When you said RSI could get a new CEO who decides to change the visual direction, doesn't that almost happen in the studio? Concept artists join the team and have new ideas for the manufacturer, which in a way achieves the same result, right?
TL;DRConcept artists are meant to continue the existing vision while personality still seeps in, and the studio isn't a monolith, since each new talented hire changes its processes and ideas over time.
Well, as a concept artist, we have the duty to continue the vision of who came before us. We cannot make something personal about anything or everything we do. But of course, our minds will influence, in the end, everything. It just has to be consistent. It doesn't mean that you cannot express personality towards that. So in the long term, it will change.
I think it's a mistake to think of any company as a monolith, as this unchanging thing. We're not the same place we were in 2012, in 2016, in 2024. Each new person that joins the team brings something to the alchemy. And if they're a highly talented, skilled, educated, experienced developer, of course, we're going to take this new feedback, these new processes, these new ideas about the very nature of how to make games and adjust our processes. That happens with anybody. We're not unique in that regard.