Guillermo Del Toro: Games are ‘only limited by the bastards with money’

LAS VEGAS — Guillermo Del Toro, director of films such as Pacific Rim, took a big jab at the money people who rule the worlds of entertainment and video games.

Del Toro made the comments as he and Metal Gear Solid game creator Hideo Kojima were interviewed by game broadcaster Geoff Keighley, president of Gameslice, at the DICE Summit game event in Las Vegas today. DICE is one of the biggest gatherings of blockbuster gaming’s biggest names and executives of the year, and the talk focuses on the making and publishing of tentpole releases for this multibillion global industry.

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“I think it’s a pity,” Del Toro said. “It is a marriage that happens in every big industry. The storytellers look ahead to see what they can discover, and the money people look back to see what is a safe route. There is a tension there.

“Like in the cinema, you have beautiful indie games that are subtle, or poetic. It’s limitless. It’s only limited by the bastards with money.”

“Games have certainly influenced me a lot,” Del Toro said. “When I see a sequence in Hideo’s games or a soundscape in BioShock, they have influenced me.”

For instance, he uses color palettes in films that are inspired by video games.

“They have made me afraid and made me cry,” Del Toro said. “They are part of my feedback, emotionally, as important to me as any other medium. It’s important to talk about them as entertainment or art. As a piece of art, films get reexamined. Games rarely get revisited like that. We are so busy with the new.”

Asked what he is playing, Del Toro said, “I’m stuck in Fallout 4 right now. I’m getting killed a lot.”

In the red carpet line for the DICE Awards, I asked Del Toro to explain his “bastards comment.” He said that the money people are conservative and have to be, while the creative people are adventurous. As for the “bastards” comment, Kojima said, “He’s absolutely right.” Del Toro added, “I’m sure the money people think I’m a bastard.”

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