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Do Game Designers Burn Out Like Rock Stars ? 123

Posted by Zonk from the warren-spector-with-glam-rock-hair? dept.
Reader Ant wrote in to mention a Guardian Unlimited Gamesblog article which asks: Do Game Designers burn out like rock stars? From the article: "The games industry is getting on a bit now, and so are many of its key 'superstars'. You may not think it, given the proliferation of sequels and movie tie-ins that clog up the charts like that sickly white glue in the veins of heavy smokers, but this is a creative business. No matter how many people are involved in the process, there must be a spark of inspiration somewhere at its core. So what happens when the spark falters, or goes out?"
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Do Game Designers Burn Out Like Rock Stars ? More

Do Game Designers Burn Out Like Rock Stars ?

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  • "The EA Syndrome" will soon be in our vocab

  • C'mon... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ersgameboy ( 571332 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:25PM (#11473950)
    Is this truely a valid comparison? Most rock stars burn out from too much partying. Most game designers burn out from too much crunch time. Aside from the exhaustion presnet in both, there doesn't seem to be much of a similarity.
    • This is a stupid topic.

    • Re:C'mon... (Score:3, Informative)

      by trs9000 ( 73898 )
      I think your point is valid, but it is not (just) partying that gets to the rockstars. They travel. A lot. Most play shows everyday, sometimes twice on sundays or for a morning show. Pile on top of that travelling every day to get where you are going and always eating on the go, and you've got a tired, jet-lagged, is it 12-noon or 12-midnight rockstar on your hands.
      But you're right, the cocaine doesn't help. My point is that a lot of the rockstars actually do work their asses off to get to where they a
    • The most successful band of "rock stars" in the world at the moment is U2.

      That's a band which has been playing for over 20 years. They may not be suited to everybody's taste, but then neither is Jet. The point is, rockers don't always burn out.

      Other old-timers who still rock:
      Eric Clapton
      Angus Young
      Jimmy Page
      Pete Townsend
      Neal Peart
      David Bowie
      Bob Dylan
      David Byrne
      and every last toothless fossil who was ever a member of Yes

      You can keep the fuckin' Strokes. I'll stick with the legends I just listed, thanks
    • Sure there is. Remember when Dave Perry wrecked his hotel room and overdosed on heroin? Or when Richard Garriot drank a shot glass full of LSD?

      Oh wait... that's how rock stars burned out. Dave Perry became management and Richard Garriot retired years ago (though I've been hearing his name a lot recently... did he come out of retirement?).
      • Richard Garriot runs NC Soft USA, a subsidiary of the Korean company that made and runs Lineage I and II, and City of Heroes. AFAIK he's preparing an MMORPG called Tabula Rasa (which may have been released already).

  • Doom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FLAGGR ( 800770 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:25PM (#11473951)
    So what happens when the spark falters, or goes out?"

    Then you make a game like Doom 3. Seriously, great tech, bad gameplay.

    • Re:Doom (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ZephyrXero ( 750822 )
      I'm sick of hearing people say this. Doom 3 is not a bad game at all! I think many people were expecting way way too much out of it. Doom never had very complex gameplay to begin with, so why would you think they would start here? Doom 3 was not intended to be some leap in gameplay, it is a grand re-telling of the orignal Dooms. I for one am glad that every weapon didn't have 3 optional firing modes. Simplicity does not make a game boring! I also have to say that I think Doom 3 has more in common with Resid
      • Amen. I wish people that were completely disappointed by the hype of DOOM3 would say that rather than bash the game. You mentioned the comparison with RE which I think a lot of people missed. This remake of Doom was suppose to be much more atmospheric and terrorizing(like surival horror games) than the original.

        A lot of people ripped it on not being able to use the flashlight at the same time as your weapon but I thought it added to the suspense. If you played it like a standard Id FPS I could see how yo
      • The gameplay in Doom was spooky. It was fun and challenging. Multiplayer was fast paced and awsome. Doom III flops compared to it. Like, I'm not saying Doom ever was a fountain of great gameplay, but like, you'd hope a sequal would at least come close to its predesecors standards. Otherwise, whats the point? Anyway, that's all IMO, and really besides the point because I was joking around before, just taking the obvious cheap shot at D3 :)
  • Ok, deciding to *publish* M.U.L.E and Archon and paying a sports celebrity to use the name in a game title does NOT constitue creative genius or even a hint of game design, and whatever Trip Hawkins ever did in that field it will pale next to his creative accounting to keep 3DO alive for as long as he did.

  • But has Rockstar burned out? (Score:4, Funny)

    by tepples ( 727027 ) <<tepples> <at> <gmail.com>> on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:32PM (#11474023) Homepage Journal

    Will there or won't there be a Grand Theft Auto 6 from Rockstar?

  • I thought Harvey Smith ran that into the ground, while Spector just watched.

  • I for one... (Score:3, Funny)

    by d_p ( 63654 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:35PM (#11474068)
    ...got fed up with all the sex and drugs that came with designing Combat Solitaire 4.5!
    • Since you are talking about Solitaire, can we presume that "all the sex" that came with it is the reason why the game can be played with one hand?

  • Creativity versus Marketing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hyu ( 763773 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:37PM (#11474095)
    There's a difference between creativity and marketing. Creativity is what spawned the ideas in the first place and led to many of the games we love today (Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, etc). Marketing is how something sells.

    Many designers get stuck in a rut with what they've initially created. When something sells once, it's very difficult to walk away and not try to continue cashing in on it. So, the designers often get put on the same product series again and again. This leads to a lack of creativity, as their primary goal is to redesign a concept within heavy restrictions.

    A developer like Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, for instance, is constantly being put in the chair of developing his Zelda series. There's only so much he can be innovative with and still push the title as a Zelda game. As a result, the end product will tend to not have the same drastic impact upon the gaming world. It'll be a reworked, more-of-the-same type of game, if you will.

    There are still creative products being put out there, it's just that the series effect tends to hinder further innovation.
    • I think you are very right. The same thing happens in the music industry. And many are directly due to money issues. However, in both vg-design and rock, people do tend to lose their drive as they go on. Most bands will peak with their very first CD and then each proceeding CD keeps going down and down in quality. Whether this is a personal, or a business issue? I don't know... probably a mix of both. And this can probably be said for games too. Also, when you are just starting out, you have time to imagin

    • A developer like Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, for instance, is constantly being put in the chair of developing his Zelda series. There's only so much he can be innovative with and still push the title as a Zelda game. As a result, the end product will tend to not have the same drastic impact upon the gaming world. It'll be a reworked, more-of-the-same type of game, if you will.

      Miyamoto wasn't the lead designer on either Majora's Mask or Wind Waker. AFAIK, he isn't even 50% of the time on the new 'realistic

    • I agree with the points you are making ; But I think Shigeru Miyamoto would be a very bad example ; As he seemed to be innovative during his whole span he's been active within the industry.
    • A developer like Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto

      AFAIK, Miyamoto was never a developer. He started out as a character designer, moved up to "game designer" (not developer), and eventually became a project manager of sorts. Now he's more of a guiding force across many projects, rather than a manager.

      At most "large" game studios, these are the people that most significantly affect the quality and celebrity of a game, not the developers. This is because these are the people that make the final judgements on

    • A developer like Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, for instance, is constantly being put in the chair of developing his Zelda series.

      Okay, here's the thing.

      Miyamoto... doesn't actually design that much, anymore.

      Check the credits of most of Nintendo's core titles and you'll see that the role of primary designer has been handed down, mostly, to a second generation of Nintendo designers.

      Sometimes this results in new ideas, like Majora's Mask's real-time system, and interesting new takes on old ones, like Wind
  • Duke
    Nukem
    Forever.

    Thank you, I'll be here all week. And don't forget to tip your waitrons!
  • I could think of a dozen styles of games that'd top charts for half a decade. Programmers may burn out, but good game designers just pick up momentum. The problem is there is no way to rate a game designer. You can point at a good artist and say,"He's a good artist, look at his art." The best game designer in the world may never get a job. I'm a world class game designer, but have never even had an interview.

    www.jimsager.com

    • Re:Game designers aren't hardcore (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:53PM (#11474266)
      I hate to break it to you pal, not only are your ideas NOT revolutionary, you also have no freaking clue what a design document looks like. Real design docs go over 200 pages. You've got what...6 paragraphs?

      I especially love how you declare yourself "world class", and you have all of *3* ideas posted, all of which are cheap tack ons to already existing games.

      Here's some harsh reality for you. Nobody is going to come across your webpage and hire you as a designer. In fact, they are less likely to hire you, after seeing how shallow your ideas are. You wanna get into the design biz, get a job at a small company as QA, put in your time, and work your ass up to design.

      World class, my ass. You've haven't got the foggiest idea of what goes into making a game. A designer like you is far more likely to hurt a product than you are to help a product.
      • Thats the thing, I know games so well I'm overlooked. I've predicted the rise of MMOGs since 1992, even tried to code my own from scratch, which I would have done if it wasn't for college. I knew Final Fantasy had a long term dynasty at 1. I emailed Westwood to add regenerating spice and multiplayer to dune2and they'd have a hit(see command and conquer dynasty). I knew in 95 that FPS next evolution was to have vehicles and organized play(Planetside does it, but no FPS currently ladder ranks you which I find
        • It must be difficult having to go through life being so great and yet so unappreciated.

          Tell me, is the public library where you're typing this from warm?
          • I have a degree from Carnegie Mellon, and I'm currently working for a database shop for Non-profit organizations(I do get paid). What is hard to understand, that my claims are outlandish? Yes they would seem great if you checked out my online trophy room. Yet I don't see anyone calling me a liar.

            I'll say it again,"I knew I was a world caliber video game player long before I had a #1 painted on my ranking. People wouldn't believe me when I told them strategies and I wasn't #1. But when I got #1, sudde
            • Alas, since you're so cheap or broke that you won't shill out for web hosting, none of us can see the list of your tremendously interesting accomplishments, hosted as they are on GeoCities.
              • Yeah, I don't have the cash for high grade webhosting. Check back in an hour or two if you care to read about my game design documents. Since you asked, I'll post my achievements here:

                This is just my virtual trophy room.

                Ranked #1 in 1v1,2v2, and 3v3 in Warcraft3 at the same time.

                First player to 1500 wins in Warcraft3, Blizzard even gave me a shout out on their main web page.

                Ranked #1 in Starcraft and BroodWar.

                Beat StreetFighter 2 classic with all perfect rounds on hardest AI.

                Beat Zelda 1 wit

            • Re:Game designers aren't hardcore(with nick) (Score:4, Insightful)

              by brkello ( 642429 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @07:26PM (#11475215)
              You are one of those rare few here on Slashdot I just have to follow. I would say you were a troll, but a part of me wants to believe that people like you exist. It seems to me that you lack the ability to truly assess your own abilities and reality. Just like with your religion, you try to argue some form of logic with people...but your logic is so flawed it is impossible to take you seriously. So you claim to be the best RTS player in the world (or at least with a few games). I'll play along and pretend this isn't just another delusion. Being really good at video games has nothing to do with being a good designer. You see, you are using messed up logic by saying that as if it matter. If you were #1, of course people would look at your strategies and try to learn from them. But just because you say you can predict the future of games, when other people have validly pointed out that stuff have existed before you thought it up, does not make you a world class designer. You have to do something. What separates you from world class designers is that you have yet to design anything, yet to really show any skills (I mean, in something as important as God, you have an awful looking page with spelling errors), and basically just say a lot of bs that everyone can see through.

              I can't get to your pages because you somehow managed to overwhelm the server with your text. But I don't even need to read it, since we are not even close to true artificial intelligence in any form. I have a Master in CS, I took plenty of AI courses. No one is close yet. But the generel concept of having good AI has been around for a long time...like in HL where the troops will shoot at you and then flush you out with grenades if you hide. Saying you want true AI is like a 4 year old saying he wants a giant robot with lasers to shoot people. It sounds great, but let's see you do it. If you were smart enough to actually create something truly AI, you would be a rich, rich man. The only way you will be rich is if some sucker is pulled in by the garbage you spew out.

              But good trolls so far...I am having fun...I will keep an eye on you.
            • I'm sorry, I would have liked to believe you up until the point that you said that true AI was your idea. That could not possibly be your idea, it has been around since the early days of Science Fiction. I want to create true A.I. too, however I am actually doing something about it. If I do succeed in my goal of creating true A.I I will not make absurd claims about it being my idea.
        • So let's go through some of these:

          You predicted that graphical MUDs would be successful after years of successful text-based MUDs. ... I think that one was obvious to anybody in the MUD scene LONG before Ultima Online came along.

          You also knew that the next FPS evolution (i.e team play and vehicles) was going to be, basically, Tribes ... AFTER Tribes was already announced (in 1995.) BTW, Halo 2 has a ladder, although you're correct that most FPS games omit it.

          But what I don't get is this: Of COURSE you
          • I sat down last year and wrote up a scratch game of what would be tekken world. I'm a game designer and not a programmer though. So while I was able to do collision detection. learn how to do animation, key in moves to joystick, have the camera follow well, and all that other basic computer stuff, I had no game. The amount of coding I'd have to put in the game to make it work would be about 15 years. I spent a full year coding it with no distractions though. And the game would be fun. Imagine Street F
            • Have you played Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance or Mortal Kombat: Deception yet?

              Or possibly, Mortal Kombat Adventures, Vol. 1 released on the Playstation?

              How about Dynasty Warriors: Empires? Or the Story mode in Soul Calibur, Soul Calibur II, Tobal No. 1, Tobal No. 2 or Ehrgeiz?
              • Nah, I haven't played any of those. I guess I'm so focused on a fighter being an online world that I hadn't considered people may have had single player RPG worlds out of Mortal Kombat genres. I'll check them out. Last game I played that'd be anything like my game was the bouncer, but the controls were very shoddy without a lot of options to switch targets, or go free form fighting.
                • Soul Calibur II WAS online...in Arcades.

                  If Bouncer is what you were thinking of, Jet Li's Rise to Honor is basically an upgraded version of that.

                  A different example of something like this is Initial D, Arcade Stage. You have a car you can upgrade after winning credits via racing the computer or other drivers, and it saves your progress onto a purchaseable 100 yen card. You can then take that card to any Initial D machine and carry your car upgrades with you, to challenge others across the nation/world.
            • So get a fucking team. When are you going to stop making excuses for your pathetic self and go out there and change the world?

              Those MOD makers in the Unreal contest I talked about? They put together teams to get their games made. What the hell's stopping you?

            • So yeah, I've spent several thousand hours trying to do it on my own, but its not enough, you need a team.

              Assuming "several thousand hours" >= 2000, I find it amazing that you spent at least 50 work weeks @ 8 hours/day and didn't come up with something that was at least playable.

              Btw, there are several remarkable games and mods out there done by a single coder.

            • Re:Game designers aren't hardcore(with nick) (Score:3, Funny)

              by Anonymous Coward
              Crazy Jim,

              Good name, because you are crazy. I went to your website and your games are terrible. If you are world class, I must be galaxy class because I am so much better. My game idea is to make a online RTS FPS MMORPG. its called empires of pac-Craft!1!! It is so good. You control armies of pacmen that battle ACROSS TIME! Pacman is still a top selling game! I'm making it even better. alsoyou get Tetris-based inventory. If you cant make your stuff line up like tetris blocks you lose it. Ha ha ha. Awesome!
          • You predicted that graphical MUDs would be successful after years of successful text-based MUDs

            Actually, his prediction postdates the first successful graphic MMOs, too. Have a look at the early histories of GEnie, Delphi and Compuserve; they offered massive online games whose game mechanics, if not whose quality of graphics, frequently rivalled or bettered those available today.
        • Thats the thing, I know games so well I'm overlooked.

          I'm only telling you this because I hope you'll listen. You're not being overlooked because you're really good at playing video games. You're being overlooked because playing video games has absolutely zero bearing on software development, and because nobody starts in game design.

          What you're doing is saying "I have this neat idea for a jet engine that eats peroxide to keep itself clean, put me in the cutting edge lab at SkunkWorks," and all the while, your resume shows no experience in aeronautics, physics, materials engineering, mechanics or math.

          If you want to be a game designer, first you have to become a programmer; no successful artist can work in ignorance of their tools. I say this with firmament having read your web page; not to be rude, but some of the things written there seem to be an indication of total ignorance of machine limitations.

          You suggest things like that once we get machine vision going, suddenly AI will just jump into our laps, with neither any fortifying argument nor any evidence, and seemingly without realizing that many non-intelligent creatures can see. Belay any discussion of the watershed level of the intelligence level of a deer, please; we're well past the level of the intelligence of cockroaches already, and many far simpler creatures than cockroaches have sight.

          Your progress in AI page contains things like logs of the crashes of MS Windows, frustration with image blending algorithms and compilers, photographs of rooms, but nothing actually about artificial intelligence beyond a rant filled with points like "okay, so, we need it to imprint like a duck, that'll be good, that way our computer will trust us and obey us; one way to teach it would be to put stuff on disk, but better would be voice recognition; you can use verbal commands to teach it, as long as they're in terms of objects and actions it's already familiar with." Maybe this'll be a shock to you: we don't have any computers which even have the concept of familiarity yet.

          Making a list of loosely-related speculations about what might work well is not research, and it is most certainly not invention. If you want to be taken seriously, get rid of the list that says "my best invention is potential AI, the reason Cyc fails blah blah blah." Nobody's interested in bare speculation; it's useless.

          Write functioning code, or stop pretending to be more than you are. This is hardly even up to the level of armchair quarterbacking.
          • Isn't the proper carrer path for game designers Tester -> Level Designer -> Game Designer?
            • I have never promoted someone whose skillset was artistic and tool-use oriented into a software development position. In fact, going through the people I know, I can't think of almost anyone which has come into game design this way; it is my opinion that this is the "farm boy makes good" myth of our profession.

              If you want a software development job, get a junior software development position. You'll be paid and treated like any other entry job, but at least it'll be in the right market. Also, don't foll
      • I hate to break it to you pal, not only are your ideas NOT revolutionary, you also have no freaking clue what a design document looks like. Real design docs go over 200 pages. You've got what...6 paragraphs?

        I agree with you in principle, but not in practice. There's no reason to tear this guy down, I'm sure the job market will do that all too well. And if he really WERE professional, then he shouldn't be posting his complete work on the Internet anyway....

        I am, too, an unemployed, would-be designer. I
    • I work in the industry as a game designer. I would hope that a rational game company would never hire you because you seem to have an ego that's bigger than your head.

      Game design is all about working out compromises and dealing with unexpected dilemmas and problems. It's just like any other industry. There's no room for selfish ego. People with open minds and who are willing to tolerate new ideas have a good chance. Those who insist on their way or the highway, or likewise believe that they are God'

    • As a world class game designer, I trust you're able to point out one game which you have implemented, or even designed in more depth than "oh you know what'd be cool is tenchu except you can fire poison darts from your shoes i should be a millionaire pass the bong."

      To be quite frank, I don't consider myself a world class game designer, and many of the games I think of as my biggest failures carry both more invention and novelty than anything discussed on that site of yours. I should hope that it's just a

    • I could think of a dozen styles of games that'd top charts for half a decade. Programmers may burn out, but good game designers just pick up momentum. The problem is there is no way to rate a game designer. You can point at a good artist and say,"He's a good artist, look at his art." The best game designer in the world may never get a job. I'm a world class game designer, but have never even had an interview.

      I just visited your webpage.

      A few hints:

      • Geocities sucks. Webhosting is cheap and makes a
  • Development teams fall victims to fads... Take a look at Need For Speed.

    It was getting better and better until it finally reached its pinnacle in Porsche Unleashed - I guess the hours spent with its physics engine saved my life on the road a few times. From there, it was all downhill - first, they dumbed down the physics in Hot Pursuit II (for no reason I can think of), and then succumbed completely to "console compatibility" and "teenage appeal"... HPII was the last NFS I bought.

    Rest in peace.
    • Agreed entirely. I tried out the newest one (Underground 2) at a friends house. The game is more about changing your cars looks then actually making it better.

      And note that I said changing, not making it better. Most of the stuff that gets you a better "rep" looks completely awful in my opinion.

      If half of the time they spent recreating things like interior/exterior design mods (since everything you can put in your car is an ad for a real product) had been spent working on gameplay instead, it'd be a
      • Except that for some people, playing dressup with their car *is* an important part of the gameplay. Once you understand that, you realize that - for the target audience - NFS:U 2 is actually quite a good game.

        Complaining that there is too much focus on the car-look upgrade gamplay in NFSU is like complaining that in The Sims 2 they spent too much time on developing ways for the characters to interact instead of focusing on the core gameplay from the first game which was clearly the peeing mechanics.
    • There's truth to what you say. But one has to remember that at the end of the day, a game company is just like any other business in a capitalist society - it has to make money or else it cannot continue making games at the level of quality consumers expect. So yes, one aims at what's popular to cash in on it. As more money is made, the more likely one might choose to invest in smaller "experimental" games. Seems like until you have that foothold, though, there's reason to rely on the tried and true.
    • From my position in the trenches I feel qualified to suggest that maybe four times in five or so, the fad following is by management, not the developers. Yes, it happens, but usually the developers have to play their own games; they figure it out in time, even if they got started on the wrong track.

      Management, on the other hand, gets to say "I want a racing game, but set it fifty years in the future, make the hero grim and gritty, or maybe a girl, and um, I guess it's in ... Morocco." More often than not
  • But 'da street' is no place for our game design gods. The kids are atheists nowadays.

    Ahem, there are lots of indy game designers that keep making new games, but dont burn out. They grow up, make it a life long career, and know how to balance life and work. (Unless you work for EA which means you have no life...)

    One example is the company that released Airburst Extreme [freeverse.com], Strange Flavor [strangeflavour.com]. They are the largest indy game company at MacWorld releasing 6 new games. They are listed on Apple.com as the most popula
  • There are plenty of authors who create great works of art over the course of a lifetime. The same can be said for actors, directors, screenplay writers, composers and musicians.

    If your profession is dependent on your body, like a dancer or an actress in Hollywood, then you have a problem.

  • I think we've all seen what happens when developers have big egos and major arrogance problems; Daikatana pretty much examplifies the end result in my opinion. Between the hype, the ridiculous claims and bragging, you would have thought the team was headed up by a bunch of teenagers. The end result was sad as we all know, with even the installation of the game being buggy as all hell. Another example of 'Im too good for everyone' mindset is Derek Smart. While his gameplay ideas are pretty cool and definitel

  • It's difficult for most people (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lead Butthead ( 321013 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @05:57PM (#11474314) Journal
    It's difficult for most people to top themselves. Game designers are people too.
  • You get hired on at EA as a technical director.

    END COMMUNICATION
  • Is it "burning out" or "selling out"?

    You might say that the games from EA have lost a lot of their "edge," but the industry sales have only got better.

    Remember, money talks. If you want to do something about the quality of games, support your "indie" developers and buy their games (first hand, not used if you can help it).

    • If you want to do something about the quality of games, support your "indie" developers and buy their games (first hand, not used if you can help it).

      In many jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom, it's a crime to buy or sell tools to develop or run an indie game on your console. How can independent developers lawfully compete with the major console studios?

      (Sig note: .de != .uk)
  • But there are always exceptions. Look at the Rolling Stones. I'm not even sure they should be alive considering the sex,drugs,rocknroll! lifestyle they maintained. But not only are they still touring, they are now actually back in the studio recording new material.
    Some game designers might burn out (from all that mountain dew, you know) and others will flourish well into their 70s.

  • Some do, some don't (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Poseidon88 ( 791279 ) on Tuesday January 25, 2005 @06:27PM (#11474623)
    I don't really think of John Romero as a burn out. He's not a has-been so much as a never-was. He was in the right place at the right time to take some of the credit for Doom. How much was actually deserved is open to interpretation. The fact that he has not been contributed anything worthwhile to the gaming community since he left id speaks volumes about his level of creativity.

    Then you have folks like Peter Molyneax (also mentioned in the article). He has some really great game designs under his belt. But the last 8 years or so have been filled with one disappointment after another. Honestly, Pete, if you'd just keep your big trap shut until you have a working demo, you could save yourself a lot of heartache.

    Then there are the Sid Meyers of game design, who, while they haven't shown a lot of innovation lately, certainly know how to please the masses by re-working their tried and true formulas into fresh masterpieces. Half Life 2 and the new Pirates were both very derivative of their predecessors, but both added enough fresh gameplay and new features to make me fall in love all over again.

  • I've been designing and programming on a myriad of projects over the years. Creativity, to me, is something I view on an individual basis and not a generalization (as this article has portrayed). Games, like many artforms, are extremely diverse. The project cycles can be short or long, but you'll always have an opportunity to move on to something new and different to keep you fresh. Even on the same genre of project, an individual designer's roles can vary in such a way that the work is not tedious or r
    • I'm a newcomer to the industry, but that's one aspect I find really enjoyable about it. No two days are quite the same. Some complication occurs. New technology comes on-line. New bugs appear.

      It's impossible to be bored. There's always plentiful stuff to do. :)

  • Do they look like rock stars? No. More like 1980s rap stars [bluesnews.com]. Who looks like rock stars then? Kernel hackers [itwales.com]. OS hackers [stallman.org] look like church music stars and hacker anthropologists [catb.org] look like movie stars. As you see, all of the hackers look like stars, but only kernel hackers look like rock stars, except those [lwn.net] who look like sport stars. If you have any other "Ask Slashdot" questions, you know where to find me.
    • First off, the Carmack poster references the 1973 movie The Mach which has nothing to do with rap whatsoever (and predates it anyways). Maybe a pimp movie, yes, but not an 80's rap star.

      And as far as the submission says, "You may not think it, given the proliferation of sequels and movie tie-ins that clog up the charts like that sickly white glue in the veins of heavy smokers." ...What?

      So Halo 2, Half-Life 2, GTA:SA aren't good games?

      Video games are completely opposite movies and TV shows. Sequels are us

  • The designers didn't change - the INDUSTRY did! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    All the old greats worked in a different industry - a smaller one, with smaller teams, smaller budgets, and more risk-taking.

    It should come as no great surprise they've ended up going back to their roots and doing work as indies or for portables. I know *I* wouldn't want to put up with the crap that goes on at EA or Atari or whatnot.
  • No - they just invent projects to compete for the X-prize.
  • None exist, except for people who write games like grandtheftendo.

    For those burn out types, you are working in a narrow field.

    So you might say, do novelists burn out? Directors? Actors? Art designers?

    I want to know does a mother of 3 children ever burn out. A true mother is one of the most impressive and respectable things in this world.

    Feminism is evil.
  • Personally I don't think that Creatively fades with time, I think it gets better, and rock stars (nearly) always produce better music later in their careers, but as some stars don't change their output significantly from their orginal work, it just doesn't seem as orginal and therefore appealing.

    It also has a lot to do with the right time and place. Nirvana was in the right time and place, if they had appeared on the scene 5 years earlier or later, they would have been noone. Imagine if Kings Quest came
  • Games have become derivative because its cost have risen so this has to be weighed vs. profit potential.

    I dont think game designers have gotten worse, they just have enormous pressure to make a product thats going to get someone to fork over $50. So it better damn well be good enough to get that $50. You see the prices of games haven't changed all that much but the cost to produce them has skyrocketed so this necessarily reduces innovation and risktaking because now when you make a game and it flops you a
  • How many designers get stifled or told what to do by markteting? Interesting to see that folks like Mat Genser, Greg Johnson, the Gollop brothers, John Freeman and Anne Westfall, were not interviewed. How many game reviewers have killed innovative new games because they weren't the newest prettiest shooters? What happens to game design when there is no more technological innovation? (the end should be real-time raycastracing) Hopefully, company will return to innovative new game play. EA the Microsoft of

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