I don't understand how any article with this title can get by without mention of Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto. He's probably the <i>most famous</i> of all of Japan's 'rockstar' executive producers.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto</a>
Miyazaki is a rising star at From Software. Also Kojima isn't dead. I don't expect him to stop making games just because he broke up with Konami. I have no doubt he'll land on his feet.
Maybe this is where crowd funding steps in. It's hit or miss because some times the demand really isn't there, but you can get AAA level bankrolling from crowd funding.<p>If you can't maybe it's time to learn to manage scope and deliver iteratively.
Great article. I remember going out and buying a PS2 the day FF 10 part 2 came out. (I had played all of them up to this point, just didn't have my own PS2)<p>That was the biggest piece of shit. They took some of the original places in 10, and added shitty boring minigames to do. That was the entire game. Oh, i guess the girls could all change into different swimsuits or something, but the plot was they were going to be rock star girls or something.<p>Final Fantasy took a nose dive right after 10 imo.
I am not sure that I agree with the article that the age of the video game auteur is over. There are so many shifting elements in video gaming that it seems like it is hard to tell what will emerge. I imagine that, no matter what platforms exist, just like in the music and movie industries, a singular individual vision will always work its way to the top.