This video (3:58) sees Coney discuss a tweet where some guy said (paraphrasing) "Games are art but but no game developer is as distinct as the most influential movie directors".
I have to disagree with the take because when I saw Balan Wonderworld, I was like "oh okay this is 100% Yuji Naka's doing" with the 1-button gameplay that inhibits the game itself in favor of simplicity. The new guy directing Zelda, Hidemaro Fujibayashi, is incredibly distinctive, you can see how his telltale signs evolve from Skyward Sword to Tears of the Kingdom. (i'm still playing through Skyward Sword, so i can't back this up with facts, other than that it feels extremely similar to BOTW and TOTK)
Not only that, but Truffaut, who the tweet mentions, was a distinctive director specifically because he hated how boring and incompetent the big-budget movies in France had gotten, and so he went out with a cheap camera and made his own movies on a shoestring budget. He was distinctive because there was a norm to distinguish himself from. Celeste was a huge hit, and you'd be crazy to try and claim that Maddy Makes Games doesn't have a totally unique style of game development.
If you are only paying attention to "AAAA shimmy through a wall uncharted-style to run across the plains and go Batman Arkham on seven dudes" simulators, then you will obviously think that games aren't distinctive and the Auteur Theory doesn't apply to videogame developers. Big movies get caught in this trap as well, so many great directors have been contracted by Marvel and then forced to make one style of movie, whereas basically any indie film is going to have a lot of love and expression shine through it.
Like Coney states in the video, you have to intentionally follow a developer and research (read:buy and play) their games in order to fully appreciate them as a game dev and see their telltale signs in the tone, atmosphere and gameplay.
