I more or less agree that anyone who contributed from the staff should get a mention.


That's to do with flak targeting strikecraft, right?

more important question: does anyone who pays for the game actually read the credits?

Some do



It was a number of things, mostly around strike craft and flaks. Sometimes bombers would chase fighters instead of attacking structures, or fighters/flak would chase sieges (at that time, they were useless against them), so on so forth. If you want to read up on it, check in the Dev Journals from the Sins site, for Blair's Targeting Woes diary, from which I leave a quote:

I glance over them to see how many people it is and what sort of titles the had.
I rarely recognize or try and memorize names or anything, just see if it is anyone familiar.
Sometimes i see people with my same last name and stuff, yaknow.

I think it should be up to the games Lead Designer really, within reason.

I do when I get a printed manual, but not usually if they're just onscreen. Well, did is probably the better verb. I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to, mostly because the credits have turned out to be more like branding than, say, learning a director or author whose work you'd like to follow.

Both Sid Meier and Will Wright seem totally snared in mega-corp crap. The last couple of games I tried with their names on or behind the title were, well, rather disappointing. Brian Reynolds seems to have wandered off into RTS and consoles, so I haven't seen his name on a title I play in quite a while either.

The best credits I saw I think were for Portal. If I am remembering this correctly the credits were snaps of the various bodies knocking around the office and the credits just pointed out who they were and their title.

 

Makes the credits watchable when you get that sort of personal touch, a bunch of faces you can connect with, espacially when you see them in the enviroment in which they spend hundreds of hours making the game you love.

 

Then if your not around enough for someone to take a snap of you, you can go into the additional thanks bit at the end.

 

I also remember that the characters in the game I'm thinking of were all much beardier and plumper than the average joe. I would also like to know if game designers in general have a penchant for candy and facial hair.

Facial hair during crunch time for sure Can't say anyone falls in the other category here though.