Manhunt 2 credit cuts outrages the industry

Written By Words of Ivory 380 days ago
News Category: Gaming News
Relevant Consoles: : PlayStation 2 : PlayStation Portable : Wii

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Yes, believe it or not... Manhunt 2 is still causing controversy. At least this time, the controversy is actually for justifiable reasons.

It looks like the violence and gore weren't the only things cut from Manhunt 2; according to former employee of the now defunct Rockstar Vienna, Jurie Horneman, in his blog, the work of his co-workers on the game were left on the editing table as well, with more than 55 names missing from the credits in the retail version of the game.

Even in the movie and music industry, a person's work is given credit even if it doesn't make it into the final product, and Horneman sees this an nothing short of an outrage considering most of the company's work did make it into the final product, according to Horneman

"I am disappointed and outraged that Rockstar Games tries to pretend that Rockstar Vienna and the work we did on Manhunt 2 never happened--the work of over 50 people, who put years of their lives into the project, trying to make the best game they could. I am proud to have been a part of that team."

According to a ex-Rockstar producer on Horneman's blog, not including credits for people who have not made it to the end of a game's production has been a common practise for them for quite some time, a fact which casts the developer in an extremely negative light if this is indeed true.

This incident has created such an uproar, for once justifiably, that the International Game Developers Association executive director Jason Della Rocca has raised the baton for his group to push for an industry-standard set of crediting guidelines. Referring to the Manhunt 2 incident as "a significant example of why crediting standards are needed in the game industry," Della Rocca believe that accurate credits for people's work are "essential to ongoing employment, professional development, and artistic fulfilment for all developers."

John Feil, chairman of IGDA's credit standards committee and designer for Amaze Entertainment, will be hosting a roundtable session at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next February, to tackle this very issue, entitled "The IGDA Credits Movement: The Revolution Is Already Here."

Rockstar Games, rather conveniently, has yet to respond to the issue.

Considering the Writers Guild of America's strikes in the last few days, and similar tensions rising in the Directors Guild of America, and the Screen Actors Guild, the coming year could be a turbulent one for those who bring our entertainment and the creative arts of these mediums to life. Without them, the industry wouldn't even exist.

Lets hope that soon, the suits can take their heads out of the clouds and start to realise just who it is making their entertainment worth the consumer's time.

To honour the efforts and hard work of the people at Rockstar Vienna during their time working on the title, below are the close to complete credits of the names not featured in the retail version of Manhunt 2, as compiled by Jurie Horneman himself.


Executive Producer:
Hannes Seifert

Producer:
Marin Gazzari
Hannes Seifert
Jurie Horneman

Associate Producer:
Kirsten Kennedy
Monika Sange

Lead Programmer:
Thaddaeus Frogley

Programmers:
Andreas Varga
Mark Wesley
Christian Bazant
Adrian Garrett
Andrew Howe
Peter Melchart
Uwe Pachler
Christian Schmutzer
Gareth White
Bjoern Drabeck

Lead Level Designer:
Gunter Hager

Level Designers:
Georg Gschwend
Jurie Horneman
Attila Malrik
James McLoughlin
Klaus Riech
Peter Saghegyi
Ngoc Nguyen

Lead Artist:
Leander Schock

Technical Artists:
Stefan Kubicek
Terence Kuederle

Level and Environment Artists:
Michal Drimalka
Daniel Edwards
Paul Ellinor
Maximillian Froemter
Alexander Hager
Guenter Hochecker
Ian Maude
John O'Malley
Oliver Reischl

Character Artists:
Julian Kenning
Ulrich Radhuber

Lead Animator:
Reinhard Schmid

Animators:
Roger Barnett
Steven Manship

Concept Artist:
Christian Koppold

Lead Audio & Video Engineer:
Tobias Kraze

Sound Designers:
Darren Lambourne
Dominik Mayr
Steven Blezy

Video Editor:
Bernhard List

Lead Tester:
Peter Ehardt

Testers:
Melissa Lumbroso
Simon Belton
Michael Borras
Helmut Hutterer
Sameer Malik
Joseph Sewell
Bryan Thompson
Kala Truman
Kieran Gaynor
Andrea Schmoll
Markus Igel

Localization:
Tobias Kraze
Bernhard List

Managing Directors:
Hannes Seifert
Niki Laber

Technical Director:
Tobias Sicheritz

Production Director:
Thomas Schweitzer

Creative Director:
Marin Gazzari

Administration & Finance Manager:
Dana Zajic

HR Manager:
Michaela Gazzari

Operations Manager:
Martin Filipp

Technics:
Chris Soukup
Thomas Zajic
Gernot Unger
Marco Pietsch
Peter Krakhofer
Markus Skrivan

Internal Tools Development:
Philipp Rettenbacher
Thomas Passauer
Martin Porocnik

Support:
David Huettner (Character Artist)
Donald Kirkland (Game Designer)
Sebastian Harras (Level Designer/Artist)
Jeff Wong (Animator)
Helmut Hutterer (Tester)
Gill Frank (Animator)
Kerstin Knesewicz (Management Assistent)
Kaweh Kazemi (Producer)
Petra Gregorowitsch (Management Assistant)
Melanie Friedl (Receptionist)

Additional Art:
RABCAT Computer Graphics GmbH
tidbit-images

Tags : game developers conference : International Game Developers Association : Jurie Horneman : manhunt : manhunt 2 : playstation 2 : playstation portable : rockstar : rockstar games : Rockstar Vienna : take two interactive : Wii

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Comments

By: Evren On: 03:17 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	Thats a LOT of names to miss really. And thats just NOT cool. Wow, Manhunt 2 is looking to be a veeerrrryyy popular game when this comes out. Any publicity is good publicity really.
By: Dragonfly On: 03:22 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	Persocom Kisses;35977 Wow, Manhunt 2 is looking to be a veeerrrryyy popular game when this comes out. It was released on Halloween. Persocom Kisses;35977 Any publicity is good publicity really. This may be true, but this has the potential to cause a lot of negative publicity for the company if it's pursued, and lead to some vastly overdue reform into the video game industry. I mean, what kind of industry ignores the creative work of the people who make the entertainment that makes them money?
By: boa On: 03:25 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	Wow, and I always thought rockstar seemed a good company. This and Grand Theft Scratchy put them in a bad light for me...
By: Corrine On: 03:33 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	Jesus, now I understand the Writer's strike going on. And support it. This is messed up - I never guessed that this was going on. Not giving credit to someone who has worked hard on a game, even if their input isn't used in the end, is just wrong. They could've been there for most of the development and just because their work wasn't in the end result they're cut? Disgusting.
By: Evren On: 03:41 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	Words of Ivory;35983 It was released on Halloween. ...In europe. I mean, what kind of industry ignores the creative work of the people who make the entertainment that makes them money? It happens in every industry, we just dont hear much about it because it happens so often. I dont think it's right what they they did, and the best thing they can do is rectify it for the European release.
By: lockwood On: 06:31 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	The thanks they get for working on this project is a paycheck. As an artist I want my name on every piece I produce, but it actually gets put on about .05% of it.
By: Dragonfly On: 06:46 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	lockwood;36003 As an artist I want my name on every piece I produce, but it actually gets put on about .05% of it. You can't exactly put a 50 long list of names at the end of an art piece, but by right you should be allowed to sign every piece you make. Just because you're not fussed about it doesn't change the fact that 1) it's wrong, 2) shallow, an 3) impacts on people's careers. Yet the guy who made the lunch in the Rockstar vault gets more credit than a character designer, lead tester, level designer, or producer. It would be like a group of people designing an entire site but only have the name of the guy who came up with the idea credited for it. Credits were created initially because people weren't getting for the work that they did. Removing the names of all these people just because Rockstar decided to shut down the studio prematurely after working on the game for nearly 2 years, and replaced it with names of people who only did about 20% of the work is absurd, and completely shallow.
By: lockwood On: 07:43 Nov 6th, 2007 Offline	I just think that these people are going to be fine because they did get paid, can put it on their resumes, ect. You can't put your signature on commercial works. Sometimes in movies, characters are named after someone who worked on it. Mel Brooks appears in all of his movies, but that's about it. I can't think of any titles in particular, but I DO recall seeing both movies and games that direct you to websites to see a "full list of credits," and I'm ok with that. You found a list of the people omitted right? If that list is available before threat of lawsuit, then I think all is well. I don't think that any list of credits has ever been complete. Movies and games list supportive family members and neglect the couriers, secretaries, press advocates, promotion and design companies for poster and cover art, the kid who made the coffee runs for the crew... shit, you know some one's grandma is going to be on there, but what about the makeup artists? Not the head makeup artist... not the company... ANY movie out there would have a thousand names in no time flat. If Rockstar neglected a division of the project, it's like saying "oh yeah company X did most of our post production work, but we're not going to bother to tell you who works for them." Best video game credits ever? Smash Bros. Melee. Why? I can FAST FORWARD IT.
By: deanogee On: 07:07 Nov 8th, 2007 Offline	why didnt they include the names? - what they run out of money or something, or space on the disk??? jeez seems strange
By: Dragonfly On: 07:15 Nov 8th, 2007 Offline	deanogee;36173 why didnt they include the names? - what they run out of money or something, or space on the disk??? jeez seems strange Their official excuse was "The developer was disbanded before we completed the game, so we don't need to include their names". Pretty shoddy, if you ask me.
By: Mobius Zero On: 10:07 Nov 8th, 2007 Offline	Words of Ivory;36176 Their official excuse was "The developer was disbanded before we completed the game, so we don't need to include their names". Pretty shoddy, if you ask me. Reminds me of the old days of gaming when you could not put your name on the game unless you snuck it in the game itself. Only the companies back then took credit till they realize that the creator / thing it is based off of could get the game more money like John Madden or Sid Meier. I totally agree with you Words on this subject. I was, too, surprised that Manhunt 2 came out and there was barely anything said though.
By: fsck! On: 11:16 Nov 8th, 2007 Offline	wow... ...just another reason to hate rockstar.

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