There are various levels of quality in the world of entertainment - certainly applies to all other fields as well, but here the thoughts are on games specifically.
There are certain directors that manage to produce a high quality product, be it a movie or a play, or a game. We notice that mainstream television for example tends to have lower quality entertainment products than, say, cinema. With some famous movie directors taking a step towards episodic television material, or with others outshining the competitors in that very medium, I have to wonder why we cannot have really decent directors in games development.
PC games in particular have their roots in the nerd scene and hobby coders, single creative individuals with limited resources. Truly captivating entertainment masterpieces are generally the product of a hardworking team, under the supervision of various professionals, and the director. If the director wants an actor to forget about the script and improvise, the script is thrown out of the window and the actor will improvise. The responsibility will lie with the man behind the 'face' of the entire product.
Directing is the art of pushing work that just needs to be done, but seeing hidden possibilities in otherwise straight forward production scheme. It also means working with the material rather than just working the material.
So why cant Tarantino make a shooter game? Or why cant Lynch make isometric adventure rpg? How about Cohen working on open world game, or Ridley Scott trying his hand with rpg FPS hybrid?
Why can we not have multi-talented game directors who can make a decent movie as well as a game or a play, and have proper training/talent in the very field?
Why is Deus Ex good? In spite of the massive hype behind the company responsible for making the game, they had only limited resources to put in Deus Ex as parts of their team (AND company) were developing other games at the very same time. Limited resources, limited time, perhaps even limited skills (to some extent). It is because they discussed whether there should be a forty bottle on the table, whether inventory and skills system should have been one way or another. There was a man responsible for the overall quality of the game. And he got it right.
In retrospective, Deus Ex did not have awful much in it. Limitated by hardware back then more than by the engine even, it was optimised rather than over-developed. And it provided a fantastic experience with so little. On another hand, although many people were excited about HL2, I found that game awfully boring. Sure, a lot of skill was involved in making the game look and work the way it did, but god damn did it feel pointless.
Or too long; didn't read: need proper directors plz