– ArenaNet art director Horia Dociu, talking to Rock, Paper, Shotgun about the challenge of making a game withlooks that stand the test of time.
ArenaNet’s MMORPG Guild Wars 2 is half a decade old, but you might not be able to tell at a glance.
In a recent interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun, art director Horia Dociu expands upon why that is, and fellow game makers may appreciate his call to focus on creating art, rather than graphics.
“You can look back at illustrations from 20 years ago or 200 years ago, and you’d be happy to put them up on your wall. However, who would want to frame a screenshot of a sports game from 2005?” Dociu said.
“Those games that come out yearly use the latest graphical tricks as a crutch to sell more copies. That works when your sales model depends on the last game you did being obsolete in 12 months, but for us its different. We take the painterly, illustrative approach.”
He goes on to outline some of the unique challenges game dev teams face when trying to design a game that’s meant to be visually striking for years and years. Also, he shares an interesting tidbit of trivia: he’s actually the son of ArenaNet’s prior art director, Daniel Dociu, a veteran game industry artist (in 2012 he was named one of Game Developer Magazine’s “Power 50”) who stepped down at ArenaNet relatively recently.
“It’s easy to say that I learned it all from him, but the truth is, I learned from seeing his methods work over the years,” said Dociu of his father. “He leads by example, he teaches as he directs, and he challenges everyone to add their own bit to whatever they touch artistically. I think it’s hard to argue with that type of method.”
You can read the rest of the younger Dociu’s comments, which include some interesting perspective on concept art and its value as a sort of emotional standard for a game dev team to rally around, in the full RPS interview.