So You Want To Be a Game Designer? 204
Gamespot is running a feature which talks to designers such as CliffyB and Akira Yamaoka on the subject of what it means to be a game designer. From the article: "No one just falls into the position. You claw, kick and scream and push your way into it. Most designers start off as programmers or artists. They understand gameplay systems; they live and breathe games. From my perspective, I was making my own games, programming them, doing all the artwork, the production, level design, and everything because I didn't have anybody else to do it for me. That background helped give me the perspective it takes to pull a product together and have a creative vision for it. Being a designer is about having a creative vision and adhering to it."
No thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no desire to "claw my way" into a job that will make my life miserable
Or Design A Franchise (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
Oi! I know reading the fucking article isn't required here, after all, I've been here alot longer than you, but how the hell did you get informative?
My Modding Brethern: Game Designer != Game Programmer
Re:No thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
whoa. stop the presses. (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviuos things for nerds (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah sure. And how is this different from the rest of the jobs out there (e.g. neurosurgeon)?
And according to Clifton... (Score:5, Insightful)
You will never get the opportunity with CliffB to "scrape and claw to the top" if you dont:
"...stick with your first project and see to it that you finish it with the team. I've known many people who have jumped from company to company and never actually shipped a game, and their resumes look like a "who's who" of the gaming industry. I avoid these folks at all cost, as this is the primary indicator of a lack of finishing ability!"
(From BliffyB's own website How to get hired.) [cliffyb.com]
Which for these people, no matter how talented, puts their future employment fate into the hands of the project manager, moving goalpost politics, and skittery publishers.
Well if CliffyB has anything to do with the hiring process.
Lots of curiosity out there about game design (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting and depressing how many Slashdotters posting here think "game design" is the same as "game programming." But then, historically most people have never given a moment's thought to the idea someone actually invented the rules of the games they play.
I know for a fact this is changing, because I keep getting e-mail from elementary and junior-high school students doing assignments from their teachers. They're supposed to write to a game designer and get him to answer X number of questions the teacher has provided. For inscrutable reasons, when you type the exact term "game designer" into Google, my home page shows up on the first page, higher than any other individual designer. (Yeah, I know -- you've never heard of me.) Weird and unjust, but my penance for this fame is that all these kids write to me with their time-wasting questions. So I know at least some people are starting to recognize "game design" as a job, if not yet as a profession. Hope Slashdot follows pretty soon...
be a programmer! (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, when you are the guy working on the code, it's actually fairly easy to have a big influence on the design of the final product (as long as you are willing to do the work twice - their way and YOUR way - without wasting too much time, and without minding them throwing away your version in the trash).
Also, programmers are usually involved in design meetings. Designers are (usually) careful not to waste programmer time by asking for something that would take too long to implement, so you often get the oportunity to throw in your two cents.
I'd much rather remain a programmer, though. I like doing the work, not telling others what work to do.
Re:Lots of curiosity out there about game design (Score:5, Insightful)
Being part of a small business means you wear a lot of hats. For a game company, that means you could be doing many of the jobs that I listed above. Even companies like id started off small and had to share the responsibilities.
Fast forward fifteen years and you've got massive corporations with teams of designers, programmers, QA, etc. that handle very specific roles. It can be much more efficient (and profitable) this way, but as a participant in the process it probably wouldn't appeal to many DIY geeks here.
Re:And according to Clifton... (Score:3, Insightful)
No situation is perfect. There are always issues, usually personnell, that cause waves. However, you want people who will work through all the crap and get the job done. The people who jump around are usually the kind with some skill (or none at all), but, as he said, have no ability or willingness to do the complete job. When they hit their limits, they throw a hissy about something and bail.
There are times when you need to leave, but when I see a resume where someone has changed jobs once or twice a year for at least a few years, it goes in the trash.
Re:It's all about creativity you say? (Score:3, Insightful)
>>the same as the nhl or nfl progrmaming folks.
the idea of 'teams' at EA is a questionable one - yes there are teams working on specific projects, but EA as a company is more like Ford's production line than a typical game company.
Teams are more divided up according to specialty than a specific title, which is why the end result is less than innovative or interesting.
If you are a 'modeler' at EA, you are likely doing one specific type of modeling - there are entire teams of people that JUST do the mapping of faces onto heads for the sports games.
There is a whole other team of people that is responsible for taking the motion captured data and mapping/cleaning it up for animations (for all games).
The EA programming side is divided up into 'tech / tools', which basically produces libraries of code that all EA games use (which is being phased into the Renderware product line to standardize things even more)...
and so on.
the dramatic thing with EA is that even with this kind of 'assembly line' mentality, the company still produces hideous variants of content, where you end up with 2 or 3 models of characters from the same game that are dramatically different than each other - which can end up because there literally was a different team of developers working on some of the characters than the others and so on...
Add to this the difficulty of integrating companies that EA swallows up - you have the main EA company trying to standardize technology & processes, and then dozens of smaller companies that were bought in the latest round of borg-style absorption, and the EA virus slowly infects the newly bought company sucking any life or innovation that was in the company out until it is a part of the borg and stops producing anything innovative...
As an example, pay attention to what happens (is hapening) at DICE since the EA buyout.
Pre-buyout / EA publishes BF:1942 - one of the most innovative multiplayer games in a LONG time
Pre-buyout / EA publishes second game (ie has more influence, DICE slowly gets addicted to the EA nipple) - produces BF:Vietnam - still a fun game, but hardly innovative anymore and pushed out the door before it's ready, full of bugs
EA buys DICE - ships BF:2, a steaming pile of buggy crap, although still startlingly fun to play ONCE you get in-game and IF you don't run into one of the many bugs or lag that hits most servers once they get beyond a certain level.
the next dice game is almost guaranteed to stink.
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With this said, i've been in the game industry for a while and i have only ever met ONE 'real' game designer - and this person was more of a creative producer - ie the person that comes up with the cool idea & high-level spec, but then must also sell the game to the publishers / finance people as well.
I teach game design at Colleges and this is the first thing (and hardest thing) to get through wanna-be designers heads - they think that there is still this mystical 'game designer' role that every game company has - like we are just waiting to hire them because they have some idea and write up a spec for the idea...
Unfortunately smaller companies that actually produce games don't need or want people with IDEAS, we want people that can actually produce games from their ideas...ideas are like assholes, everybody's got them...once you have the idea, the 'real' work comes - and if you are ONLY a game designer, you aren't very valuable to my company...
hence why there are only a few well-known game designers in the industry - the rest are 3d modelers or programmers or producers that come up with the idea but then have tangible skills that can actually make the game (or a significant piece of it).
If you want a game designer position, you NEED a real skill - ie programming or 3d modeling or animation - and can prove to a company that you are a valuable asset and n
Re:Lots of curiosity out there about game design (Score:3, Insightful)
"Same", no, but intimitely linked. The former must constrain to and work within the limitations and strengths of the latter. A game design that cannot be viably implemented in programming is a worthless piece of paper/chunk of HTML/waste of bits in a proprietary document format.
Re:It's all about creativity you say? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since Return to Castle Wolfenstein, we saw all kinds of WWII-themed games and I just got sick of the same old MP40's "shoot em up nazi's".
We got RTCW, Medal of Honor, BF1942, UT Mod Red Orchestra, Call of Duty, Enemy Territory, Brothers in Arms, upcoming title Call of Duty 2 and probably a bunch more that I missed.
This ain't just about creativity. They see one kind of successful game and what they'll end up making is their own version of it. No matter how much creativity is required to make games, in the end it's still about money and money talks.
Whatever happen to those original type of shooters like Monolith's Blood (not 2 though, very bad A.I.). Here we're talking about one sadistic but fkn hillarious shooter that gave us a selection of original weapons like Napalm Launcher, Life Leech, Voodoo Doll, Proximity & Remote TNT, Thomspon "Mafiosi" Gun and a bunch more. Then you got the hillarious Latin-Yellin (I don't think it's Latin but it looks like it) cultists that shoot eachother with TNT bundles and Thomspon guns.
That game was original but the efforts to market it by Monolith wasn't too successful.
It does take creativity to make games, but it also doesn't. Depends who you work for. Monolith is a company that has made many original games like the No One Lives Forever series and then you got the companies that love to make sequels that look just like the first one with two new guns/toys and a girl with bigger boobs.
Re:It's all about creativity you say? (Score:5, Insightful)
The #1 thing that will stop someone from 'climbing the ranks' past the basic grunt labour force (whether the grunt labour in question is 3d modeling, programming code, ditch digging or slinging coffee's at starbucks) is NOT the person's technical ability.
You can be the most gifted programmer or 3d modeler in the world, but you will be relegated to 'programmer hell' forever if you cannot communicate & articulate your ideas AND play nice with others
This includes being willing to work with the 'suits' that pay your salary, whether a boss or publisher.
It isn't about 'selling out' - anyone that says this has given up essentially...It's about being willing to compromise and potentially reword or rework the idea that you are trying to get across so that the person on the other side of the conversation understands it.
If your 'brilliant idea' involves concept A, but the publisher wants you to implement concept B, then you either need to be able to explain it to them so that they understand and can buy into the idea, or you need to be able to compromise and find a middle ground.
The best creativity and innovation does not come through getting what you want 100% of the time - this is how Jar Jar Binks was created - too many 'yes men' saying 'yeah thats a great idea george'
The best creativity and innovation comes through conflict and compromise. Just because a publisher or boss it telling you that your idea isn't the best for the game/movie/tvshow/whatever doesn't mean that it should be given up on - perhaps there is a way to tweak or adjust the concept or idea to take the criticism into account.
Until you try it, you never know.
This is why the best music & bands always have 2 or more creative people that potentially hate each others guts - it's the conflict and coming to terms with that conflict where brilliance, innovation and evolution emerges...
Re:A few tips on becoming a game developer/designe (Score:3, Insightful)
Far more than anything, though, you will need economics. The feedback systems that economics focuses on are exactly the sort of things that you will need as a game designer, without the stuff like calculus and O of n.
Of course, you will also need a healthy dose of writing and management. Design is 1 part writing designs, and one part managing teams.
To counterpoint the original poster, things you will need as a designer:
1. Backgrounds in basically everything. This ranges from the history of 17th century naval battles to being able to name all modern men's shoe styles. Everything comes in handy somewhere along the line.
A. Take Art. If you're a bad artist, or not an artist, this is even more important.
B. Take Programming. If you're a bad programmer, or not a computer guy, this is even more important.
C. Take film studies.
D. Take management.
E. Take economics.
F. Take a little of everything else you can get your hands on.
2. Yes, know all of the games out there. Play them all. Try to avoid making the same mistakes that 30 other teams already have.
3. Be stubborn sometimes. Being a designer involves adhering to a vision doggedly, which can be hard after 13 months of development. Be flexible, but when need be stick your foot down to stay true to the experience of the game.
4. Stay focused on what you're making. Remember, while it may be 13 months to you, it's 4 hours to the player.
5. Become a good communicator. Design is to a large degree about communication. Learn how to tell someone that something they just spent 6 weeks on sucks without discouraging them.
6. Be aware of yourself and your experience. You know, that touchy-feely junk. You are your best laboratory. You're also not your only laboratory, so run playtest sessions, but you really do need to know how you're experiencing things at all time.
Re:do people still design games ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Something to give them... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't you give them a hot tip instead: buy Neverwinter Nights from bargain basket and start making modules. Sure, it lets you make D&D adventure games instead of Zelda games, but you have to start somewhere.
Coming to think of it, Zelda 3 wasn't a particularly complex game, as far as game engine goes - the fun came from level design. So it shouldn't be all that hard to make a similar Open Source engine.
Re:Something to give them... (Score:2, Insightful)