While I agree with a lot of what you're saying from a consumer perspective, from an artistic perspective I'd say there's nothing wrong with self-indulgence no matter how much consumers hate the end results of it. I don't see him as a genius or anything like that, but to me the principle of the matter applies to everyone on every level of their craft.
The idea of the self-effacing writer who lives and dies on editorial and audience blessings is driven more by a wider cultural disapproval of writing that doesn't serve the "purpose" of entertaining an audience in specific, pre-prescribed, easily commodified ways rather than by a genuine appreciation for the potential of writing as an artform. Ultimately, to pursue art, even as someone who's seen as a shitty talentless hack, is to become a kind of demiurge, and whether one chooses to be a malevolent or benevolent, hated or loved demiurge should be up to them rather than any outside influence. In the end, I'd champion the cause of even the most worthless, talentless, egomaniacal hack to do whatever they feel like doing regardless of how shitty it turns out over that of the consumer to get the product they want out of said hack.
Self-Indulgence is bad because its the equivalent to having your head up your ass. You get this tunnel vision and only revel in aspects that you enjoy, which do not serve your art or your story. Instead of having an organic flow to something, you force it to the way you want to be.
Here's the thing: If you want to enter the commercial space as an artist, like it or not, you HAVE to serve your audience. You can't simply flout them. If you want to write for people, you can't waste their time. More often than not, if you treat writing as an artform, the commercial space WILL reward you. Even Vonnegut found mainstream success. When you find this success, typically people want you to keep doing what you're doing. When you suddenly get tired and bored of them and just go 'lol fuck you', I have absolutely no respect for you as an artist.
The problem is when you go off the rails, buy into your own bullshit and have no one there to ground you, the story goes to shit. If you're writing just for you and accidentally happen commercial success, fine. But if you go intentionally entering that space, especially Kojima, it is downright disrespectful to your audience to go "Here's a $60 walking sim for which I lied to you for years about. Eat it up plebs, you just don't get it."
I cannot tell you how many stories would have been saved by a writer's room that weren't just yes-men to the ego and editors who served the egotistical creative. If Vince Gilligan didn't respect the opinion of his writers and editors, Breaking Bad wouldn't have been a masterpiece. It would have gotten fucked from the beginning.
The best art comes from adversity. Having constraints, fighting with your editor, taking the criticism from other writers, being humble have all made stories better. Meanwhile you have successful figureheads who cannot restrain their own egos once they get big, listen to nobody and generally their quality slams into the dirt.
I completely disagree. Too much has been butchered by trash hacks who didn't have a decent editor punching them in the face to keep shit in focus. This is when all good artists fall, exactly what you said. They do what they want, flout their audience, disregard their editors and 'I'M WRITING FOR ME'. Well nigger, don't expect anyone to fucking buy it and don't come crying to me when it turns out what you were doing for yourself was equivalent to burying yourself in shit and calling it gold.
This is why I don't 'champion' egotistical faggots who do what they want, because they always bitch and moan and whine that nobody is praising them anymore and they abandon their work. I will never champion a egotistical cunt who flouts their audience for self-indulgent re.tardation, because every. fucking. time. they come back and whine and cry that no one appreciates their genius. These people can get fucked. They took the risk, they have to eat what comes of it. But they never, ever accept it.
Just like Kojima. He KNEW people wouldn't accept it. Instead of being honest, he mislead people and did something completely different except for his fucktarded 20 hours of cut scenes. Then when it turns out he wasn't honest with his 'art', guess what he does? He goes and cries to the press and the media that people just don't 'get it'. He doesn't go, 'I know I was going to lose some people along the way, its different from what I did. I just felt like this was the natural evolution for me.' He cries about how nobody understands him and Westerners aren't buying his $60 Fed-Ex sim.
The only way I will ever champion someone like this if they take responsibility for their creative decisions. Find me an egotistical, head up his ass creator who does this. IF you can, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
