This post is about an empirical issue: the economic cost of being an auteur. When I originally posted this entry on Gamasutra back in 2014 it was not without its detractors. David Jaffe even dropped a line on it, saying he thought it was neat, while simultaneously implying that I was full of shit. Nonetheless, in retrospect, I still feel this idea is worth considering in an industry like ours, one that consists of both public personas and massive-team-based endeavors. By Reading This Post, You’ll Learn Why more than your artistic reputation is on the line What marginal personal, marginal external, and marginal social costs are What an externality is The definition of survivor bias Why having all of your creative eggs in one basket is a massive risk Stories about auteur-led projects are rife with anecdotes about decision bottlenecks and wasted work. But so what? If the end result is … Continue reading Bottlenecks and Hindsight: Why Auteurs Make Horrible Economists