Illustration and the new iPod games
James Chung, an art director for EA Mobile, writes in to let us know that Mini Golf, one of the new games recently released for the iPod features a lot of work by several illustrators, most of whom were previously featured here on Drawn!. The artists include Jeff Miracola, Julian Hector, Nuno Alves, and Justin Degarmo.
At his Deviantart journal, James describes how they were involved with the project. James also tells us that he found most of the artists for the project via Drawn!, so we’re happy in playing a small part in the development of one of these games! There are also no credits on the game itself, so this is the only public thank-you the artists will get for their hard work!
Cool!
I have to say, I got a lot of jobs out of the turtles being posted here as well. Only appropriate to say thanks!
The lack of credits isn’t really to do with saving memory space, and it’s something that’s becoming more and more common in mobile game development (J2ME, Brew, etc.) Some dev houses and publishers see credit-stripping as a way to avoid headhunters.
It’s a small, incestuous industry and if you’ve ever played a game on your cellphone, you already know that good artists and developers are few and far between. Denying artists credit for their work is universally stupid; it makes the existing team feel unappreciated, and it makes the company less appealing for new candidates to seek work at.
I don’t believe it’s a memory issue either. And yes, publishers are refusing to give credits to artists they work with more and more.
I personally think it’s a huge disrespect… just like how it’s almost a “norm” to ask artists to do mandatory tests for interviews in the gaming industry… At times like this, I hope we are organized…
Oh well, But, kudos to all the artists who worked hard for the project.
[...] ILUSTRAÇÕES DE NUNO ALVES PARA JOGO DE IPOD DA JAMDAT Nuno Alves criou Ilustrações para o jogo “Mini Golf” da Jamdat / EA, um dos novos jogos lançados para o iPod. A Direcção de Arte foi de James Chung da EA Mobile. [...]