which a business-development team came up with ideas and allocated directors to them.
Gah! No wonder! How many media companies do you think follow that model? My guess would be: most of them.
1- When I started working here, it was a bit of a awestruck moment for me. The big time. One of the most popular studios in the world (unless you only gauge enthusiast opinion). I would meet people – people who got things done – and try to commit their names and faces to memory. I eventually knew a lot of people, yet few people knew me.
Three years later, I am periodically reminded that the situation is now reversed. I do what I can to help lots of teams, so I have great visibility in a large company. As it is, I run into people in the halls that say “Hey, Zack” and I have no idea who they are. I’ve never had to deal with that before. Is that inevitable?
2 – I got GTA4 working last night (inexplicably) and played about two and a half hours – long enough to get to the first plot point. You may heard of Tom Chick; he is one of the best games journalists out there. His points on GTA resonate with me perfectly and I am frankly shocked that he is alone outside the GTA4 lovefest.
I suppose I need to stop approaching critically acclaimed games as if they would be my new “favorite thing ever”. I did it with Halo 3 and was disappointed. I did it with Bioshock and was disappointed (although in time, I’ve grown on it). I did it with Assassin’s Creed and was disappointed. I did it with Mass Effect and was super disappointed. Actually, the only oh-my-God-this-is-gonna-be-the-best-thing-ever product that panned out was Rock Band.
I blame reviewers for setting my expectations so high. It’s certainly in the publishers best interests for that to happen, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the media works for the publisher’s best interests rather than the consumer’s. If GTA4 had been getting 8.5-9.0s which is what the first few hours deserve (it may get better, I hope), then perhaps my expectations would have been tempered.
